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New Worlds For Old
By
H. G. Wells
Contents
CHAPTER
I - THE GOOD WILL IN MAN
CHAPTER
II - THE FUNDAMENTAL IDEA OF SOCIALISM...
CHAPTER
III - THE FIRST MAIN GENERALIZATION OF SOCIALISM...
CHAPTER
V - THE SPIRIT OF GAIN AND THE SPIRIT OF SERVICE.
CHAPTER
VI - WOULD SOCIALISM DESTROY THE HOME?.
CHAPTER
VII - WOULD MODERN SOCIALISM ABOLISH ALL PROPERTY?.
CHAPTER
VIII - THE MIDDLE-CLASS MAN, THE BUSINESS MAN, AND SOCIALISM
CHAPTER
IX - SOME COMMON OBJECTIONS TO SOCIALISM...
CHAPTER
X - SOCIALISM A DEVELOPING DOCTRINE.
CHAPTER
XI - REVOLUTIONARY SOCIALISM
CHAPTER
XII - ADMINISTRATIVE SOCIALISM
CHAPTER
XIII - CONSTRUCTIVE SOCIALISM
CHAPTER
XIV - ARGUMENTS AD HOMINEM
CHAPTER
XV - THE ADVANCEMENT OF SOCIALISM...
"Undiluted Atheism, theft and
immorality.... I know of no language sufficiently potent to express fully my
absolute detestation of what I believe to be the most poisonous doctrine ev=
er put
forward, namely Socialism."
=
&nb=
sp; =
HIS GRACE THE DUKE OF RUTLAND.
"Let all parties then unite to
defeat this insidious Socialism which is threatening the country, and take
immediate steps to expose and bring it to light. The country may truly be s=
aid
to be sleeping over a veritable volcano which the next general election may
precipitate, unless steps are taken at once to bring this nightmare into the
light of day and force it out of its creeping nocturnal habits."
=
MR.
DUDLEY S. A. COSBY in the Westminster Review.
"Many people think that it is
possible to conduct a victorious campaign with the single watchword 'Down w=
ith
Socialism.' Well, I am not fond of mere negatives. I do not like fighting an
abstract noun. My objection to Anti-Socialism as a platform is that Sociali=
sm
means so many different things. On this point I agree with Mr. Asquith. I w=
ill
wait before I denounce Socialism till I see what form it takes... Socialism=
is
not necessarily synonymous with robbery. Correctly used, the word only
signifies a particular view of the proper relation of the State to its
citizens, a tendency to substitute public for private ownership, or to rest=
rict
the freedom of individual enterprise in the interests of the public. But th=
ere
are some forms of property which we all admit should be public and not priv=
ate,
and the freedom of individual enterprise is already limited by a hundred la=
ws.
Socialism and Individualism,--I am not fond of these abstract phrases. There
are opposing principles which enter in various proportions into the constit=
ution
of every civilized society. It is merely a question of degree. One communit=
y is
more Socialistic than another. The same community is more Socialistic at one
time than at another. This country is far more Socialistic than it was fifty
years ago, and for most of the changes in that direction the Unionist or To=
ry
Party is responsible."
=
&nb=
sp; =
&nb=
sp;
LORD MILNER.
NEW
WORLDS FOR OLD
CHAPTER I - THE GOOD WILL=
IN
MAN
§ 1.
The present writer
has long been deeply interested in the Socialist movement in Great Britain =
and
America, and in all those complicated issues one lumps together as "so=
cial
questions." In the last few years he has gone into it personally and
studied the Socialist movement closely and intimately at first hand; he has
made the acquaintance of many of its leaders upon both sides of the Atlanti=
c,
joined numerous organizations, attended and held meetings, experimented in
Socialist politics. From these inquiries he has emerged with certain very d=
efinite
conclusions as to the trend and needs of social development, and these he is
now rendering in this book. He calls himself a Socialist, but he is by no m=
eans
a fanatical or uncritical adherent. To him Socialism presents itself as a v=
ery
noble but a very human and fallible system of ideas and motives, a system t=
hat
grows and develops. He regards its spirit, its intimate substance as the mo=
st hopeful
thing in human affairs at the present time, but he does also find it shares
with all mundane concerns the qualities of inadequacy and error. It suffers
from the common penalty of noble propositions; it is hampered by the
insufficiency of its supporters and advocates, and by the superficial tarni=
sh
that necessarily falls in our atmosphere of greed and conflict darkest upon=
the
brightest things. In spite of these admissions of failure and unworthiness =
in
himself and those about him, he remains a Socialist.
In discussing Socialism with very various sorts of people he has necessarily had, time af= ter time, to encounter and frame a reply to a very simple seeming and a really = very difficult question: "What is Socialism?" It is almost like asking "What is Christianity?" or demanding to be shown the atmosphere. = It is not to be answered fully by a formula or an epigram. Again and again the writer has been asked for some book which would set out in untechnical language, frankly and straightforwardly, what Socialism is and what it is n= ot, and always he has hesitated in his reply. Many good books there are upon th= is subject, clear and well written, but none that seem to tell the whole story as he kn= ows it; no book that gives not only the outline but the spirit, answers the main objections, clears up the chief ambiguities, covers all the ground; no book that one can put into the hands of inquiring youth and say: "There! th= at will tell you precisely the broad facts you want to know." Some day, no doubt, such a book will come. In the meanwhile he has ventured to put forth this temporary substitute, his own account of the faith that is in him.[1]<= o:p>
[1] As I pass these pr=
oofs I
am reminded that Mr. J. R. =
MacDonald
has in the press Socialism (Jacks, Edinburgh)--a =
general
account of the movement. From Mr. Kirkup's An =
Enquiry
into Socialism and from Fabian Essays (the Fabian =
Society,
London) a good idea of the general Socialist =
position
may also be obtained.
Socialism, then, as he understands =
it, is
a great intellectual process, a development of desires and ideas that takes=
the
form of a project--a project for the reshaping of human society upon new an=
d better
lines. That in the ampler proposition is what Socialism claims to be. This =
book
seeks to expand and establish that proposition, and to define the principles
upon which the Socialist believes this reconstruction of society should go.=
The
particulars and justification of this project and this claim, it will be the
business of this book to discuss just as plainly as the writer can.
§ 2.
Now, because the
Socialist seeks the reshaping of human society, it does not follow that he
denies it to be even now a very wonderful and admirable spectacle. Nor does=
he
deny that for many people life is even now a very good thing....
For his own part,
though the writer is neither a very strong nor a very healthy nor a very
successful person, though he finds much unattainable and much to regret, yet
life presents itself to him more and more with every year as a spectacle of
inexhaustible interest, of unfolding and intensifying beauty, and as a sple=
ndid
field for high attempts and stimulating desires. Yet none the less is it a
spectacle shot strangely with pain, with mysterious insufficiencies and cru=
elties,
with pitfalls into anger and regret, with aspects unaccountably sad. Its mo=
st
exalted moments are most fraught for him with the appeal for endeavour, with
the urgency of unsatisfied wants. These shadows and pains and instabilities=
do
not, to his sense at least, darken the whole prospect; it may be indeed that
they intensify its splendours to his perceptions; yet all these evil and ug=
ly
aspects of life come to him with an effect of challenge, as something not t=
o be
ignored but passionately disputed, as an imperative call for whatever effor=
t and
courage lurks in his composition. Life and the world are fine, but not as an
abiding place; as an arena--yes, an arena gorgeously curtained with sea and
sky, mountains and broad prospects, decorated with all the delicate
magnificence of leaf tracery and flower petal and feather, soft fur and the
shining wonder of living skin, musical with thunder and the singing of bird=
s;
but an arena nevertheless, an arena which offers no seats for idle spectato=
rs,
in which one must will and do, decide, strike and strike back--and presently
pass away.
And it needs but a
cursory view of history to realize--though all knowledge of history confirms
the generalization--that this arena is not a confused and aimless conflict =
of
individuals. Looked at too closely it may seem to be that--a formless web of
individual hates and loves; but detach oneself but a little, and the broader
forms appear. One perceives something that goes on, that is constantly work=
ing
to make order out of casualty, beauty out of confusion; justice, kindliness,
mercy out of cruelty and inconsiderate pressure. For our present purpose it
will be sufficient to speak of this force that struggles and tends to make =
and
do, as Good Will. More and more evident is it, as one reviews the ages, that
there is this as well as lust, hunger, avarice, vanity and more or less
intelligent fear to be counted among the motives of mankind. This Good Will=
of
our race, however arising, however trivial, however subordinated to individ=
ual ends,
however comically inadequate a thing it may be in this individual case or t=
hat,
is in the aggregate an operating will. In spite of all the confusions and
thwartings of life, the halts and resiliencies and the counter strokes of f=
ate,
it is manifest that in the long run human life becomes broader than it was,
gentler than it was, finer and deeper. On the whole--and now-a-days almost =
steadily--things
get better. There is a secular amelioration of life, and it is brought abou=
t by
Good Will working through the efforts of men.
Now this proposit=
ion lies
quite open to dispute. There are people who will dispute it and make a very
passable case. One may deny the amelioration, or one may deny that it is the
result of any Good Will or of anything but quite mechanical forces. The for=
mer
is the commoner argument. The appeal is usually to what has been finest in =
the
past, and to all that is bad and base in the present. At once the unsoundes=
t and
the most attractive argument is to be found in the deliberate idealization =
of
particular ages, the thirteenth century in England, for example, or the age=
of
the Antonines. The former is presented with the brightness of a missal, the
latter with all the dignity of a Roman inscription. One is asked to compare
these ages so delightfully conceived, with a patent medicine vendor's
advertisement or a Lancashire factory town, quite ignoring the iniquity of
mediæval law or the slums and hunger and cruelty of Imperial Rome.
But quite apart f=
rom
such unsound comparisons, it is, we may admit, possible to make a very
excellent case against our general assertion of progress. One can instance a
great number of things, big and little, that have been better in past times
than they are now; for example, they dressed more sumptuously and delightfu=
lly
in mediæval Venice and Florence than we do--all, that is, who could
afford it; they made quite unapproachably beautiful marble figures in Athen=
s in
the time of Pericles; there is no comparison between the brickwork of Veron=
a in
the twelfth century and that of London when Cannon Street Station was erect=
ed;
the art of cookery declined after the splendid period of Roman history for =
more
than a thousand years; the Gothic architecture of France and England exceed=
s in
nobility and quality and aggregated beauty, every subsequent type of struct=
ure.
This much, one agrees, is true, and beyond disputing. The philosophical tho=
ught
of Athens again, to come to greater things, was at its climax, more free, m=
ore
finely expressed than that of any epoch since. And the English of Elizabeth=
's
time was, we are told by competent judges, a more gracious and powerful
instrument of speech than in the days of Queen Anne or of Queen Victoria.
So one might go o=
n in
regard to a vast number of things, petty and large alike; the list would se=
em
overwhelming until the countervailing considerations came into play. But, a=
s a
matter of fact, there is hardly an age or a race that does not show us
something better done than ever it was before or since, because at no time =
has
human effort ceased and absolutely failed. Isolated eminence is no proof of
general elevation. Always in this field or that, whether it was in the bind=
ing of
books or the enamelling of metal, the refinement of language or the asserti=
on
of liberty, particular men have, by a sort of necessity, grasped at occasio=
n,
"found themselves," as the saying goes, and done the best that wa=
s in
them. So always while man endures, whatever else betide, one may feel assur=
ed
at this or that special thing some men will find a way to do and get to the
crown of endeavour. Such considerations of decline in particular things from
the standard of the past do not really affect the general assertion of a
continuous accumulating betterment in the lot of men, do not invalidate the
hopes of those who believe in the power of men to end for ever many of the =
evils
that now darken the world, who look to the reservoirs of human possibility =
as a
supply as yet scarcely touched, who make of all the splendour and superiori=
ties
of the past no more than a bright promise and suggestion for the unborn fut=
ure
our every act builds up, into which, whether we care or no, all our
achievements pour.
Many evils have b=
een
overcome, much order and beauty and scope for living has been evolved since=
man
was a hairy savage holding scarcely more than a brute's intercourse with his
fellows; but even in the comparatively short perspective of history, one can
scarcely deny a steady process of overcoming evil. One may sneer at
contemporary things; it is a fashion with that unhappily trained type of mi=
nd
which cannot appreciate without invidious comparison, so poor in praise tha=
t it
cannot admit worth without venting a compensatory envy; but of one permanent
result of progress surely every one is assured. In the matter of thoughtless
and instinctive cruelty--and that is a very fundamental matter--mankind men=
ds
steadily. I wonder and doubt if in the whole world at any time before this =
an
aged, ill-clad woman, or a palpable cripple could have moved among a crowd =
of
low-class children as free from combined or even isolated insult as such a =
one
would be to-day, if caught in the rush from a London Council school. Then, =
for all
our sins, I am sure the sense of justice is quicker and more nearly univers=
al
than ever before. Certain grave social evils, too, that once seemed innate =
in
humanity, have gone, gone so effectually that we cannot now imagine ourselv=
es
subjected to them; the cruelties and insecurities of private war, the duel,
overt slavery, for example, have altogether ceased; and in all Western Euro=
pe
and America chronic local famines and great pestilences come no more. No do=
ubt
it is still an unsatisfactory world that mars the roadside with tawdry adve=
rtisements
of drugs and food; but less than two centuries ago, remember, the place of
these boards was taken by gibbets and crow-pecked, tattered corpses swingin=
g in
the wind, and the heads of dead gentlemen (drawn and quartered, and their
bowels burnt before their eyes) rotted in the rain on Temple Bar.
The world is now a
better place for a common man than ever it was before, the spectacle wider =
and
richer and deeper, and more charged with hope and promise. Think of the
universal things it is so easy to ignore; of the great and growing multitud=
e,
for example, of those who may travel freely about the world, who may read
freely, think freely, speak freely! Think of the quite unprecedented number=
s of
well-ordered homes and cared-for, wholesome, questioning children! And it is
not only that we have this increasing sea of mediocre well-being in which t=
he
realities of the future are engendering, but in the matter of sheer achieve=
ment
I believe in my own time. It has been the cry of the irresponsive man since
criticism began, that his own generation produced nothing; it is a cry that=
I
hate and deny. When the dross has been cleared away and comparison becomes
possible, I am convinced it will be admitted that in the aggregate, in
philosophy and significant literature, in architecture, painting and scient=
ific
research, in engineering and industrial invention, in statecraft, humanity =
and valiant
deeds, the last thirty years of man's endeavours will bear comparison with =
any
other period of thirty years whatever in his history.
And this is the
result of effort; things get better because men mean them to get better and=
try
to bring betterment about; this progress goes on because man, in spite of e=
vil
temper, blundering and vanity, in spite of indolence and base desire, does =
also
respond to Good Will and display Good Will. You may declare that all the go=
od
things in life are the result of causes over which man has no control, that=
in pursuit
of an "enlightened self-interest" he makes things better inadvert=
ently.
But think of any good thing you know! Was it thus it came?
§ 3.
And yet, let us n=
ot
disguise it from ourselves, for all the progress one can claim, life remains
very evil; about the feet of all these glories of our time lurk darknesses.=
Let me take but o=
ne
group of facts that cry out to all of us--and will not cry in vain. I mean =
the
lives of little children that are going on now--as the reader sits with this
book in his hand. Think, for instance, of the little children who have been
pursued and tormented and butchered in the Congo Free State during the last
year or so, hands and feet chopped off, little bodies torn and thrown aside
that rubber might be cheap, the tyres of our cars run smoothly, and that de=
testable
product of political expediency, the King of the Belgians, have his pleasur=
es.
Think too of the fear and violence, the dirt and stress of the lives of the
children who grow up amidst the lawless internal strife of the Russian
political chaos. Think of the emigrant ships even now rolling upon the high
seas, their dark, evil-smelling holds crammed with humanity, and the huddled
sick children in them--fleeing from certain to uncertain wretchedness. Thin=
k of
the dreadful tale of childish misery and suffering that goes on wherever th=
ere
are not sane factory laws; how even in so civilized a part of the world as =
the
United States of America (as Spargo's Bitter Cry of the Children tells in
detail) thousands of little white children of six and seven, ill fed and of=
ten
cruelly handled, toil without hope.
And in all
agricultural lands too, where there is no sense of education, think of the
children dragging weary feet from the filthy hovels that still house peasan=
ts
the whole world over, to work in the mire and the pitiless winds, scaring
birds, bending down to plant and weed. Even in London again, think just a
little of the real significance of some facts I have happened upon in the
Report of the Education Committee of the London County Council for the year
1905.
The headmaster of=
one
casually selected school makes a special return upon the quality of the
clothing of his 405 children. He tells of 7.4 per cent. of his boys whose
clothing was "the scantiest possible--e.g. one ragged coat buttoned up=
and
practically nothing found beneath it; and boots either absent or represente=
d by
a mass of rags tied upon the feet"; of 34.8 per cent. whose "clot=
hing
was insufficient to retain animal heat and needed urgent remedy"; of 4=
5.9 per
cent, whose clothing was "poor but passable; an old and perhaps ragged
suit, with some attempt at proper underclothing--usually of flannelette&quo=
t;;
thus leaving only 12.8 per cent. who could, in the broadest sense, be termed
"well clad."
Taking want of
personal cleanliness as the next indication of neglect at home, 11 per cent=
. of
the boys are reported as "very dirty and verminous"; 34.7 per cen=
t.
whose "clothes and body were dirty but not verminous"; 42.5 per c=
ent,
were "passably clean, for boys," and only "12 per cent. clean
above the average."
Eleven per cent.
verminous; think what it means! Think what the homes must be like from which
these poor little wretches come! Better, perhaps, than the country cottage
where the cesspool drains into the water supply and the hen-house vermin
invades the home, but surely intolerable beside our comforts! Give but a mo=
ment
again to the significance of the figures I have italicized in the table tha=
t follows,
a summarized return for the year 1906 of the "Ringworm" Nurses who
visit the London Elementary Schools and inspect the children for various fo=
rms
of dirt disease.
----------------------------------------------------------------
Does not this spe=
ak of
dirt and disorder we cannot suffer to continue, of women ill trained for
motherhood and worked beyond care for cleanliness, of a vast amount of
preventable suffering? And these figures of filth and bad clothing are
paralleled by others at least equally impressive, displaying emaciation,
under-nutrition, anæmia and every other painful and wretched conseque=
nce
of neglect and insufficiency. These underfed, under-clothed, undersized
children are also the backward children; they grow up through a darkened, j=
oyless
childhood into a grey, perplexing, hopeless world that beats them down at l=
ast,
after servility, after toil, after crime it may be and despair, to death.
And while you gra=
sp
the offence of these facts, do not be carried away into supposing that this=
age
is therefore unprecedentedly evil. Such dirt, toil, cruelty have always bee=
n,
have been in larger measure. Don't idealize the primitive cave, the British
hut, the peasant's cottage, damp and windowless, the filth-strewn,
plague-stricken, mediæval town. In spite of all these crushed, mangle=
d,
starved, neglected little ones about the feet of this fine time, in spite o=
f a thousand
other disorders and miseries almost as cruel, the fact remains that this age
has not only more but a larger percentage of healthy, happy, kindly-treated
children than any age since the world began; that to look back into the
domestic history of other times is to see greater squalor and more sufferin=
g.
Why! read the
tombstones and monuments in any old English church, those, I mean, that date
from earlier than 1800, and you will see the history of every family, of ev=
en
the prosperous county families, laced with the deaths of infants and childr=
en.
Nearly half of them died. Think, too, how stern was the upbringing. And alw=
ays
before these days it seemed natural to make all but the children of the ver=
y wealthy
and very refined, fear and work from their earliest years. There comes to us
too, from these days, beautiful furniture, fine literature, paintings; but
there comes too, much evidence of harsh whippings, dark imprisonments and
hardly a children's book, hardly the broken vestige of a toy. Bad as things
are, they are better--rest assured--and yet they are still urgently bad. The
greater evil of the past is no reason for contentment with the present. But=
it
is an earnest for hoping that our efforts, and that Good Will of which they=
are
a part and outcome, may still go on bearing fruit in perpetually dwindling
misery.
§ 4.
It seems to me th=
at
the whole spirit and quality of both the evil and the good of our time, and=
of
the attitude not simply of the Socialist but of every sane reformer towards
these questions, was summarized in a walk I had a little while ago with a
friend along the Thames Embankment, from Blackfriars Bridge to Westminster.=
We
had dined together and we went there because we thought that with a fitful =
moon
and clouds adrift, on a night when the air was a crystal air that gladdened=
and
brightened, that crescent of great buildings and steely, soft-hurrying water
must needs be altogether beautiful. And indeed it was beautiful; the myster=
ies
and mounting masses of the buildings to the right of us, the blurs of this
coloured light or that, blue-white, green-white, amber or warmer orange, the
rich black archings of Waterloo Bridge, the rippled lights upon the
silent-flowing river, the lattice of girders and the shifting trains of Cha=
ring
Cross Bridge--their funnels pouring a sort of hot-edged moonlight by way of=
smoke--and
then the sweeping line of lamps, the accelerated run and diminuendo of the
Embankment lamps as one came into sight of Westminster. The big hotels were
very fine, huge swelling shapes of dun dark-grey and brown, huge shapes sea=
med
and bursting and fenestrated with illumination, tattered at a thousand wind=
ows
with light and the indistinct, glowing suggestions of feasting and pleasure.
And dim and faint above it all and very remote was the moon's dead wan face
veiled and then displayed.
But we were dashe=
d by
an unanticipated refrain to this succession of magnificent things, and we d=
id
not cry, as we had meant to cry, how good it was to be alive! We found
something else, something we had forgotten.
Along the Embankm=
ent,
you see, there are iron seats at regular intervals, seats you cannot lie up=
on
because iron arm-rests prevent that, and each seat, one saw by the lampligh=
t,
was filled with crouching and drooping figures. Not a vacant place remained,
not one vacant place. These were the homeless, and they had come to sleep h=
ere.
Now one noted a poor old woman with a shameful battered straw hat awry over=
her
drowsing face, now a young clerk staring before him at despair; now a filthy
tramp, and now a bearded, frock-coated, collarless respectability; I rememb=
er
particularly one ghastly long white neck and white face that lopped backwar=
d,
choked in some nightmare, awakened, clutched with a bony hand at the bony
throat, and sat up and stared angrily as we passed. The wind had a keen edge
that night even for us who had dined and were well clad. One crumpled figure
coughed and went on coughing--damnably.
"It's
fine," said I, trying to keep hold of the effects to which this line of
poor wretches was but the selvage; "it's fine! But I can't stand
this."
"It changes =
all
that we expected," admitted my friend, after a silence.
"Must we go
on--past them all?"
"Yes. I thin=
k we
ought to do that. It's a lesson, perhaps--for trying to get too much beauty=
out
of life as it is--and forgetting. Don't shirk it!"
"Great
God!" cried I. "But must life always be like this? I could die--i=
ndeed,
I would willingly jump into this cold and muddy river now, if by so doing I
could stick a stiff dead hand through all these things--into the future; a =
dead
commanding hand insisting with a silent irresistible gesture that this waste
and failure of life should cease, and cease for ever."
"But it does
cease! Each year its proportion is a little less."
I walked in silen=
ce,
and my companion talked by my side.
"We go on. H=
ere
is a good thing done, and there is a good thing done. The Good Will in
man----"
"Not fast enough. It goes so slowly--and in a little while we too must die----"<= o:p>
"It can be
done," said my companion.
"It could be
avoided," said I.
"It shall be=
in
the days to come. There is food enough for all, shelter for all, wealth eno=
ugh
for all. Men need only know it and will it. And yet we have this!"
"And so much
like this!" said I....
So we talked and =
were
tormented.
And I remember how
later we found ourselves on Westminster Bridge, looking back upon the long
sweep of wrinkled black water that reflected lights and palaces and the
flitting glow of steamboats, and by that time we had talked ourselves past =
our
despair. We perceived that what was splendid remained splendid, that what w=
as
mysterious remained insoluble for all our pain and impatience. But it was c=
lear
to us the thing for us two to go upon was not the good of the present nor t=
he
evil, but the effort and the dream of the finer order, the fuller life, the
banishment of suffering, to come.
"We want all=
the
beauty that is here," said my friend, "and more also. And none of
these distresses. We are here--we know not whence nor why--to want that and=
to
struggle to get it, you and I and ten thousand others, thinly hidden from u=
s by
these luminous darknesses. We work, we pass--whither I know not, but out of=
our
knowing. But we work--we are spurred to work. That yonder--those people are=
the
spur--for us who cannot answer to any finer appeal. Each in our measure must
do. And our reward? Our reward is our faith. Here is my creed to-night. I b=
elieve--out
of me and the Good Will in me and my kind there comes a regenerate
world--cleansed of suffering and sorrow. That is our purpose here--to forwa=
rd
that. It gives us work for all our lives. Why should we ask to know more? O=
ur
errors--our sins--to-night they seem to matter very little. If we stumble a=
nd
roll in the mud, if we blunder against each other and hurt one
another----"
"We have to =
go
on," said my friend, after a pause.
We stood for a ti=
me
in silence.
One's own personal
problems came and went like a ripple on the water. Even that whisky dealer's
advertisement upon the southern bank became through some fantastic
transformation a promise, an enigmatical promise flashed up the river reach=
in
letters of fire. London was indeed very beautiful that night. Without hope =
she
would have seemed not only as beautiful but as terrible as a black panther
crouching on her prey. Our hope redeemed her. Beyond her dark and meretrici=
ous splendours,
beyond her throned presence jewelled with links and points and cressets of
fire, crowned with stars, robed in the night, hiding cruelties, I caught a
moment's vision of the coming City of Mankind, of a city more wonderful than
all my dreaming, full of life, full of youth, full of the spirit of
creation....
CHAPTER II - THE FUNDAMEN=
TAL
IDEA OF SOCIALISM
The fundamental idea upon which Soc=
ialism
rests is the same fundamental idea as that upon which all real scientific w=
ork
is carried on. It is the denial that chance impulse and individual will and
happening constitute the only possible methods by which things may be done =
in
the world. It is an assertion that things are in their nature orderly, that
things may be computed, may be calculated upon and foreseen. In the spirit =
of
this belief Science aims at a systematic knowledge of material things.
"Knowledge is power," knowledge that is frankly and truly
exchanged--that is the primary assumption of the New Atlantis which created=
the
Royal Society and the organization of research. The Socialist has just that
same faith in the order, the knowableness of things and the power of men in=
co-operation
to overcome chance; but to him, dealing as he does with the social affairs =
of
men, it takes the form not of schemes for collective research but for
collective action and the creation of a comprehensive design for all the so=
cial
activities of man. While Science gathers knowledge, Socialism in an entirely
harmonious spirit criticizes and develops a general plan of social life. Ea=
ch
seeks to replace disorder by order.
Each of these sys=
tems
of ideas has, of course, its limits; we know in matters of material science
that no calculated quantity is ever exact, no outline without a fogging at =
the
edge, no angle without a curve at the apex; and in social affairs also, the=
re
must needs always be individuality and the unexpected and incalculable. But
these things do not vitiate the case for a general order, any more than the
different sizes and widths and needs of the human beings who travel prevent=
our
having our railway carriages and seats and doors of a generally convenient
size, nor our sending everybody over the same gauge of rail.
Now Science has n=
ot
only this in common with Socialism that it has grown out of men's courageous
confidence in the superiority of order to muddle, but these two great proce=
sses
of human thought are further in sympathy in the demand they make upon men to
become less egotistical and isolated. The main difference of modern scienti=
fic research
from that of the middle ages, the secret of its immense successes, lies in =
its
collective character, in the fact that every fruitful experiment is publish=
ed,
every new discovery of relationships explained. In a sense scientific resea=
rch
is a triumph over natural instinct, over that mean instinct that makes men
secretive, that makes a man keep knowledge to himself and use it slyly to h=
is
own advantage. The training of a scientific man is a training in what an
illiterate lout would despise as a weakness; it is a training in blabbing, =
in blurting
things out, in telling just as plainly as possible and as soon as possible =
what
it is he has found. To "keep shut" and bright-eyed and to score
advantages, that is the wisdom of the common stuff of humanity still. To
science it is a crime. The noble practice of that noble profession medicine=
, for
example, is to condemn as a quack and a rascal every man who uses secret
remedies. And it is one of the most encouraging things for all who speculate
upon human possibility to consider the multitude of men in the last three c=
enturies
who have been content to live laborious, unprofitable, and for the most part
quite undistinguished lives in the service of knowledge that has transformed
the world. Some names indeed stand out by virtue of gigantic or significant
achievement, such names as Bacon, Newton, Volta, Darwin, Faraday, Joule; but
these are but the culminating peaks of a nearly limitless Oberland of devot=
ed
toiling men, men one could list by the thousand. The rest have had the smal=
lest
meed of fame, small reward, much toil, much abandonment, of pleasure for th=
eir
lot. One thing ennobles them all in common--their conquest over the meannes=
s of
concealment, their systematic application of energy to other than personal
ends!
And that, too,
Socialism pre-eminently demands. It applies to social and economic
relationships the same high rule of frankness and veracity, the same
subordination of purely personal considerations to a common end that Science
demands in the field of thought and knowledge. Just as Science aims at a co=
mmon
organized body of knowledge to which all its servants contribute and in whi=
ch
they share, so Socialism insists upon its ideal of an organized social order
which every man serves and by which every man benefits. Their common enemy =
is
the secret-thinking, self-seeking man. Secrecy, subterfuge and the private
gain; these are the enemies of Socialism and the adversaries of Science. At
times, I will admit, both Socialist and scientific man forget this essential
sympathy. You will find specialized scientific investigators who do not rea=
lize
they are, in effect, Socialists, and Socialists so dull to the quality of t=
heir
own professions, that they gird against Science, and are secretive in polic=
y.
But such purblind servants of the light cannot alter the essential correlat=
ion
of the two systems of ideas.
Now the Socialist,
inspired by this conception of a possible frank and comprehensive social or=
der
to which mean and narrow ends must be sacrificed, attacks and criticizes the
existing order of things at a great number of points and in a great variety=
of
phraseology. At all points, however, you will find upon analysis that his
criticism amounts to a declaration that there is wanting a sufficiency of C=
ONSTRUCTIVE
DESIGN. That in the last resort is what he always comes to.
He wants a comple=
te
organization for all those human affairs that are of collective importance.=
He
says, to take instances almost haphazard, that our ways of manufacturing a
great multitude of necessary things, of getting and distributing food, of
conducting all sorts of business, of begetting and rearing children, of
permitting diseases to engender and spread are chaotic and undisciplined, so
badly done that here is enormous hardship, and there enormous waste, here
excess and degeneration, and there privation and death. He declares that fo=
r these
collective purposes, in the satisfaction of these universal needs, mankind
presents the appearance and follows the methods of a mob when it ought to
follow the method of an army. In place of disorderly individual effort, each
man doing what he pleases, the Socialist wants organized effort and a plan.=
And
while the scientific man seeks to make an orderly map of the half-explored
wilderness of fact, the Socialist seeks to make an orderly plan for the hal=
f-conceived
wilderness of human effort.
That and no other=
is
the essential Socialist idea.
But do not let th=
is
image mislead you. When the Socialist speaks of a plan, he knows clearly th=
at
it is impossible to make a plan as an architect makes a plan, because while=
the
architect deals with dead stone and timber, the statesman and Socialist deal
with living and striving things. But he seeks to make a plan as one designs=
and
lays out a garden, so that sweet and seemly things may grow, wide and beaut=
iful
vistas open and weeds and foulness disappear. Always a garden plan develops=
and
renews itself and discovers new possibilities, but what makes all its
graciousness and beauty possible is the scheme and the persistent intention,
the watching and the waiting, the digging and burning, the weeder clips and=
the
hoe. That is the sort of plan, a living plan for things that live and grow,
that the Socialist seeks for social and national life.
To make all this
distincter I will show the planlessness of certain contemporary things, of =
two
main sets of human interests in fact, and explain what inferences a Sociali=
st
draws in these matters. You will then see exactly what is meant when we deny
that this present state of affairs has any constructive plan, and you will
appreciate in the most generalized form the nature of the constructive plan
which Socialists are making and offering the world.
CHAPTER III - THE FIRST M=
AIN
GENERALIZATION OF SOCIALISM
§ 1.
The first--the ch=
ief
aspect of social life in relation to which the Socialist finds the world now
planless and drifting, and for which he earnestly propounds the scheme of a
better order, is that whole side of existence which is turned towards child=
ren,
their begetting and upbringing, their care and education. Perpetually the w=
orld
begins anew, perpetually death wipes out failure, disease, unteachableness =
and
all that has served life and accomplished itself; and to many Socialists, if
not to all, this is the supreme fact in the social scheme. The whole measur=
e of
progress in a generation is the measure in which the children improve in
physical and mental quality, in social co-ordination, in opportunity, upon
their parents. Nothing else matters in the way of success if in that way the
Good Will fails.
Let us now consid=
er
how such matters stand in our world at the present time, and let us examine
them in the light of the Socialist spirit. I have already quoted certain fa=
cts
from the London Education Committee's Report, by which you have seen that by
taking a school haphazard--dipping a ladle, as it were, into the welter of =
the
London population--we find more than eighty in the hundred of the London ch=
ildren
insufficiently clad, more than half unwholesomely dirty--eleven per cent.
verminous--and more than half the infants infested with vermin! The nutriti=
on
of these children is equally bad. The same report shows clearly that
differences in clothing and cleanliness are paralleled with differences in
nutrition that are equally striking.
"The 30 boys of t=
he
lowest class showed considerable failure to reach the aver=
age
weight for their age of the school; the average shortage =
per
boy for his age being as much as .7 kilogram. The eff=
ect
upon weight was more striking than upon height, as the av=
erage
failure in height was one centimetre. The 141 boys of t=
he
next class worked out at exactly the average. The 49
well-clad boys showed an average excess per age-weight of .54
kilogram and age-height of 1.8 centimetres."
And who can doubt=
the
amount of mental and moral dwarfing that is going on side by side with this
physical shortage?
Now, it may be ar=
gued
that this is not a fair sample of our general population, that these facts =
have
been culled from a special section of the population, that here we are deal=
ing
with the congestion of London slums and altogether exceptional conditions. =
This
is not so. The school examined was not from a specially bad district. And i=
t happens
that the entire working-class population of one typical English town, York,=
has
been exhaustively studied by Mr. B. S. Rowntree, and here are some facts fr=
om
his result that quite confirm the impression given by the London figures.
"It was quite
impossible to make a thorough examination of the physical conditio=
n of
all the children, but as they came up to be weighed and
measured, they were classified under the four headings, 'Very G=
ood,'
'Good,' 'Fair,' or 'Bad,' by an investigator whose
training and previous experience in similar work enabled her =
to
make a reliable, even if rough, classification...=
.
"'Bad' implies that the =
child
bore physical traces of underfeeding and
neglect.
"The numbers clas=
sified
under the various heads were as follows:--
BOYS. -----------------=
-------------------------------------------------------
=
|
Very Good, | Good=
, | Fair, | Bad, =
&nb=
sp; | per cent. | per cent. | per cent. | per cent. -----------------=
-------------------------------------------------------
Section 1
(poorest) |
2.8 | 14.6 | 31. | 51.6 Section 2 (middle=
) | 7.4 | 20.1 | 53.7 | 18.8 Section 3 (highes=
t)
| 27.4 | 33.8 | 27.4 | 11.4
GIRLS.
Section 1 (poorest) |<=
span
style=3D'mso-spacerun:yes'> 2.1 | 14.6 | 31. | 52.3 Section 2 (middle=
) | 7.5 | 21.2 | 50.4 | 20.9 Section 3 (highes=
t)
| 27.2 | 38. | 23.1 | 11.7 -----------------=
-------------------------------------------------------
"It will be seen =
that
the proportion of children classed as 'very good' in Se=
ction
3 is about ten times as large as in the poorest section, =
and
that more than half of the children in the poorest secti=
on are
classed as 'bad.'
"These 'bad' chil=
dren
presented a pathetic spectacle, all bore some mark of the =
hard
conditions against which they were struggling. Puny =
and
feeble bodies, dirty and often sadly insufficient clot=
hing,
sore eyes, in many cases acutely inflamed through
continued want of attention, filthy heads, cases of hip dise=
ase,
swollen glands--all these and other signs told the sa=
me
tale of privation and neglect. It will be noticed that the
condition of the children in Section 2 (middle-class lab=
our)
comes about half-way between Sections 1 and 3. In conside=
ring
the above table it must of course be remembered that t=
here
was no absolute standard by which each child could be ju=
dged,
but the broad comparison between the different classes=
is
unimpeachable. The table affords further evidence of serio=
us
physical deterioration amongst the poorest section of the
community."
And if York and
London will not satisfy, let the reader take Edinburgh, whose Charity
Organization Society has produced an admirable but infinitely distressing
report of the physical conditions of the school children there. It gives a
summary account of the homes of fourteen hundred children in one of the
Edinburgh Elementary Schools, selected because it represented a fair mixtur=
e of
prosperous and unprosperous people. I take the first ten entries of this li=
st just
as they come, representing thirty-eight children, and they are a fair sampl=
e of
the whole list. No amount of writing could make these little thumbnail sket=
ches
of the reality of domestic life among our population to-day more impressive
than they are, thus barrenly given.
"1. A bad home. W=
oman
twice married; second husband deserted her six or seven =
years
ago and she now keeps a bad house in which much drinki=
ng and
rioting goes on. Daughter on stage sends 10/- a week=
, son
is out of work. A son is in an institution. All =
as
filthy as is the house. The food is irregular. Two ch=
ildren
have had free dinners from school this and last winter,
clothes were also given for one each time. The boy attends
regularly. The woman is a hard drinker, and gets money in
undesirable ways. The eldest child has glands, neck; hair not go=
od but
clean; fleabitten. The second child, adenoids and tons=
ils.
Housing: five in one room. Evidence from Police, School Ch=
arity,
Headmistress, School Officers and Doctors.
"2. The drinking
capacity of this family cannot be too much emphasized. The p=
arents
can't agree, and live apart, the man allowing 7/6 a we=
ek
when girl is with mother, and 5/- when she comes to him. She=
is
verminous and very badly kept. Mother can't get charing=
, as
she lives in so bad a neighbourhood, so means to move; at
present she keeps other women's babies at 6d. a day each. E=
lder
boy out of work, a tidy lad, reads in Free Library. One=
child
has died. Housing: three in one room. House not so very
untidy. Evidence from Police, Church and Officer.
"3. A miserable f=
amily
and in very wretched circumstances. Father deserts ho=
me at
intervals, but last time seemed 'sent back by providenc=
e,' as
the works in the town he was in were burnt down. Child=
ren
starving in his absence; one had pneumonia, and di=
ed
since of the effects. The eldest child has adenoids; the second,
urticaria; lice, bad; clothes full of pediculi. Housing=
: six
in two rooms. Mother hard-working, does her best, but has
chronic bronchitis; does not keep house over tidy. The two eld=
er
boys are very idle, tiresome fellows, and worry the father a
great deal. They improved and found work during the year
following the visit, in which time the father got into decent w=
ork in
the City. The S. P. C. C. branch had to interfere on b=
ehalf
of small children. Three dead since marriage, when pa=
rents
were at ages 23 and 20. Food good when there is any. Sch=
ool
gave free dinners and clothes to two. Evidence from Pol=
ice,
S. P. C. C. branch, School Charity, Parish Sister,
Employer, Headmistress, School Officer and Doctors.
"4. The father a
complete wreck through intemperate and fast living; speculati=
on
first brought him down. Was later moved to hospital, where he
died. Had worked on railway a little time. Mother hard-worki=
ng,
works out, home untidy owing to her being out so much. She =
pays
rent regularly, and does her best. An elder boy groom, =
fed
and clad by his master, sends home what he can. Eldest bo=
y does
odd jobs, but seems a wastrel. Parish gave 7/6 after fa=
ther
ill, and feeds four children now. Winter of visit school d=
ined
five free daily, and clothed three, and previous winter t=
hree
had free dinners and two had clothes. A school-boy earns.=
The
twins are delicate. There are two lodgers. The elde=
st
child very dirty; the second, glands; the third, knock-knee=
d,
pigeon chest; very feeble, enlarged radices. Three ch=
ildren
have died. Housing: nine in three rooms. Evidence f=
rom
Police, Poor Law Officer, Parish Sister, School Charity, A=
rmy
Charity, Children's Employment, School Officer, Factor,
Pawnbroker and Doctors.
"5. The mother, a=
nice,
clean, tidy woman, doing pretty well by the children. =
They
kept a little shop for a time, and she used to do a day's
charing now and then, but has too many babies now. Paren=
ts
married at 21 and 18 respectively; two children dead and
another expected. He reads papers a good deal, gets them o=
ut of
trains. This is his first spell of regular work. Two=
boys
sell papers, and a Mission gives cheap meal. Food none t=
oo
plentiful. One child gets free dinners. The eldest child =
has
glands; impetigo; thin and badly nourished. The se=
cond,
glands, hair lice and nits bad. The third, boils on n=
eck,
glands, thin. The fourth, glands. Housing: eight in=
two
rooms. They are in two thrift societies. Evidence from
School-master, Police, Parish Sister, Club, Army Charity, Charity
School, Pawnbroker and Doctors.
"6. Father works =
in a
shop in daytime, and in a public-house at night. Rather soft; =
but
wife industrious and energetic and does her best. Ch=
ildren
well fed and regular at school. Two children have enl=
arged
tonsils. They get no help, and belong to two thrift
societies. One of six children dead in ten years of married life.
Housing: seven in two rooms. Evidence from Police, Doctors,
Society, Church, Mission, Club, Headmistress, Charity School and
Pawnbrokers.
"7. A family where
parents are much given to drink; father invalided and bei=
ng
helped by a Sick Society, 3/- a week, and Parish 5/- a week.
Housing: five in two rooms. They are in a burying club. Chi=
ldren
fleabitten. Two have died. Food is rather scanty. Wi=
fe
very quarrelsome and drunken. The boys play truant often=
. Two
were given free food and clothes two winters ago, and =
this
winter one has free dinners and clothes given. A Mission =
has
given cheap clothes. Evidence from School-master, Po=
lice,
Poor Law Officer, C.O.S. branch, Church, School Ch=
arity,
Sick Society, Children's Employment, Factor, School Of=
ficer,
Charity School, Pawnbroker and Doctors.
"8. Fairly decent
family; mother washes out, and man has very early work. He dr=
inks,
and his employment is somewhat irregular. A son =
in the
country on a farm, and two dead. They were married at 2=
1 and
18. The food is erratic, the children getting 'pieces' =
at
dinner-time, or free school dinners; or when mother comes=
home,
soup with her. The children are rather neglected, and the
police give the parents an indifferent character. The el=
dest
child has Eustacian catarrh and nasopharyngitis;
glands. The second, enlarged uvula. Housing: four in two very =
small
rooms. Evidence from School-master, Police, Parish Si=
ster,
Church, Factor and Doctors.
"9. Father an old
soldier without a pension, who reads novels. All the small chi=
ldren
were found eating a large meal of ham and eggs and stro=
ng tea
after 8 p.m., he in bed at the time. They have lapsed =
from
thrift society membership. They are extremely filthy =
and
the man drinks. A Mission sells them meal cheap. Wife 18 at
marriage and one child died. They feed pretty largely but
unhealthily, and eat 'pieces' at lunch-time. At ti=
me of
visit, though very dirty, they were tidier than ever =
found
before. The eldest child has chronic suppuration and l=
arge
perforation of ear. Housing: five in two rooms. Evidence f=
rom
Police, Parish Sister, Factor, Soldiers' Society, Charity =
School
and Doctors.
"10. The man a ca=
rter,
who drank to a certain extent, and died some months after
visit, when a Charity gave her help. She had an illegitimate c=
hild
and two others. He was careless, and both neglected
church-going. No medical evidence. Housing: five in two rooms.
Evidence from Police, two Churches, Parish Sister, Employer =
and
Charity School."
§ 2.
Now to the Social=
ist,
as to any one who has caught any tinge of the modern scientific spirit, the=
se
facts present themselves simply as an atrocious failure of statesmanship.
Indeed, a social system in which the mass of the population is growing up u=
nder
these conditions, he scarcely recognizes as a State, rather it seems to him=
a
mere preliminary higgledy-piggledy aggregation of human beings, out of whic=
h a
State has to be made. It seems to him that this wretched confusion of affai=
rs
which repeats itself throughout the country wherever population has gathere=
d,
must be due to more than individual inadequacy; it must be due to some gene=
ral
and essential failure, some unsoundness in the broad principles upon which =
the
whole organization is conducted.
What is this gene=
ral
principle of failure beneath all these particular cases?
In any given inst=
ance
this or that reason for the failure of a child may be given. In one case it=
may
be the father or mother drinks, in another that the child is an orphan,
neglected by aunt or stepmother, in another that the mother is an invalid o=
r a
sweated worker too overwrought to do much for him, or, though a good-hearted
soul, she is careless and dirty or ignorant, or that she is immoral and
reckless, and so on and so on. Our haphazard sample of ten Scotch cases giv=
es instances
of nearly all these alternatives. And from these proximate causes one might=
work
back to more general ones, to the necessity of controlling the drink traffi=
c,
of abolishing sweating, of shortening women's hours of labour, of suppressi=
ng
vice. But for the present argument it is not necessary to follow up these
special causes. We can make a wider generalization. For our present analysi=
s it
is sufficient to say that one more general maladjustment covers every case =
of neglected
or ill-brought-up children in the world, and that is this, that with or wit=
hout
a decent excuse, the parent has not been equal to the task of rearing a
civilized citizen. We have demanded too much from the parent, materially and
morally, and the ten cases we have quoted are just ten out of ten millions =
of
the replies to that demand. Of fifty-two children born, fourteen are dead; =
and
of the remainder we can hardly regard more than thirteen as being tolerably
reared.
Is it not obvious
then that, unless we are content that things should remain as they are, we =
must
put the relations of parent to child on some securer and more wholesome foo=
ting
than they are at the present time? We demand too much from the parent, and =
this
being recognized, clearly there are only two courses open to us. The first =
is
to relieve the parents by lowering the standard of our demand; the second i=
s to
relieve them by supplementing their efforts.
The first course,=
the
Socialist holds, is not only cruel and unjust to the innocent child, but an
entirely barbaric and retrogressive thing to do. It is a frank abandonment =
of
all ideas of progress and world betterment. He puts it aside, therefore, and
turns to the alternative. In doing that he comes at once into harmony with =
all
the developmental tendencies of the last hundred years. For a hundred years
there has been going on a process of supplementing and controlling parental=
effort.
A hundred years o=
r so
ago, the parent was the supreme authority in a child's destiny--short only =
of
direct murder. Parents were held responsible for their children's rearing to
God alone; should they fail, individual good-hearted people might, if they
thought proper, step in, give food, give help--provided the parents consent=
ed,
that is, but it was not admitted that the community as a whole was concerne=
d in
the matter. Parents (and guardians in the absence of parents) were allowed =
to
starve their children, leave them naked, prey upon their children by making
them work in factories or as chimney-sweeps and the like; the law was silen=
t,
the State acquiesced. Good-hearted parents, on the other hand, who were
unsuccessful in the world's affairs, had the torment of seeing their childr=
en
go short of food and garments, grow up ignorant and feeble, their only hope=
of help
the chancy kindliness of their more prosperous neighbours and the ill-organ=
ized
charities left by the benevolent dead.
Through all the
nineteenth century the irresistible logic of necessity has been forcing peo=
ple
out of the belief in that state of affairs, has been making them see the
impossibility of leaving things so absolutely to parental discretion and co=
nscience,
has been forcing them towards a constructive and organizing, that is to say
towards a Socialist attitude. Essentially the Socialist attitude is this, a=
n insistence
that parentage can no longer be regarded as an isolated private matter; that
the welfare of the children is of universal importance, and must, therefore=
, be
finally a matter of collective concern. The State, which a hundred years ago
was utterly careless of children, is now every year becoming more and more
their Guardian, their Over-Parent.
To-day the power =
of
the parents is limited in ways that would have seemed incredible a hundred
years ago. In the first place they must no longer unrestrictedly use their =
very
young children to earn money for them in toil and suffering. A great mass o=
f labour
legislation forbids them. In the next place their right to inflict punishme=
nt
or to hurt wantonly has been limited in many ways. The private enterprises =
of charitable
organizations for the prevention of cruelty and neglect has led to a growing
system of law in this direction also. Nor may a parent now prevent a child
getting some rudiments of an education.
Between the parent
and Heaven now, in addition to the more or less legalized voluntary
interference of well-disposed private people, there do appear certain rare
functionaries who--while they interfere not at all between good and compete=
nt
parents and their children, do, in certain instances, save a parental defau=
lt
from its complete fruition. There are the school attendance officer and the
sanitary inspector. Then there are--in the London County Council area--the =
"Ringworm"
nurses, who examine the children systematically and by means of certain whi=
te
and red cards of remonstrance and warning intimidate the parent into good
behaviour or pave the way for a prosecution. Everywhere there is the factory
inspector--and in certain cases the police. All these functionaries and
"accessory consciences" have been thrust in between the supremacy=
of
the parent and the child within the century.
So much the Socia=
list
regards as all to the good, as all in the direction of that great construct=
ive
plan of organized human welfare at which he aims. And they all amount to a
destruction, so much with this and so much with that, of the independence of
the family, an invasion of the old moral isolation of parent and child.
But while a numbe=
r of
people (who haven't read the Edinburgh Charity Organization Society's Repor=
t)
are content to regard these interventions as "going far enough," =
the
Socialist considers these things as only the beginning of the organization =
of
the welfare of the nation's children. You will notice that all these laws a=
nd
regulations at which we have glanced are in the nature of prohibitions or c=
ompulsions;
few have any element of aid. By virtue of them we have diminished the power=
of
the inferior sort of parents to do evil by their child, but we have done li=
ttle
or nothing to increase and stimulate their powers to do good. We may prevent
them doing some sorts of evil things to the child; they may not give it
poisonous things, or let it live in morally or physically contagious places,
but we do not insure that they shall give it wholesome things--better than =
they
had themselves. We must, if our work is ever to reach effectual fruition, g=
o on
to the logical completion of that process of supplementing the parent that =
the
nineteenth century began.
Consider, for
instance, the circumstances of parentage among the large section of the wor=
king
classes whose girls and women engage in factory labour. In many cases the
earnings of the woman are vitally necessary to the solvency of the family
budget, the father's wages do not nearly cover the common expenditure. In s=
ome
cases the women are unmarried, or the man is an invalid or out of work.
Consider such a woman on the verge of motherhood. Either she must work in a
factory right up to the birth of her child--and so damage its health through
her strain and fatigue,[2] or she must give up her work, lose money and go
short of food and necessities and so damage the coming citizen. Moreover, a=
fter
the child is born, either she must feed it artificially and return to work =
(and
prosperity) soon, with a very great risk indeed that the child will die, or=
she
must stay at home to nourish and tend it--until her landlord sells her furn=
iture
and turns her out!
[2] The facts of the c=
ase
are put very clearly, and quite =
invincibly,
by Miss Margaret Macmillan in Infant =
Mortality.
See also The Babies' Tribute to the Modern =
Moloch,
by F. Victor Fisher. (Twentieth Century Press, =
1d.)
These are small polemical tracts. The case is treated =
fully,
authoritatively and without bias in Infant =
Mortality
by Dr. G. Newman.
Now it does not n=
eed
that you should be a Socialist to see how cruel and ridiculous it is to have
mothers in such a dilemma. But while people who are not Socialists have no
remedy to suggest, or only immediate and partial remedies, such, for exampl=
e,
as the forbidding of factory work to women who are about to be or have rece=
ntly
been mothers--an expedient which is bound to produce a plentiful crop of &q=
uot;concealment
of birth" and infanticide convictions--the Socialist does proffer a
general principle to guide the community in dealing not only with this
particular hardship, but with all the kindred hardships which form a system
with it. He declares that we are here in the presence of an unsound and har=
mful
way of regarding parentage; that we treat it as a private affair, that we a=
re
still disposed to assume that people's children are almost as much their
private concern as their cats, and as little entitled to public protection =
and assistance.
The right view, he maintains, is altogether opposed to this; parentage is a
public service and a public duty; a good mother is the most precious type of
common individual a community can have, and to let a woman on the one hand =
earn
a living as we do, by sewing tennis-balls or making cardboard boxes or cali=
co,
and on the other, not simply not to pay her, but to impoverish her because =
she
bears and makes sacrifices to rear children, is the most irrational aspect =
of all
the evolved and chancy ideas and institutions that make up the modern State=
. It
is as if we believed our civilization existed to make cheap cotton and
tennis-balls instead of fine human lives.
The Socialist tak=
es
all that the nineteenth century has done in remedial legislation as a mere
earnest of all that it has still to do. He works for a consistent applicati=
on
of the principle that England, for example, tacitly admitted when she opened
her public elementary schools and compelled the children to come in; the
principle that the Community as a whole is the general Over-Parent of all i=
ts
children; that the parents must be made answerable to the community for the=
welfare
of their children, for their clear minds and clean bodies, their eyesight a=
nd
weight and training; and that, on the other hand, the parents who do their =
duty
well are as much entitled to collective provision for their needs and econo=
mic
security as a soldier, a judge or any other sort of public servant.
§ 3.
Now do not imagine
the case for the State being regarded as the Over-Parent, and for the finan=
cial
support of parents is based simply upon the consideration of neglected,
underfed, undereducated and poverty-blighted children. No doubt in every on=
e of
the great civilized countries of the world at the present time such children
are to be counted by the hundred thousand--by the million; but there is a m=
uch
stronger case to be stated in regard to that possibly greater multitude of
parents who are not in default, those common people, the mass of our huge
populations, the wives of the moderately skilled workers or the reasonably
comfortable employees, of the middling sort of people, the two, three and f=
our
hundred pounds a year families who toil and deny themselves for love of the=
ir
children, and do contrive to rear them cleanly, passably well grown, decent
minded, taught and intelligent to serve the future. Consider the enormous
unfairness with which we treat them, the way in which the modern State, suc=
h as
it is, trades upon their instincts, their affections, their sense of duty a=
nd self-respect,
to get from them for nothing the greatest social service in the world.
For while the lea=
st
fortunate sort of children have at any rate the protection of the police and
school inspectors, and the baser sort of parent has all sorts of public and
quasi-public helps and doles, the families that make the middle mass of our
population are still in the position of the families of a hundred years ago,
and have no help under heaven against the world. It matters not how well the
home of the skilled artisan's wife or the small business man's wife has bee=
n managed--she
may have educated her children marvellously, they may be clean, strong, cou=
rteous,
intelligent--if the husband gets out of work or suffers from business ill-l=
uck
or trade depression, or chances to be killed uninsured, down they all go to
want. Such insurance as they are able to make, and it needs a tremendously
heavy premium to secure an insurance that will not mean a heavy fall of inc=
ome
with the bread-winner's death--must needs be in a private insurance office,=
and
there is no effectual guarantee for either honesty or solvency in that. In =
most
of the petty insurance business the thrifty poor are enormously overcharged=
and
overreached. Rumour has been busy, and I fear only too justly, with the
financial outlook of some of the Friendly Societies upon which the scanty
security of so many working-class families depends. Such investments as the
lower and middle-class father makes of surplus profits and savings must be =
made
in ignorance of the manœuvres of the big and often quite ruthless fina=
nciers
who control the world of prices. If he builds or trades, he does so as a sm=
all
investor, at the highest cost and lowest profit. Half the big businesses in=
the
world have been made out of the lost savings of the small investor; a point=
to
which I shall return later. People talk as though Socialism proposed to rob=
the
thrifty industrious man of his savings. He could not be more systematically=
robbed
of his savings than he is at the present time. Nowhere beyond the limit of =
the
Post Office Savings' Bank is there security--not even in the gilt-edged
respectability of Consols, which in the last ten years have fallen from 114=
to
under 82. Consider the adventure of the thrifty well-meaning citizen who us=
ed
his savings-bank hoard to buy Consols at the former price, and now finds
himself the poorer for not having buried his savings in his garden. The mid=
dling
sort of man saves for the sake of wife and child; our State not only fails =
to protect
him from the adventures of the manipulating financier, but it deliberately
avoids competition with banker, insurance agent and promoter. In no way can=
the
middle-class or artisan parent escape the financier's power and get real
security for his home or his children's upbringing.
Not only is every
parent of any but the richest classes worried and discouraged by the univer=
sal
insecurity of outlook in this private adventure world, but at every turn his
efforts to do his best for his children are discouraged. If he has no child=
ren,
he will have all his income to spend on his own pleasures; he need only liv=
e in
a little house, he pays nothing for school, less for doctor, less for all t=
he needs
of life, and he is taxed less; his income tax is the same, no bigger; his r=
ent,
his rates, his household bills are all less....
The State will not
even help him to a tolerable home, to wholesome food, to needed fuel for the
new citizens he is training for it. The State now-a-days in its slow awaken=
ing
does show a certain concern in the housing of the lowest classes, a concern
alike stimulated and supplemented by such fine charities as Peabody's for
example, but no one stands between the two-hundred-a-year man and his landl=
ord
in the pitiless struggle to get. For every need of his children whom he toi=
ls to
make into good men and women, he must pay a toll of owner's profits, he must
trust to the anything but intelligent greed of private enterprise.
The State will not
even insist that a sufficiency of comfortable, sanitary homes shall be built
for his class; if he wants the elementary convenience of a bathroom, he must
pay extra toll to the water shareholder; his gas is as cheap in quality and
dear in price as it can be; his bread and milk, under the laws of supply and
demand, are at the legal minimum of wholesomeness; the coal trade cheerfull=
y raises
his coal in mid-winter to ruinous prices. He buys clothes of shoddy and boo=
ts
of brown paper. To get any other is nearly impossible for a man with three
hundred pounds a year. His newspapers, which are supported by advertisers a=
nd
financiers, in order to hide the obvious injustice of this one-man-fight
against the allied forces of property, din in his ears that his one grievan=
ce
is local taxation, his one remedy "to keep down the rates"--the
"rates" which do at least repair his roadway, police his streets,
give him open spaces for his babies and help to educate his children, and
which, moreover, constitute a burthen he might by a little intelligent
political action shift quite easily from his own shoulders to the broad sup=
port
of capital and land.
If the children of
the decent skilled artisan and middle-class suffer less obviously than the
poorer sort of children, assuredly the parents in wearing anxiety, in toil =
and
limitation and disappointment, suffer more. And in less intense and dramati=
c,
but perhaps even more melancholy ways, the children of this class do suffer.
They do not die so abundantly in infancy, but they grow up, too many of the=
m,
to shabby and limited lives; in Britain they are still, as a class, extraor=
dinarily
ill educated--many of them still go to incompetent, understaffed and
ill-equipped private adventure schools--they are sent into business
prematurely, often at fourteen or fifteen, they become mechanical
"respectable" drudges in processes they do not understand. They m=
ay
escape want and squalor for a while, perhaps, but they cannot escape narrow=
ness
and limitation and a cramped and anxious life. If they get to anything bett=
er
than that, it is chiefly through almost heroic parental effort and sacrific=
e.
The plain fact is
that the better middle-class parents serve the State in this matter of
child-rearing, the less is their reward, the less is their security, the
greater their toil and anxiety. Is it any wonder then that throughout this =
more
comfortable but more refined and exacting class, the skilled artisan and
middle-class, there goes on something even more disastrous, from the point =
of
view of the State, than the squalor, despair and neglect of the lower level=
s,
and that is a very evident strike against parentage? While the very poor
continue to have many children who die or grow up undersized, crippled or h=
alf-civilized,
the middle mass, which can contrive with a struggle and sacrifice to rear
fairly well-grown and well-equipped offspring, which has a conscience for t=
he
well-being and happiness of the young, manifests a diminishing spirit for
parentage, its families fall to four, to three, to two--and in an increasing
number of instances there are no children at all.
With regard to the
struggling middle-class and skilled artisan class parent, even more than to=
the
lower poor, does the Socialist insist upon the plain need, if only that our
State and nation should continue, of endowment and help. He deems it not si=
mply
unreasonable but ridiculous that in a world of limitless resources, of vast=
expenditure,
of unparalleled luxury, in which two-million-pound battleships and multi-mi=
llionaires
are common objects, the supremely important business of rearing the bulk of=
the
next generation of the middling sort of people should be left almost entire=
ly
to the unaided, unguided efforts of impoverished and struggling women and m=
en.
It seems to him almost beyond sanity to suppose that so things must or can
continue.
§ 4.
And what I have s=
aid
of the middle-class parent is true with certain modifications of all the
classes above it, except that in a monarchy you reach at last one State-sub=
sidized
family--in the case of Britain a very healthy and active group, the Royal
family--which is not only State supported, but also beyond the requirements=
of
any modern Socialist, State bred. There are enormous handicaps at every oth=
er social
level upon efficient parentage, and upon the training of children for any
public and generous end. Parentage is treated as a private foible, and those
who undertake its solemn responsibilities are put at every sort of disadvan=
tage
against those who lead sterile lives, who give all their strength and resou=
rces
to vanity and socially harmful personal indulgence. These latter, with an
ampler leisure and ampler means, determine the forms of pleasure and social=
usage,
they "set the fashion" and bar pride, distinction or relaxation to
the devoted parent. The typical British aristocrat is not parent bred, but
class bred, a person with a lively sense of social influences and no social
ideas. The one class that is economically capable of making all that can be
made of its children is demoralized by the very irresponsibility of the wea=
lth
that creates this opportunity. This is still more apparent in the American
plutocracy, where perhaps half the women appear to be artificially steriliz=
ed spenders
of money upon frivolous things.
No doubt there is=
in
the richer strata of the community a certain proportion of families with a =
real
tradition of upbringing and service; such English families as the Cecils,
Balfours and Trevelyans, for example, produce, generation after generation,=
public-spirited
and highly competent men. But the family tradition in these cases is an exc=
ess
of virtue rather than any necessary consequence of a social advantage; it i=
s a
defiance rather than a necessity of our economic system. It is natural that
such men as Lord Hugh and Lord Robert Cecil, highly trained, highly capable,
but without that gift of sympathetic imagination which releases a man from =
the
subtle mental habituations of his upbringing, should idealize every family =
in
the world to the likeness of their own--and find the Socialist's Over-Paren=
t of
the State not simply a needless but a mischievous and wicked innovation. Th=
ey
think--they will, I fear, continue to think--of England as a world of happy
Hatfields, cottage Hatfields, villa Hatfields, Hatfields over the shop, and
Hatfields behind the farmyard--wickedly and wantonly assailed and interfered
with by a band of weirdly discontented men. It is a dream that the reader m=
ust
not share. Even in the case of the rich and really prosperous it is an illu=
sion.
In no class at the present time is there a real inducement to the effectual
rearing of trained and educated citizens; in every class are difficulties a=
nd
discouragements.
This state of
affairs, says the Socialist, is chaotic or indifferent to a sea of wretched=
ness
and failure, in health, vigour, order and beauty. Such pleasure as it permi=
ts
is a gaudy indulgence filched from children and duty; such beauty--a hectic
beauty stained with injustice; such happiness--a happiness that can only
continue so long as it remains blind or indifferent to a sea of wretchedness
and failure. Our present system of isolated and unsupported families keeps =
the
mass of the world beyond all necessity painful, ugly and squalid. It stands
condemned, and it must end.
§ 5.
Let me summarize =
what
has been said in this chapter in a compact proposition, and so complete the
statement of the First Main Generalization of Socialism.
The ideas of the
private individual rights of the parent and of his isolated responsibility =
for
his children are harmfully exaggerated in the contemporary world. We do not
sufficiently protect children from negligent, incompetent, selfish or wicked
parents, and we do not sufficiently aid and encourage good parents; parenta=
ge
is too much a matter of private adventure, and the individual family is too=
irresponsible.
As a consequence there is a huge amount of avoidable privation, suffering a=
nd
sorrow, and a large proportion of the generation that grows up, grows up
stunted, limited, badly educated and incompetent in comparison with the
strength, training and beauty with which a better social organization could
endow it.
The Socialist hol=
ds
that the community as a whole should be responsible, and every individual in
the community, married or single, parent or childless, should be responsible
for the welfare and upbringing of every child born into that community. Thi=
s responsibility
may be entrusted in whole or in part to parent, teacher or other guardian--=
but
it is not simply the right but the duty of the State--that is to say of the
organized power and intelligence of the community--to direct, to inquire, a=
nd
to intervene in any default for the child's welfare.
Parentage rightly
undertaken is a service as well as a duty to the world, carrying with it not
only obligations but a claim, the strongest of claims, upon the whole
community. It must be provided for like any other public service; in any
completely civilized State it must be sustained, rewarded and controlled. A=
nd
this is to be done not to supersede the love, pride and conscience of the
parent, but to supplement, encourage and maintain it.
§ 6.
This is the first=
of
the twin generalizations upon which the whole edifice of modern Socialism
rests. Its fellow generalization we must consider in the chapter immediatel=
y to
follow.
But at this point=
the
reader unaccustomed to social questions will experience a difficulty. He wi=
ll
naturally think of this much of change we have broached, as if it was to ha=
ppen
in a world that otherwise was to remain just as the world is now, with
merchants, landowners, rich and poor and all the rest of it. You are propos=
ing,
he may say, what is no doubt a highly desirable but which is also a quite
impossible thing. You propose practically to educate all the young of the
country and to pay at least sufficient to support them and their mothers in
decency--out of what? Where will you get the money?
That is a perfect=
ly
legitimate question and one that must be answered fully if our whole projec=
t is
not to fall to the ground.
So we come to the
discussion of material means, of the wherewithal, that is to say to the
"Economics" of Socialism. The reader will see very speedily that =
this
great social revolution we propose necessarily involves a revolution in
business and industry that will be equally far reaching. The two revolutions
are indeed inseparable, two sides of one wheel, and it is scarcely possible
that one could happen without the other.
Of course the
community supports all its children now--the only point is that it does not
support them in its collective character as a State "as a whole."=
All
the children in the world are supported by all the people in the world, but
very unfairly and irregularly, through the intervention of that great multi=
tude
of small private proprietors, the parents. When the parents fail, Charity a=
nd
the Parish step in. If the reader will refer to those ten cases from Edinbu=
rgh
I have already quoted in Chapter III., § 1, he will note that in eight=
out
of the ten there comes in the eleemosynary element; in the seventh case esp=
ecially
he will get an inkling of its waste. A change in the system that diminished
(though it by no means abolished) this separate dependence of children upon
parents, each child depending upon those "pieces" from its partic=
ular
parental feast, need not necessarily diminish the amount of wheat, or leath=
er,
or milk in the world; the children would still get the bread and milk and
boots, but through different channels and in a different spirit. They might
even get more. The method of making and distribution will evidently have to=
be a
different one and run counter to currently accepted notions; that is all. N=
ot
only is it true that a change of system need not diminish the amount of foo=
d in
the world; it might even increase it. The Socialist declares that his system
would increase it. He proposes a method of making and distribution, a chang=
e in
industrial conditions and in the conventions of property, that he declares =
will
not only not diminish but greatly increase the production of the world, and
changes in the administration that he is equally convinced will insure a far
juster and better use of all that is produced.
This side of his
proposals we will proceed to consider in our next chapter.
CHAPTER IV
THE SECOND MAIN
GENERALIZATION OF SOCIALISM
§ 1.
We have considered the Socialist criticism of the present state of affairs in relation to the = most important of all public questions, the question of the welfare and upbringi= ng of the next generation. We have stated the general principle of social reconstruction that emerges from that criticism. We have now to enter upon = the question of ways and means, the economic question. We have to ask whether t= he vision we have conjured up of a whole population well fed, well clad, well = educated--in a word, well brought-up--is, after all, only an amiable dream. Is it true t= hat humanity is producing all that it can produce at the present time, and mana= ging everything about as well as it can be managed; that, as a matter of fact, t= here isn't enough of food and care to go round, and hence the unavoidable anxiet= y in the life of every one (except in the case of a small minority of exceptiona= lly secure people), and the absolute wretchedness of vast myriads of the poorer sort?<= o:p>
The Socialist say=
s,
No! He asserts that our economic system is as chaotic and wasteful as our
system of rearing children--is only another aspect of the same
planlessness--that it does its work with a needless excess of friction, tha=
t it
might be far simpler and almost infinitely more productive than it is.
Let us detach
ourselves a little from our everyday habits of thinking in these matters; l=
et
us cease to take customary things for granted, and let us try and consider =
how
our economic arrangements would strike a disinterested intelligence that lo=
oked
at them freshly for the first time. Let us take some matter of primary econ=
omic
importance, such as the housing of the population, and do our best to criti=
cize
it in this spirit of personal aloofness.
In order to do th=
at,
let us try to detach ourselves a little from our own personal interest in t=
hese
affairs. Imagine a mind ignorant of our history and traditions, coming from
some other sphere, from some world more civilized, from some other planet
perhaps, to this earth. Would our system of housing strike it as the very
wisest and most practical possible, would it really seem to be the attainab=
le
maximum of outcome for human exertion, or would it seem confused, disorderl=
y,
wasteful and bad? The Socialist holds that the latter would certainly be th=
e verdict
of such an impartial examination.
What would our
visitor find in such a country as England, for example? He would find a few
thousand people housed with conspicuous comfort and sumptuousness, in large,
airy and often extremely beautiful homes equipped with every
convenience--except such as economize labour--and waited on by many thousan=
ds
of attendants. He would find next, several hundreds of thousands in houses
reasonably well built, but for the most part ill designed and unpleasant to=
the
eye, houses passably sanitary and convenient, fitted with bathrooms, with
properly equipped kitchens, usually with a certain space of air and garden
about them. And the rest of our millions he would find crowded into houses =
evidently
too small for a decent life, and often dreadfully dirty and insanitary, wit=
hout
proper space or appliances to cook properly, wash properly or indeed perform
any of the fundamental operations of a civilized life tolerably well--witho=
ut,
indeed, even the privacy needed for common decency. In the towns he would f=
ind
most of the houses occupied by people for whose needs they were obviously n=
ot designed,
and in many cases extraordinarily crowded, ramshackle and unclean; in the
country he would be amazed to find still denser congestion, sometimes a doz=
en
people in one miserable, tumble-down, outwardly picturesque and inwardly
abominable two-roomed cottage, people living up against pigsties and drawing
water from wells they could not help but contaminate. Think of how the inti=
mate
glimpses from the railway train one gets into people's homes upon the outsk=
irts
of any of our large towns would impress him. And being, as we assume, clear
minded and able to trace cause and effect, he would see all this disorder
working out in mortality, disease, misery and intellectual and moral failur=
e.
All this would st=
rike
our visitor as a very remarkable state of affairs for reasonable creatures =
to
endure, and probably he would not understand at first that millions of peop=
le
were content to regard all this disorder as the permanent lot of humanity. =
He
would assume that this must be a temporary state of affairs due to some cau=
ses
unknown to him, some great migration, for example. He would suppose we were=
all
busy putting things right. He would see on the one hand unemployed labour a=
nd
unemployed material; on the other, great areas of suitable land and the cry=
ing
need for more and better homes than the people had, and it would seem the m=
ost
natural thing in the world that the directing intelligence of the community
should set the unemployed people to work with the unemployed material upon =
the
land to house the whole population fairly and well. There exists all that is
needed to house the whole population admirably, the building material, the
room, the unoccupied hands. Why is it not being done?
Our answer would =
be,
of course, that he did not understand our difficulties; the land was not ou=
rs
to do as we liked with, it did not belong to the community but to certain
persons, the Owners, who either refused to let us build upon it or buy it or
have anything to do with it, or demanded money we could not produce for it;
that equally the material was not ours, but belonged to certain other Owner=
s,
and that, thirdly, the community had insufficient money or credit to pay th=
e wages
and maintenance and equipment of the workers who starved and degenerated in=
our
streets--for that money, too, was privately owned.
This would puzzle=
our
visitor considerably.
"Why do you =
have
Owners?" he would ask.
We might find that
difficult to answer.
"But why do =
you
let the land be owned?" he would go on. "You don't let people own=
the
air. And these bricks and timber you mustn't touch, the mortar you need and=
the
gold you need--they all came out of the ground--they all belonged to everyb=
ody
or nobody a little while ago!"
You would say
something indistinct about Property.
"But why?&qu=
ot;
"Somebody mu=
st
own the things."
"Well, let t=
he
State own the things and use them for the common good. It owns the roads, it
owns the foreshores and the territorial seas--nobody owns the air!"
If you entered up=
on
historical explanations with him, you would soon be in difficulties. You wo=
uld
find that so recently as the Feudal System--which was still living, so to
speak, yesterday--the King, who stood for the State, held the land as the
Realm, and the predecessors of the present owners held under him merely as =
the
administrative officials who performed all sorts of public services and had=
all
sorts of privileges thereby. They have dropped the services and stuck to th=
e land
and the privileges; that is all.
"I begin to
perceive," our visitor would say as this became clear; "your worl=
d is
under the spell of an exaggerated idea, this preposterous idea there must b=
e an
individual Owner for everything in the world. Obviously you can't get on wh=
ile
you are under the spell of that! So long as you have this private ownership=
in
everything, there's no help for you. You cut up your land and material in
parcels of all sorts and sizes among this multitude of irresponsible little=
monarchs;
you let all the material you need get distributed among another small swarm=
of
Owners, and clearly you can only get them to work for public ends in the mo=
st
roundabout, tedious and wasteful way. Why should they? They're very well
satisfied as they are! But if the community as a whole insisted that this i=
dea
of private Ownership you have in regard to land and natural things was all
nonsense--and it is all nonsense!--just think what you might not do with it=
now
that you have all the new powers and lights that Science has given you. You=
might
turn all your towns into garden cities, put an end to overcrowding, abolish
smoky skies----"
"Hush!"=
I
should have to interrupt; "if you talk of the things that are clearly
possible in the world to-day, they will say you are an Utopian dreamer!&quo=
t;
But at least one
thing would have become clear, the little swarm of Owners and their claims
standing in the way of any bold collective dealing with housing or any such
public concern. The real work to be done here is to change an idea, that id=
ea
of ownership, to so modify it that it will cease to obstruct the rational
development of life; and that is what the Socialist seeks to do.
§ 2.
Now the argument =
that
the civilized housing of the masses of our population now is impossible bec=
ause
if you set out to do it you come up against the veto of the private owner at
every stage, can be applied to almost every general public service. Some li=
ttle
while ago I wrote a tract for the Fabian Society about Boots;[3] and I will=
not
apologize for repeating here a passage from that. To begin with, this tract
pointed out the badness, unhealthiness and discomfort of people's footwear =
as
one saw it in every poor quarter, and asked why it was that things were in =
so
disagreeable a state. There was plenty of leather in the world, plenty of
labour.
[3] This Misery of Boo=
ts. It
is intended as an =
introductory
tract explaining the central idea of Socialism =
for
propaganda purposes, and it is published by the Fabian =
Society,
of 3 Clement's Inn, London, at 3d. That, together =
with
my tract Socialism and the Family (A. C. Fifield, 44 =
Fleet
Street, London, 6d.), gives the whole broad outline =
of
the Socialist attitude.
"Here on the one
hand--you can see for yourself in any unfashionable par=
t of
Great Britain--are people badly, uncomfortably,
painfully shod in old boots, rotten boots, sham boots; and on the=
other
great stretches of land in the world, with unlimited
possibilities of cattle and leather and great numbers of people=
who,
either through wealth or trade disorder, are doi=
ng no
work. And our question is: 'Why cannot the latter set to=
work
and make and distribute boots?'
"Imagine yourself
trying to organize something of this kind of Free Booting expe=
dition
and consider the difficulties you would meet with. =
You
would begin by looking for a lot of leather. Imagine
yourself setting off to South America, for example, to get
leather; beginning at the very beginning by setting to work t=
o kill
and flay a herd of cattle. You find at once you are
interrupted. Along comes your first obstacle in the shape of a ma=
n who
tells you the cattle and the leather belong to him. You
explain that the leather is wanted for people who have no
decent boots in England. He says he does not care a rap wh=
at you
want it for; before you may take it from him you have=
to
buy him off; it is his private property, this leather, and=
the
herd and the land over which the herd ranges. You ask h=
im how
much he wants for his leather, and he tells you frankly=
, just
as much as he can induce you to give.
"If he chanced to=
be a
person of exceptional sweetness of disposition, you =
might
perhaps argue with him. You might point out to him that t=
his
project of giving people splendid boots was a fine one th=
at
would put an end to much human misery. He might even sympat=
hize
with your generous enthusiasm, but you would, I think, f=
ind
him adamantine in his resolve to get just as much out of yo=
u for
his leather as you could with the utmost effort pay=
.
"Suppose, now, yo=
u said
to him: 'But how did you come by this land and these he=
rds so
that you can stand between them and the people who have need of them,
exacting this profit?' He would probably ei=
ther
embark upon a long rigmarole, or, what is much more prob=
able,
lose his temper and decline to argue. Pursuing your dou=
bt as
to the rightfulness of his property in these things, you=
might
admit he deserved a certain reasonable fee for the rough=
care
he had taken of the land and herds. But cattle breeders a=
re a
rude violent race, and it is doubtful if you would get far
beyond your proposition of a reasonable fee. You would, in fac=
t,
have to buy off this owner of the leather at a good thumping
price--he exacting just as much as he could get from you--if =
you
wanted to go on with your project.
"Well, then you w=
ould
have to get your leather here, and to do that you would ha=
ve to
bring it by railway and ship to this country. And here=
again
you would find people without any desire or intenti=
on of
helping your project, standing in your course resolved t=
o make
every possible penny out of you on your way to provi=
de
sound boots for every one. You would find the railway was p=
rivate
property and had an owner or owners; you would find th=
e ship
was private property with an owner or owners, and that =
none
of these would be satisfied for a moment with a mere fee
adequate to their services. They too would be resolved to make =
every
penny of profit out of you. If you made inquiries about t=
he
matter, you would probably find the real owners of railway=
and
ship were companies of shareholders, and the profit squeez=
ed out
of your poor people's boots at this stage went to fil=
l the
pockets of old ladies, at Torquay, spendthrifts in P=
aris,
well-booted gentlemen in London clubs, all sorts of glos=
sy
people....
"Well, you get the
leather to England at last; and now you want to make it i=
nto
boots. You take it to a centre of population, invite
workers to come to you, erect sheds and machinery upon a =
vacant
piece of ground, and start off in a sort of fury of generous
industry, boot-making.... Do you? There comes along=
an
owner for that vacant piece of ground, declares it is his
property, demands an enormous sum for rent. And your workers =
all
round you, you find, cannot get house room until they t=
oo
have paid rent--every inch of the country is somebody's pro=
perty,
and a man may not shut his eyes for an hour without the
consent of some owner or other. And the food your shoe-makers =
eat,
the clothes they wear, have all paid tribute and profi=
t to
land-owners, cart-owners, house-owners, endless tribute o=
ver
and above the fair pay for work that has been done upon th=
em....
"So one might go =
on.
But you begin to see now one set of reasons at least =
why
every one has not good comfortable boots. There could be pl=
enty
of leather; and there is certainly plenty of labour =
and
quite enough intelligence in the world to manage that and a
thousand other desirable things. But this institution of Pr=
ivate
Property in land and naturally produced things, these
obstructive claims that prevent you using ground, or moving
material, and that have to be bought out at exorbitant prices,
stand in the way. All these owners hang like parasites up=
on your
enterprise at its every stage; and by the time you get =
your
sound boots well made in England, you will find them co=
sting
about a pound a pair--high out of reach of the general ma=
ss of
people. And you will perhaps not think me fanciful and
extravagant when I confess that when I realize this and look at =
poor
people's boots in the street, and see them cracked and
misshapen and altogether nasty, I seem to see also a lot of lit=
tle
phantom land-owners, cattle-owners, house-owners, own=
ers of
all sorts, swarming over their pinched and weary feet li=
ke
leeches, taking much and giving nothing and being the real
cause of all such miseries."
§ 3.
Our visitor would=
not
only be struck by the clogging of our social activities through this system=
of
leaving everything to private enterprise; he would also be struck by the
immense wastefulness. Everywhere he would see things in duplicate and
triplicate; down the High Street of any small town he would find three or f=
our butchers--mostly
selling New Zealand mutton and Argentine beef as English--five or six groce=
rs,
three or four milk shops, one or two big drapers and three or four small
haberdashers, milliners, and "fancy shops," two or three fishmong=
ers,
all very poor, all rather bad, most of them in debt and with their assistan=
ts
all insecure and underpaid. He would find in spite of this wealth of
competition that every one who could contrive it, all the really prosperous
people in fact, bought most of their food and drapery from big London firms=
.
But why should I = go on writing fresh arguments when we have Elihu's classic tract[4] to quote.<= o:p>
[4] Elihu's tracts are
published by the Independent Labour =
Party
at one penny each. The best are: Whose Dog Art Thou? =
A
Nation of Slaves; Milk and Postage Stamps; A Corner =
in
Flesh and Blood; and Simple Division.
"Observe how priv=
ate
enterprise supplies the streets with milk. At 7.30 a m=
ilk
cart comes lumbering along and delivers milk at one house=
and
away again. Half-an-hour later another milk cart arrives=
and
delivers milk, first on this side of the street and then on
that, until seven houses have been supplied, and the=
n he
departs. During the next three or four hours four other =
milk
carts put in an appearance at varying intervals, supply=
ing a
house here and another there, until finally, as it dr=
aws
towards noon, their task is accomplished and the street su=
pplied
with milk.
"The time actually
occupied by one and another of these distributors of m=
ilk
makes in all about an hour and forty minutes, six men =
and
six horses and carts being required for the purpose, and =
these
equipages rattle along one after the other, all over t=
he
district, through the greater part of the day, in the same
erratic and extraordinary manner."
§ 4.
Our imaginary vis=
itor
would probably quite fail to grasp the reasons why we do not forthwith shake
off this obstructive and harmful idea of Private Ownership, dispossess our
Landowners and so forth as gently as possible, and set to work upon collect=
ive
housing and the rest of it. And so he would "exit wondering."
But that would be
only the opening of the real argument. A competent Anti-Socialist of a more
terrestrial experience would have a great many very effectual and very sound
considerations to advance in defence of the present system.
He might urge that
our present way of doing things, though it was sometimes almost as wasteful=
as
Nature when fresh spawn or pollen germs are scattered, was in many ways
singularly congenial to the infirmities of humanity. The idea of property i=
s a
spontaneous product of the mortal mind; children develop it in the nursery,=
and
are passionately alive to the difference of meum and tuum, and its extensio=
n to
land, subterranean products and wild free things, even if it is under analy=
sis
a little unreasonable, was at least singularly acceptable to humanity.
And there would be
admirable soundness in all this. There can be little or no doubt that the
conception of personal ownership has in the past contributed elements to hu=
man
progress that could have come through no other means. It has allowed private
individuals in odd corners to try experiments in new methods and new
appliances, that the general intelligence, such as it was, of the community
could not have understood. For all its faults, our present individualistic
order compared not simply with the communism of primitive tribes, but even =
with
the personal and largely illiterate control of the mediæval feudal
governments, is a good efficient working method. I don't think a Socialist =
need
quarrel with the facts of history or human nature. But he would urge that
Private Ownership is only a phase, though no doubt quite a necessary phase,=
in
human development. The world has needed Private Ownership just as (Lester F.
Ward declares[5]) it once needed slavery to discipline men and women to
agriculture and habits of industry, and just as it needed autocratic kings =
to
weld warring tribes into nations and nations into empires, to build high ro=
ads,
end private war and establish the idea of Law, and a wider than tribal loya=
lty.
But just as Western Europe has passed out of the phases of slavery and of
autocracy (which is national slavery) into constitutionalism, so, he would
hold, we are passing out of the phase of private ownership of land and mate=
rial
and food. We are doing so not because we reject it, but because we have wor=
ked
it out, because we have learnt its lessons and can now go on to a higher and
finer organization.
[5] Pure Sociology, p.
271-2, by Lester F. Ward. (The =
Macmillan
Company, New York.)
There the
Anti-Socialist would join issue with a lesser advantage. He would have to s=
how
not only that Private Ownership has been serviceable and justifiable in the
past--which many Socialists admit quite cheerfully--but that it is the crown
and perfection of human methods, which the Socialists flatly deny. Universal
Private Ownership, an extreme development of the sentiment of individual au=
tonomy
and the limitation of the State to the merest police functions, were a
necessary outcome of the breakdown of the unprogressive authoritative Feudal
System in alliance with a dogmatic Church. It reached its maximum in the
eighteenth century, when even some of the prisons and workhouses were run by
private contract, when people issued a private money, the old token coinage,
and even regiments of soldiers were raised by private enterprise. It was, t=
he Socialist
alleges, a mere phase of that breaking up of the old social edifice, a
weakening of the old circle of ideas that had to precede the new constructi=
ve
effort. But with land, with all sorts of property and all sorts of business=
es
and public services, just as with the old isolated private family, the old
separateness and independence is giving way to a new synthesis. The idea of
Private Ownership, albeit still the ruling idea of our civilization, does n=
ot
rule nearly so absolutely as it did. It weakens and falters before the
inexorable demands of social necessity--manifestly under our eyes.
The Socialist wou=
ld
be able to appeal to a far greater number of laws in the nature of limitati=
on
of the owner of property than could be quoted to show the limitation of the=
old
supremacy of the head of the family. In the first place he would be able to
point to a constantly increasing interference with the right of the landown=
er
to do what he liked with his own, building regulations, intervention to cre=
ate allotments
and so forth. Then there would be a vast mass of factory and industrial
legislation, controlling, directing, prohibiting; fencing machinery,
interfering on behalf of health, justice and public necessity with the owne=
r's
free bargain with his work-people. His business undertakings would be under
limitations his grandfather never knew--even harmless adulterations that me=
rely
intensify profit, forbidden him!
And in the next p=
lace
and still more significant is the manifest determination to keep in public
hands many things that would once inevitably have become private property. =
For
example, in the middle Victorian period a water supply, a gas supply, a rai=
lway
or tramway was inevitably a private enterprise, the creation of a new prope=
rty;
now, this is the exception rather than the rule. While gas and water and tr=
ains
were supplied by speculative owners for profit, electric light and power, n=
ew
tramways and light railways are created in an increasing number of cases by
public bodies who retain them for the public good. Nobody who travels to Lo=
ndon
as I do regularly in the dirty, over-crowded carriages of the infrequent and
unpunctual trains of the South-Eastern Company, and who then transfers to t=
he
cleanly, speedy, frequent--in a word, "civilized" electric cars of
the London County Council, can fail to estimate the value and significance =
of this
supersession of the private owner by the common-weal.
All these things,=
the
Socialists insist, are but a beginning. They point to a new phase in social
development, to the appearance of a collective intelligence and a sense of
public service taking over appliances, powers, enterprises, with a growing
confidence that must end finally in the substitution of collective for priv=
ate
ownership and enterprise throughout the whole area of the common business o=
f life.
§ 5.
In relation to qu=
ite
a number of large public services it can be shown that even under contempor=
ary
conditions Private Ownership does work with an enormous waste and inefficie=
ncy.
Necessarily it seeks for profit; necessarily it seeks to do as little as
possible for as much as possible. The prosperity of all Kent is crippled by=
a
"combine" of two ill-managed and unenterprising railway companies,
with no funds for new developments, grinding out an uncertain dividend by
clipping expenditure.
I happen to see t=
his
organization pretty closely, and I can imagine no State enterprise west of
Turkey or Persia presenting even to the passing eye so deplorable a spectac=
le
of ruin and inefficiency. The South-Eastern Company's estate at Seabrook
presents the dreariest spectacle of incompetent development conceivable; one
can see its failure three miles away; it is a waste with an embryo slum in =
one corner
protected by an extravagant sea-wall, already partly shattered, from the se=
a.
To-day (Nov. 4, 1=
907)
the price of the ordinary South-Eastern stock is 65 and its deferred stock =
31;
of the London, Chatham and Dover ordinary stock 10-1/2; an eloquent testimo=
ny
to the disheartened state of the owners who now cling reluctantly to this
disappointing monopoly. Spite of this impoverishment of the ordinary
shareholder, this railway system has evidently paid too much profit in the =
past
for efficiency; the rolling stock is old and ageing--much of it is by modern
standards abominable--the trains are infrequent, and the shunting operation=
s at
local stations, with insufficient sidings and insufficient staffs, produce a
chronic dislocation and unpunctuality in the traffic that is exaggerated by=
the
defects of direction evident even in the very time-tables. The trains are n=
ot
well planned, the connections with branch lines are often extremely ill
managed. The service is bad to its details. It is the exception rather than=
the
rule to find a ticket-office in the morning with change for a five-pound no=
te;
and, as a little indication of the spirit of the whole machine, I discovered
the other day that the conductors upon the South-Eastern trams at Hythe sta=
rt
their morning with absolutely no change at all. Recently the roof of the
station at Charing Cross fell in--through sheer decay.... A whole rich coun=
ty
now stagnates hopelessly under the grip of this sample of private enterpris=
e,
towns fail to grow, trade flows sluggishly from point to point. No populati=
on
in the world would stand such a management as it endures at the hands of the
South-Eastern Railway from any responsible public body. Out would go the wh=
ole
board of managers at the next election. Consider what would have happened if
the London County Council had owned Charing Cross Station three years ago. =
But
manifestly there is nothing better to be done under private ownership
conditions. The common shareholders are scattered and practically powerless,
and their collective aim is, at any expense to the public welfare, to keep =
the price
of the shares from going still lower.
The South-Eastern
Railway is only one striking instance of the general unserviceableness of
private ownership for public services. Nearly all the British railway
companies, in greater or less degree, present now a similar degenerative
process. Years of profit-sweating, of high dividends, have left them with o=
ld
stations, old rolling stock, old staffs, bad habits and diminishing borrowi=
ng
power. Only a few of these corporations make any attempt to keep pace with
invention. It is remarkable now in an epoch of almost universal progress how
stagnant the British privately owned railways are. One travels now-a-days i=
f anything
with a decrease of comfort from the 1880 accommodation, because of the grea=
ter
overcrowding; and there has been no general increase of speed, no increase =
in
smooth running, no increase in immunity from accident now for quite a numbe=
r of
years. One travels in a dingy box of a compartment that is too ill-lit at n=
ight
for reading and full of invincible draughts. In winter the only warmth is t=
oo often
an insufficient footwarmer of battered tin, for which the passengers fight
fiercely with their feet. An observant person cannot fail to be
struck--especially if he is returning from travel upon the State railways of
Switzerland or Germany--by the shabby-looking porters on so many of our lin=
es--they
represent the standard of good clothing for the year 1848 or thereabouts--a=
nd
by the bleak misery of many of the stations, the universal dirt that
electricity might even now abolish. You dare not drop a parcel on any Briti=
sh
railway cushion for fear of the cloud of horrible dust you would raise; you
have to put it down softly. Consider, too, the congested infrequent suburba=
n trains
that ply round any large centre of population, the inefficient goods and pa=
rcel
distribution that hangs up the trade of the local shopman everywhere. Not o=
nly
in the arrested standard of comfort, but in the efficiency of working also =
are
our privately owned railways a hopeless discredit to private ownership.
None of them,
hampered by their present equipment, are able to adapt themselves readily to
the new and better mechanism science produces for them, electric traction,
electric lighting and so forth; and it seems to me highly probable that the
last steam-engines and the last oil lamps in the world will be found upon t=
he
southern railway lines of Great Britain. How can they go on borrowing new
capital with their stock at the prices I have quoted, and how can they do
anything without new capital? The conception of profit-raising that rules o=
ur railways
takes rather an altogether different direction; it takes the form of attemp=
ts
to procure a monopoly even of the minor traffic by resisting the developmen=
t of
light railways, and of keeping the standard of comfort, decency and cleanli=
ness
low. As for the vast social ameliorations that could be wrought now, and are
urgently needed now, by redistributing population through enhanced and chea=
pened
services scientifically planned, and by an efficient collection and carriag=
e of
horticultural and agricultural produce, these things lie outside the philos=
ophy
of the Private Owner altogether. They would probably not pay him, and there=
the
matter ends; that they would pay the community enormously, does not for one=
moment
enter into his circle of ideas.
There can be litt=
le
doubt that in the next decade or so the secular decay and lagging of the
British railway services which is inevitable under existing conditions (in
speed, in comfort, they have long been distanced by continental lines), the
probable increase in accidents due to economically administered permanent w=
ays
and ageing stations and bridges, and the ever more perceptible check to Bri=
tish
economic development due to this clogging of the circulatory system, will b=
e of
immense value to the Socialist propaganda as an object lesson in private
ownership. In Italy the thing has already passed its inevitable climax, and=
the
State is now struggling valiantly to put a disorganized, ill-equipped and
undisciplined network of railways, the legacy of a period of private
enterprise, into tolerable working order.
§ 6.
In a second great
public service there is a perceptible, a growing recognition of the evil and
danger of allowing profit-seeking Private Ownership to prevail; and that is=
the
general food supply. A great quickening of the public imagination in this
matter has occurred through the "boom" of Mr. Upton Sinclair's bo=
ok,
The Jungle--a book every student of the elements of Socialism should read. =
He
accumulated a considerable mass of facts about the Chicago stockyards, and =
incorporated
them with his story, and so enabled people to realize what they might with a
little imaginative effort have inferred before; that the slaughtering of ca=
ttle
and the preparation of meat, when it is done wholly and solely for profit, =
that
is to say when it is done as rapidly and cheaply as possible, is done horri=
bly;
that it is a business cruel to the beasts, cruel to the workers and dangero=
us
to the public health. The United States has long recognized the inadequacy =
of
private consciences in this concern, and while all the vast profits of the
business go to the meat packers, the community has maintained an insufficie=
nt
supply of underpaid and, it is said in some cases, bribable inspectors to l=
ook
after the public welfare.
In this country a=
lso,
slaughtering is a private enterprise but slightly checked by inspection, an=
d if
we have no Chicago, we probably have all its mean savings, its dirt and
carelessness and filth, scattered here and there all over the country, a li=
ttle
in this privately owned slaughter-house, a little in that. For what inducem=
ent has
a butcher to spend money and time in making his slaughter-house decent,
sanitary and humane above the standard of his fellows? To do that will only
make him poor and insolvent. Anyhow, few of his customers will come to see
their meat butchered, and, as they say in the South of England, "What =
the
eye don't see the heart don't grieve."
Many witnesses co=
ncur
in declaring that our common jam, pickle and preserve trade is carried on u=
nder
equally filthy conditions. If it is not, it is a miracle, in view of the
inducements the Private Owner has to cut his expenses, economize on premises
and wages, and buy his fruit as near decay and his sugar as near dirt as he
can. The scandal of our milk supply is an open one; it is more and more evi=
dent
that so long as Private Ownership rules the milk trade, we can never be sur=
e that
at every point in the course of the milk from cow to consumer there will not
creep in harmful and dishonest profit-making elements. The milking is too o=
ften
done dirtily from dirty cows and into dirty vessels--why should a business =
man
fool away his profits in paying for scrupulous cleanliness when it is almost
impossible to tell at sight whether milk is clean or dirty?--and there come
more or less harmful dilutions and adulterations and exposures to infection=
at
every handling, at every chance at profit making. The unavoidable inefficie=
ncy
of the private milk trade reflects itself in infant mortality--we pay our
national tribute to private enterprise in milk, a tribute of many thousands=
of
babies every year. We try to reduce this tribute by inspection. But why sho=
uld
the State pay money for inspection, upon keeping highly-trained and compete=
nt
persons merely to pry and persecute in order that private incompetent people
should reap profits with something short of a maximum of child murder? It w=
ould
be much simpler to set to work directly, employ and train these private
persons, and run the dairies and milk distribution ourselves.
There is an equal=
ly
strong case for a public handling of bakehouses and the bread supply. Alrea=
dy
the public is put to great and entirely unremunerative expense in inspecting
and checking weights and hunting down the grosser instances of adulteration,
grubbiness and dirt, and with it all the common bakehouse remains for the m=
ost
part a subterranean haunt of rats, mice and cockroaches, and the ordinary b=
aker's
bread is so insipid and unnutritious that a great number of more prosperous
people now-a-days find it advantageous to health and pocket alike to bake at
home. A considerable amount of physical degeneration may be connected with =
the
general poorness of our bread. The plain fact of the case is that our
population will never get good wholesome bread from the Private Owner's
bakehouse, until it employs one skilled official to watch every half-dozen
bakers--and another to watch him; and it seems altogether saner and cheaper=
to
abolish the Private Owner in this business also and do the job cleanly,
honestly and straightforwardly in proper buildings with properly paid labou=
r as
a public concern.
Now, what has been
said of the food supply is still truer of the trade in fuel. Between the
consumer and the collier is a string of private persons each resolved to
squeeze every penny of profit out of the coal on its way to the cheap and
wasteful grate one finds in the jerry-built homes of the poor. In addition
there is every winter now, whether in Great Britain or America, a manipulat=
ion
of the coal market and a more or less severe coal famine. Coal is jerked up=
to unprecedented
prices, and the small consumer, who has no place for storage, who must buy,=
if
not from day to day, from week to week, finds he must draw upon his food fu=
nd
and his savings to meet the Private Owner's raised demands--or freeze. Every
such coal famine reaps its harvest for death of old people and young childr=
en,
and wipes out so many thousands of savings' bank accounts and hoarded shill=
ings.
Consider the essential imbecility of allowing the nation's life and the
nation's thrift to be preyed upon for profit in this way! Is it possible to
doubt that the civilized community of the future will have to resume posses=
sion
of all its stores of fuel, will keep itself informed of the fluctuating nee=
ds
of its population, and will distribute and sell coal, gas and oil--not for =
the
maximum profit, but the maximum general welfare?[6]
[6] In Dakota, 1906-7,
private enterprise led to a =
particularly
severe coal famine in the bitterest weather, =
and
the shortage was felt so severely that the population =
rose
and attacked and stopped passing coal-trains.
Another great bra= nch of trade in which Private Ownership and private freedom is manifestly antagonistic to the public welfare is the Drink Traffic. Here we have a com= modity, essentially a drug, its use readily developing a vice, deleterious at its b= est, complex in composition, and particularly susceptible to adulteration and the enhancement of its attraction by poisonous ingredients and indeed to every = sort of mischievous secret manipulation. Probably nothing is more rarely found p= ure and honest than beer or whisky; whisky begins to be blended and doctored be= fore it leaves the distillery. And we allow the production and distribution of t= his drug of alcoholic drink to be from first to last a source of private profit= . We so contrive it that we put money prizes upon the propaganda of drink. Is it= any wonder that drink is not only made by adulteration far more evil than it naturally is, but that it is forced upon the public in every possible way?<= o:p>
"He tempts t=
hem
to drink," I have heard a clergyman say of his village publican. But w=
hat
else did he think the publican was there for?--to preach total abstinence?
Naturally, inevitably, the whole of the Trade is a propaganda--not of
drunkenness, but of habitual heavy drinking. The more successful propagandi=
sts,
the great brewers and distillers grow rich just in the proportion that peop=
le
consume beer and spirits; they gain honour and peerages in the measure of t=
heir
success.
It is very
interesting to the Socialist to trace the long struggle of the temperance
movement against its initial ideas of freedom, and to see how inevitably the
most reluctant and unlikely people have been forced to recognize Private
Ownership in this trade and for profit as the ultimate evil. I am delighted=
to
have to hand an excellent little tract by "A Ratepayer": National
Efficiency and the Drink Traffic. It has a preface by Mr. Haldane, and it i=
s as
satisfactory a demonstration of the absolute necessity of thoroughgoing
Socialism in this particular field as any Socialist could wish. One encount=
ers
the Bishop of Chester, for example, in its pages talking the purest Sociali=
sm,
and making the most luminous admissions of the impossibility of continued
private control, in phrases that need but a few verbal changes to apply equ=
ally
to milk, to meat, to bread, to housing, to book-selling[7]....
[7] For a clear and
admirable account of the Socialist =
attitude
to the temperance question, see the tract on =
Municipal
Drink Traffic published by the Fabian Society; =
price
one penny.
§ 7.
Land and housing,
railways, food, drink, coal, in each of these great general interests there=
is
a separate strong case for the substitution of collective control for the
Private Ownership methods of the present time. There is a great and growing
number of people like "A Ratepayer" and Mr. Haldane, who do not c=
all
themselves Socialists but who are yet strongly tinged with Socialist
conceptions; who are convinced--some in the case of the land, some in the c=
ase
of the drink trade or the milk, that Private Ownership and working for prof=
it
must cease. But they will not admit a general principle, they argue each ca=
se
on its merits.
The Socialist
maintains that, albeit the details of each problem must be studied apart, t=
here
does underlie all these cases and the whole economic situation at the prese=
nt
time, one general fact, that through our whole social system from top to ba=
se
we find things under the influence of a misleading idea that must be change=
d,
and which, until it is changed, will continue to work out in waste,
unserviceableness, cramped lives and suffering and death. Each man is for
himself, that is this misleading idea, seeking, perforce, ends discordant w=
ith
the general welfare; who serves the community without exacting pay, goes un=
der;
who exacts pay without service prospers and continues; success is not to do
well, it is to have and to get; failure is not to do ill, it is to lose and=
not
have; and under these conditions how can we expect anything but dislocated,
unsatisfying service at every turn?
The contemporary
anti-Socialist moralist and the social satirist would appeal to the Owner's
sense of duty; he would declare in a platitudinous tone that property had i=
ts
duties as well as its rights, and so forth. The Socialist, however, looks a
little deeper, and puts the thing differently. He brings both rights and du=
ties
to a keener scrutiny. What underlies all these social disorders, he alleges=
, is
one simple thing, a misconception of property; an unreasonable exaggeration=
, an
accumulated, inherited exaggeration, of the idea of property. He says the i=
dea
of private property, which is just and reasonable in relation to intimate
personal things, to clothes, appliances, books, one's home or apartments, t=
he
garden one loves or the horse one rides, has become unreasonably exaggerated
until it obsesses the world; that the freedom we have given men to claim an=
d own
and hold the land upon which we must live, the fuel we burn, the supplies of
food and metal we require, the railways and ships upon which our business g=
oes,
and to fix what prices they like to exact for all these services, leads to =
the
impoverishment and practical enslavement of the mass of mankind.
And so he comes to
his second main generalization, which I may perhaps set out in these words:=
--
The idea of the
private ownership of things and the rights of owners is enormously and
mischievously exaggerated in the contemporary world. The conception of priv=
ate
property has been extended to land, to material, to the values and resources
accumulated by past generations, to a vast variety of things that are prope=
rly
the inheritance of the whole race. As a result of this, there is much
obstruction and waste of human energy and a huge loss of opportunity and
freedom for the mass of mankind; progress is retarded, there is a vast amou=
nt
of avoidable wretchedness, cruelty and injustice.
The Socialist hol=
ds
that the community as a whole should be inalienably the owner and administr=
ator
of the land, of raw materials, of values and resources accumulated from the
past, and that private property must be of a terminable nature, reverting to
the community, and subject to the general welfare.
This is the secon=
d of
the twin generalizations upon which the edifice of modern Socialism rests. =
Like
the first, and like the practical side of all sound religious teaching, it =
is a
specific application of one general rule of conduct, and that is the
subordination of the individual motive to the happiness and welfare of the
species.
§ 8.
But now the reader
unaccustomed to Socialist discussion will begin to see the crude form of the
answer to the question raised by the previous chapter; he will see the
resources from which the enlargement of human life we there contemplated is=
to
be derived, and realize the economic methods to be pursued. Collective
ownership is the necessary corollary of collective responsibility. There ar=
e to
be no private land owners, no private bankers and lenders of money, no priv=
ate insurance
adventurers, no private railway owners nor shipping owners, no private mine
owners, oil kings, silver kings, coal and wheat forestallers or the like. A=
ll
this realm of property is to be resumed by the State, is to be State-owned =
and
State-managed, and the vast revenues that are now devoted to private ends w=
ill
go steadily to feed, maintain and educate a new and better generation, to
promote research and advance science, to build new houses, develop fresh re=
sources,
plant, plan, beautify and reconstruct the world.
CHAPTER V - THE SPIRIT OF
GAIN AND THE SPIRIT OF SERVICE=
§ 1.
We have stated now
how the constructive plan of Socialism aims to replace the accepted ideas a=
bout
two almost fundamental human relations by broader and less fiercely egotist=
ical
conceptions; how it denies a man "property" rights over his wife =
and
children, leaving, however, all his other relations with them intact, how it
would insure and protect their welfare, and how it asserts that a vast rang=
e of
inanimate things also which are now held as private property must be regard=
ed
as the inalienable possession of the whole community. This change in the ci=
rcle
of ideas (as the Herbartians put it) is the essence of the Socialist projec=
t.
It means no little
change. It means a general change in the spirit of living; it means a change
from the spirit of gain (which now necessarily rules our lives) to the spir=
it
of service.
I have tried to s=
how
in the preceding chapter that Socialism seeks to make life less squalid and
cruel, less degrading and dwarfing for the children that are born into it, =
and
I have tried also to make clear that realization of, and revolt against, the
bad management and waste and muddle which result from our present economic
system. I want now to point out that Socialism seeks to ennoble the intimate
personal life, by checking and discouraging passions that at present run ra=
mpant,
and by giving wider scope for passions that are now thwarted and subdued. T=
he
Socialist declares that life is now needlessly dishonest, base and mean,
because our present social organization, such as it is, makes an altogether=
too
powerful appeal to some of the very meanest elements in our nature.
Not perhaps to the
lowest. There can be no disputing that our present civilization does discou=
rage
much of the innate bestiality of man; that it helps people to a measure of
continence, cleanliness and mutual toleration; that it does much to suppress
brute violence, the spirit of lawlessness, cruelty and wanton destruction. =
But
on the other hand it does also check and cripple generosity and frank truth=
fulness,
any disinterested creative passion, the love of beauty, the passion for tru=
th
and research, and it stimulates avarice, parsimony, overreaching, usury,
falsehood and secrecy, by making money-getting its criterion of intercourse=
.
Whether we like i= t or not, we who live in this world to-day find we must either devote a consider= able amount of our attention to getting and keeping money, and shape our activities--or, if you will, distort them--with a constant reference to that process, or we must accept futility. Whatever powers men want to exercise, whatever service they wish to do, it is a preliminary condition for most of them that they must, by earning something or selling something, achieve opportunity. If they cannot turn their gift into some saleable thing or get some propertied man to "patronize" them, they cannot exercise the= se gifts. The gift for getting is the supreme gift--all others bow before it.<= o:p>
Now this is not a=
thing
that comes naturally out of the quality of man; it is the result of a blind=
and
complex social growth, of this set of ideas working against that, and of th=
ese
influences modifying those. The idea of property has run wild and become a
choking universal weed. It is not the natural master-passion of a wholesome=
man
to want constantly to own. People talk of Socialism as being a proposal
"against human nature," and they would have us believe that this =
life
of anxiety, of parsimony and speculation, of mercenary considerations and
forced toil we all lead, is the complete and final expression of the social
possibilities of the human soul. But, indeed, it is only quite abnormal peo=
ple,
people of a narrow, limited, specialized intelligence, Rockefellers, Morgan=
s and
the like, people neither great nor beautiful, mere financial monomaniacs, w=
ho
can keep themselves devoted to and concentrated upon gain. To the majority =
of capable
good human stuff, buying and selling, saving and investing, insuring oneself
and managing property, is a mass of uncongenial, irrational and tiresome
procedure, conflicting with the general trend of instinct and the finer
interests of life. The great mass of men and women, indeed, find the whole
process so against nature, that in spite of all the miseries of poverty, all
the slavery of the economic disadvantage, they cannot urge themselves to th=
is
irksome cunning game of besting the world, they remain poor. Most, in a sor=
t of
despair, make no effort; many resort to that floundering endeavour to get b=
y accident,
gambling; many achieve a precarious and unsatisfactory gathering of
possessions, a few houses, a claim on a field, a few hundred pounds in some
investment as incalculable as a kite in a gale; just a small minority have =
and
get--for the most part either inheritors of riches or energetic people who,
through a real dulness toward the better and nobler aspects of life, can gi=
ve
themselves almost entirely to grabbing and accumulation. To such as these, =
all common
men who are not Socialists do in effect conspire to give the world.
The Anti-Socialist
argues that out of this evil of encouraged and stimulated avarice comes goo=
d,
and that this peculiar meanly greedy type that predominates in the
individualist world to-day, the Rockefeller-Harriman type, "creates&qu=
ot;
great businesses, exploits the possibilities of nature, gives mankind railw=
ays,
power, commodities. As a matter of fact, a modern intelligent community is
quite capable of doing all these things infinitely better for itself, and t=
he beneficent
influence of commerce may easily become, and does easily become, the basis =
of a
cant. Exploitation by private persons is no doubt a necessary condition to
economic development in an illiterate community of low intelligence, just as
flint implements marked a necessary phase in the social development of mank=
ind;
but to-day the avaricious getter, like some obsolescent organ in the body,
consumes strength and threatens health. And to-day he is far more mischievo=
us than
ever he was before, because of the weakened hold of the old religious
organization upon his imagination. For the most part the great fortunes of =
the
modern world have been built up by proceedings either not socially benefici=
al,
or in some cases positively harmful. Consider some of the commoner methods =
of
growing rich. There is first the selling of rubbish for money, exemplified =
by
the great patent medicine fortunes and the fortunes achieved by the debasem=
ent
of journalism, the sale of prize-competition magazines and the like; next t=
here
is forestalling, the making of "corners" in such commodities as c=
orn,
nitrates, borax and the like; then there is the capture of what Americans c=
all
"franchises," securing at low terms by expedients that usually wi=
ll
not bear examination, the right to run some profitable public service for
private profit which would be better done in public hands--the various priv=
ate
enterprises for urban traffic, for example; then there are the various more=
or
less complex financial operations, watering stock, "reconstructing,&qu=
ot;
"shaking out" the ordinary shareholder, which transfer the saving=
s of
the common struggling person to the financial magnate. All the activities in
this list are more or less anti-social, yet it is by practising them that t=
he
great successes of recent years have been achieved. Fortunes of a second ra=
nk
have no doubt been made by building up manufactures and industries of vario=
us
types by persons who have known how to buy labour cheap, organize it well a=
nd
sell its produce dear, but even in these cases the social advantage of the =
new
product is often largely discounted by the labour conditions. It is impossi=
ble,
indeed, directly one faces current facts, to keep up the argument of the pu=
blic
good achieved by men under the incentive of gain and the necessity of that
incentive to progress and economic development.
Now not only is it
true that the subordination of our affairs to this spirit of gain placed our
world in the hands of a peculiar, acquisitive, uncreative, wary type of per=
son,
and that the mass of people hate serving the spirit of gain and are forced =
to
do so through the obsession of the whole community by this idea of Private =
Ownership,
but it is also true that even now the real driving force that gets the world
along is not that spirit at all, but the spirit of service. Even to-day it
would be impossible for the world to get along if the mass of its population
was really specialized for gain. A world of Rockefellers, Morgans and
Rothschilds would perish miserably after a vigorous campaign of mutual skin=
ning;
it is only because the common run of men is better than these profit-hunters
that any real and human things are achieved.
Let us go into th=
is
aspect of the question a little more fully, because it is one that appears =
to
be least clearly grasped by those who discuss Socialism to-day.
§ 2.
This fact must be
insisted upon, that most of the work of the world and all the good work is =
done
to-day for some other motive than gain; that profit-seeking not only is not=
the
moving power of the world but that it cannot be, that it runs counter to the
doing of effectual work in every department of life.
It is hard to know
how to set about proving a fact that is to the writer's perception so
universally obvious. One can only appeal to the intelligent reader to use h=
is
own personal observation upon the people about him. Everywhere he will see =
the
property-owner doing nothing, the profit-seeker busy with unproductive effo=
rts,
with the writing of advertisements, the misrepresentation of goods, the
concoction of a plausible prospectus and the extraction of profits from the
toil of others, while the real necessary work of the world--I don't mean th=
e labour
and toil only, but the intelligent direction, the real planning and designi=
ng
and inquiry, the management and the evolution of ideas and methods, is in t=
he
enormous majority of cases done by salaried individuals working either for a
fixed wage and the hope of increments having no proportional relation to the
work done, or for a wage varying within definite limits. All the engineering
design, all architecture, all our public services,--the exquisite work of o=
ur museum
control, for example,--all the big wholesale and retail businesses, almost =
all
big industrial concerns, mines, estates, all these things are really in the=
hands
of salaried or quasi-salaried persons now--just as they would be under
Socialism. They are only possible now because all these managers, officials,
employees are as a class unreasonably honest and loyal, are interested in t=
heir
work and anxious to do it well, and do not seek profits in every transactio=
n they
handle. Give them even a small measure of security and they are content with
interesting work; they are glad to set aside the urgent perpetual search for
personal gain that Individualists have persuaded themselves is the ruling
motive of mankind, they are glad to set these aside altogether and, as the
phrase goes, "get something done." And this is true all up and do=
wn
the social scale. A bricklayer is no good unless he can be interested in la=
ying
bricks. One knows whenever a domestic servant becomes mercenary, when she
ceases to take, as people say, "a pride in her work," and thinks =
only
of "tips" and getting, she becomes impossible. Does a signalman e=
very
time he pulls over a lever, or a groom galloping a horse, think of his
wages,--or want to?
I will confess I =
find
it hard to write with any patience and civility of this argument that human=
ity
will not work except for greed or need of money and only in proportion to t=
he
getting. It is so patently absurd. I suppose the reasonable Anti-Socialist =
will
hardly maintain it seriously with that crudity. He will qualify. He will say
that although it may be true that good work is always done for the interest=
of
the doing or in the spirit of service, yet in order to get and keep people =
at
work, and to keep the standard high through periods of indolence and
distraction, there must be the dread of dismissal and the stimulating eye of
the owner. That certainly puts the case a good deal less basely and much mo=
re
plausibly.
There is, perhaps,
this much truth in that, that most people do need a certain stimulus to
exertion and a certain standard of achievement to do their best, but to say
that this is provided by private ownership and can only be provided by priv=
ate
ownership is an altogether different thing. Is the British Telephone Servic=
e,
for example, kept as efficient as it is--which isn't very much, by the bye,=
in
the way of efficiency--by the protests of the shareholders or of the subscr=
ibers?
Does the grocer's errand-boy loiter any less than his brother who carries t=
he
Post Office telegrams? In the matter of the public milk supply, again, would
not an intelligently critical public anxious for its milk good and early be=
a
far more formidable master than a speculative proprietor in the back room o=
f a
creamery? And when one comes to large business organizations managed by
officials and owned by dispersed shareholders, the contrast is all to the
advantage of the community.
No! the only prop=
er
virtues in work, the virtues that must be relied upon, and developed and
rewarded in the civilized State we Socialists are seeking to bring about, a=
re
the spirit of service and the passion for doing well, the honourable
competition not to get but to do. By sweating and debasing urgency, we get
meagrely done what we might get handsomely done by the Good Will of emancip=
ated
mankind. For all who really make, who really do, the imperative of gain is =
the inconvenience,
the enemy. Every artist, every scientific investigator, every organizer, ev=
ery
good workman, knows that. Every good architect knows that this is so and can
tell of time after time when he has sacrificed manifest profit and taken a =
loss
to get a thing done as he wanted it done, right and well; every good doctor,
too, has turned from profit and high fees to the moving and interesting cas=
e,
to the demands of knowledge and the public health; every teacher worth his =
or her
salt can witness to the perpetual struggle between business advantage and r=
ight
teaching; every writer has faced the alternative of his æsthetic duty=
and
the search for beauty on one hand and the "saleable" on the other.
All this is as true of ordinary making as of special creative work. Every
plumber capable of his business hates to have to paint his leadwork; every
carpenter knows the disgust of turning out unfinished "cheap" wor=
k,
however well it pays him; every tolerable cook can feel shame for an
unsatisfying dish, and none the less shame because by making it materials a=
re
saved and economies achieved.
And yet, with all
these facts clear as day before any observant person, we are content to liv=
e on
in an economic system that raises every man who subordinates these wholesome
prides and desires to watchful, incessant getting, over the heads of every
other type of character; that in effect gives all the power and influence in
our State to successful getters; that subordinates art, direction, wisdom a=
nd
labour to these inferior narrow men, these men who clutch and keep.
Our social system,
based on Private Ownership, encourages and glorifies this spirit of gain, a=
nd
cripples and thwarts the spirit of service. You need but have your eyes once
opened to its influence, and thereafter you will never cease to see how the
needs and imperatives of property taint the honour and dignity of human lif=
e.
Just where life should flower most freely into splendour, this chill, malig=
n obsession
most nips and cripples. The law that makes getting and keeping an imperative
necessity poisons and destroys the freedom of men and women in love, in art=
and
in every concern in which spiritual or physical beauty should be the inspir=
ing
and determining factor. Behind all the handsome professions of romantic nat=
ures
the gaunt facts of monetary necessity remain the rulers of life. Every youth
who must sell his art and capacity for gain, every girl who must sell herse=
lf
for money, is one more sacrifice to the Minotaur of Private Ownership--befo=
re
the Theseus of Socialism comes.
Opponents of
Socialism, ignoring all these things and inventing with that profusion whic=
h is
so remarkable a trait of the anti-Socialist campaign, are wont to declare t=
hat
we, whose first and last thought is the honour and betterment of life, seek=
to
destroy all beauty and freedom in love, accuse us of aiming at some "h=
uman
stud farm." The reader will measure the justice of that by the next
chapter, but here I would say that just as the private ownership of all tha=
t is
necessary to humanity, except the air and sunlight and a few things that it=
has
been difficult to appropriate, debases work and all the common services of
life, so also it taints and thwarts the emotions, and degrades the intimate
physical and emotional existence of an innumerable multitude of people.
All this amounts =
to a
huge impoverishment of life, a loss of beauty and discrimination of rich and
subtle values. Human existence to-day is a mere tantalizing intimation of w=
hat
it might be. It is frostbitten and dwarfed from palace to slum. It is not o=
nly
that a great mass of our population is deprived of space, beauty and pleasu=
re,
but that a large proportion of such space, beauty and pleasure as there are=
in
the world must necessarily have a meretricious taint and be in the nature of
things bought and made for pay.
§ 3.
If there is one
profession more than another in which devotion is implied and assumed, it is
that of the doctor. It happens that on the morning when this chapter was
drafted, I came upon the paragraph that follows; it seemed to me to supply =
just
one striking concrete instance of how life is degraded by our present syste=
m,
and to offer me a convenient text for a word or so more upon this question
between gain and service. It is a little vague in its reference to Mr. Tomp=
kins
"of Birmingham," and I should not be surprised if it were a consi=
derable
exaggeration of what really happened. But it is true enough to life in this,
that it is a common practice, a necessity with doctors in poor neighbourhoo=
ds
to insist inexorably upon a fee before attendance.
"A case of medical
inhumanity is reported from Birmingham. A poor man named To=
mpkins
was taken seriously ill early on Christmas morning=
, and
although snow was falling and the atmosphere was te=
rribly
raw, his wife left the house in search of a doctor. The
nearest practitioner declined to leave the house without bei=
ng
paid his fee; a second imposed the same condition, and the
woman then went to the police station. As the horse ambulan=
ce was
out, they could not help her, and she tried other docto=
rs. In
all the poor woman called on eight, and the only one =
who
did not decline to get up without his fee was down with
influenza. Eventually a local chemist was persuaded to see =
the
man, and he ordered his removal to the hospital."
That is the story.
You note the charge of "inhumanity" in the very first line, and in
much subsequent press comment there was the same note. Apparently every one
expects a doctor to be ready at any point in the day or night to attend any=
body
for nothing. Most Socialists are disposed to agree with the spirit of that
expectation. A practising doctor should be in lifelong perpetual war against
pain and disease, just as a campaigning soldier is continually alert and
serving. But existing conditions will not permit that. Existing conditions
require the doctor to get his fee at any cost; if he goes about doing work =
for nothing,
they punish him with shabbiness and incapacitating need, they forbid his
marriage or doom his wife and children to poverty and unhappiness. A doctor
must make money whatever else he does or does not do; he must secure his fe=
es.
He is a private adventurer, competing in a crowded market for gain, and kee=
ping
his energies perforce for those who can pay best for them. To expect him to
behave like a public servant whose income and outlook are secure, or like a=
priest
whose church will never let him want or starve, is ridiculous. If you put h=
im
on a footing with the greengrocer and coal merchant, you must expect him to
behave like a tradesman. Why should the press blame the poor doctor of a po=
or
neighbourhood because a moneyless man goes short of medical attendance, whe=
n it
does not for one moment blame Mr. J. D. Rockefeller because a poor man goes
short of oil, or the Duke of Devonshire because tramps need lodgings in
Eastbourne? One never reads this sort of paragraph:--
"A case of commer=
cial
inhumanity is reported from Birmingham. A poor man named
Tompkins was seriously hungry early on Christmas morning=
, and
although snow was falling and the atmosphere was te=
rribly
raw, his wife left the house in search of food. The near=
est
grocer declined to supply provisions without being pai=
d his
price; a second imposed the same condition, and the
woman then went to the police station. As that is not a sou=
p-kitchen,
they could not help her, and she tried other groce=
rs and
bread-shops. In all the poor woman called on eight, =
and
the only one who did not decline to supply food witho=
ut
payment was for some reason bankrupt and out of stock. Eve=
ntually
a local overseer was persuaded to see the man, and he o=
rdered
his removal to the workhouse, where, after considerable
hardship, he was partly appeased with skilly."
I, myself, have k=
nown
an overworked, financially worried doctor at his bedroom window call out,
"Have you brought the fee?" and have pitied and understood his ug=
ly
alternatives. "Once I began that sort of thing," he explained to =
me a
little apologetically, "they'd none of them pay--none."
The Socialist's
remedy for this squalid state of affairs is plain and simple. Medicine is a
public service, an honourable devotion; it should no more be a matter of
profit-making than the food-supply service or the house-supply service--or
salvation. It should be a part of the organization of a civilized State to =
have
a Public Health service of well-paid, highly-educated men distributed over =
the
country and closely correlated with public research departments and a reser=
ve of
specialists, who would be as ready and eager to face dangers and to sacrifi=
ce
themselves for honour and social necessity as soldiers or sailors. I believe
every honourable man in the medical profession under forty now would rather=
it
were so. It is, indeed, a transition from private enterprise to public
organization that is already beginning. We have the first intimation of the
change in the appearance of the medical officer of health, underpaid,
overworked and powerless though he is at the present time. It cannot be long
before the manifest absurdity of our present conditions begins a process of=
socialization
of the medical profession entirely analogous to that which has changed
three-fourths of the teachers in Great Britain from private adventurers to
public servants in the last forty years.
And that is the a=
im
of Socialism all along the line; to convert one public service after another
from a chaotic profit-scramble of proprietors amidst a mass of sweated
employees into a secure and disciplined service, in which every man will wo=
rk
for honour, promotion, achievement and the commonweal.
I write a
"secure and disciplined service," and I intend by that not simply=
an
exterior but an interior discipline. Let us have done with this unnatural
theory that men may submit unreservedly to the guidance of
"self-interest." Self-interest never took a man or a community to=
any
other end than damnation. For all services there is necessary a code of hon=
our
and devotion which a man must set up for himself and obey, to which he must
subordinate a number of his impulses. The must is seconded by an internal
imperative. Men and women want to have a code of honour. In the army, for
example, there is among the officers particularly, a tradition of courage,
cleanliness and good form, more imperative than any law; in the little band=
of
men who have given the world all that we mean by science, the little host of
volunteers and underpaid workers who have achieved the triumphs of research,
there is a tradition of self-abnegation and of an immense, painstaking, sel=
f-forgetful
veracity. These traditions work. They add something to the worth of every m=
an
who comes under them.
Every writer, aga=
in,
knows clearly the difference between gain-seeking and doing good work, and =
few
there are who have not at times done something, as they say, "to please
themselves." Then in the studio, for all the non-moral protests of
Bohemia, there is a tradition, an admirable tradition, of disregard for
mercenary imperatives, a scorn of shams and plagiarism that triumphs again =
and
again over economic laws. The public services of the coming civilization wi=
ll
demand, and will develop, a far completer discipline and tradition of honou=
r. Against
the development and persistence of all such honourable codes now, against e=
very
attempt at personal nobility, at a new chivalry, at sincere artistry, our
present individualist system wages pitiless warfare, says in effect,
"Fools you are! Look at Rockefeller! Look at Pierpont Morgan! Get mone=
y!
All your sacrifices only go to their enrichment. You cannot serve humanity
however much you seek to do so. They block your way, enormously receptive of
all you give. All the increment of human achievement goes to them--they own=
it
a priori.... Get money! Money is freedom to do, to keep, to rule. Do you ca=
re
nothing for your wives and children? Are you content to breed servants and
dependants for the children of these men? Make things beautiful, make things
abundant, make life glorious! Fools! if you work and sacrifice yourselves a=
nd
do not get, they will possess. Your sons shall be the loan-monger's employe=
es,
your daughters handmaidens to the millionaire. Or, if you cannot face that,=
go childless,
and let your life-work gild the palace of the millionaire's still more
acquisitive descendants!"
Who can ignore the
base scramble for money under these alternatives?
§ 4.
Let me here inser=
t a
very brief paragraph to point out one particular thing, and that is that
Socialism does not propose to "abolish competition"--as many hasty
and foolish antagonists declare. If the reader has gone through what has
preceded this he will know that this is not so. Socialism trusts to
competition, looks to competition for the service and improvement of the wo=
rld.
And in order that competition between man and man may have free play, Socia=
lism
seeks to abolish one particular form of competition, the competition to get=
and
hold property--even to marry property, that degrades our present world. But=
it
would leave men free to compete for fame, for service, for salaries, for
position and authority, for leisure, for love and honour.
§ 5.
And now let me ta=
ke
up certain difficulties the student of Socialism encounters. He comes thus =
far
perhaps with the Socialist argument, and then his imagination gets to work
trying to picture a world in which a moiety of the population, perhaps even=
the
larger moiety, is employed by the State, and in which the whole population =
is
educated by the State and insured of a decent and comfortable care and
subsistence during youth and old age. He then begins to think of how all th=
is
vast organization is to be managed, and with that his real difficulties beg=
in.
Now I for one am
prepared to take these difficulties very seriously, as the latter part of t=
his
book will show. I will even go so far as to say that, to my mind, the
contemporary Socialist controversialist meets all this system of objections=
far
too cavalierly. These difficulties are real difficulties for the convinced
Socialist as for the inquirer; they open up problems that have still to be
solved before the equipment of Socialism is complete. "How will you So=
cialists
get the right men in the right place for the work that has to be done? How =
will
you arrange promotion? How will you determine" (I put the argument in =
its
crudest form) "who is to engage in historical research in the Bodleian,
and who is to go out seaward in November and catch mackerel?" Such
"posers"--they have a thousand variants--convey the spirit of the
living resistance to Socialism; they explain why every rational man is not =
an
enraptured Socialist at the present time.
Throughout the re=
st
of this book I hope that the reader will be able to see growing together in
this aspect and then in that, in this and that suggestion, the complex solu=
tion
of this complex system of difficulties. My object in raising them now is no=
t to
dispose of them, but to give them the fullest recognition--and to ask the
student to read on. In all these matters the world is imperfect now, and it
will still be imperfect under Socialism--though, I firmly believe, with an =
infinitely
lesser and altogether nobler imperfection.
But I do want to
point out here that though these are reasonable and, to all undogmatic men,
most helpful criticisms of the Socialist design, they are no sort of
justification for things as they are. All the difficulties that the ordinary
exposition of Socialism seems to leave unsolved are at least equally not so=
lved
now. Only rarely does the right man seem to struggle to his place of adequa=
te
opportunity. Men and women get their chance in various ways; some of implac=
able
temper and versatile gifts thrust themselves to the position they need for =
the
exercise of their powers; others display an astonishing facility in securing
honours and occasions they can then only waste; others, outside their speci=
fic
gift, are the creatures of luck or the victims of modesty, tactlessness or
incapacity. Most of the large businesses of the world now are in the hands =
of
private proprietors and managed either directly by an owner or by directors=
or
managers acting for directors. The quality of promotion or the recognition =
of capacity
varies very much in these great concerns, but they are on the whole probably
inferior to the public services. Even where the administration is keenest it
must be remembered it is not seeking the men who work the machine best, but=
the
men who can work it cheapest and with the maximum of profit. It is pure
romancing to represent the ordinary business magnate as being in perpetual
search for capacity among the members of his staff. He wants them to get al=
ong
and not make trouble.
Among the smaller
businesses that still, I suppose, constitute the bulk of the world's econom=
ic
body, capacity is enormously hampered. I was once an apprentice in a chemis=
t's
shop, and also once in a draper's--two of my brothers have been shop
assistants, and so I am still able to talk understandingly with clerks and
employees, and I know that in all that world all sorts of minor considerati=
ons
obstruct the very beginnings of efficient selection. Every shop is riddled =
with
jealousies, "sucking up to the gov'nor" is the universal crime, a=
nd among
the women in many callings promotion is too often tainted by still baser
suspicions. No doubt in a badly criticized public service there is such a t=
hing
as "sucking up to" the head of the department, but at its worst i=
t is
not nearly so bad as things may be in a small private concern under a petty
autocrat.
In America it is =
said
that the public services are inferior in personal quality to the staffs of =
the
great private business organizations. My own impression is that, considerin=
g the
salaries paid, they are, so far as Federal concerns go, immeasurably superi=
or. In
State and municipal affairs, American conditions offer no satisfactory
criterion; the Americans are, for reasons I have discussed elsewhere,[8] a
"State-blind" people concentrated upon private getting; they have
been negligent of public concerns, and the public appointments have been le=
ft
to the peculiarly ruffianly type of politician their unfortunate Constituti=
on
and their individualist traditions have evolved. In England, too, public
servants are systematically undersalaried, so that the big businesses have
merely to pay reasonably well to secure the pick of the national capacity. =
Moreover,
it must be remembered by the reader that the public services do not adverti=
se,
and that the private businesses do; so that while there is the fullest
ventilation of any defects in our military or naval organization, there is a
very considerable check upon the discussion of individualist incapacity. An
editor will rush into print with the flimsiest imputations upon the breech =
of a
new field-gun or the housing of the militia at Aldershot, but he thinks twi=
ce
before he proclaims that the preserved fruits that pay his proprietor a tri=
bute
of some hundreds a year are an unwholesome embalmment of decay. On the whol=
e it
is probable that in spite of scandalously bad pay and of the embarrassment =
of
party considerations, the British Navy, Post Office, and Civil Service
generally, and the educational work and much of the transit and building wo=
rk of
the London County Council and of many of the greater English and Scotch
municipalities, are as well managed as any private businesses in the world.=
[8] The Future in Amer=
ica,
Ch. IX. (Chapman & Hall, 1906.)
On the other hand,
one must admit there are political and social conditions that can carry the
quality of the State service almost as low as the lowest type of private
enterprise. It is little marvel that under the typical eighteenth century
monarchy, when the way to ship, regiment and the apostolic succession alike=
lay
through the ante-chamber of the king's mistress, there was begotten that
absolute repudiation of State Control to which Herbert Spencer was destined=
at last
to give the complete expression, that irrational, passionate belief that wh=
atever
else is right the State is necessarily incompetent and wrong....
The gist of this
matter seems to be that where you have honourable political institutions, f=
ree
speech and a general high level of intelligence and education, you will hav=
e an
efficient criticism of men and their work and powers, and you will get a
wholesome system of public promotion and many right men in the right place.=
The
higher the collective intelligence, that is to say, the higher is the
collective possibility. Under Socialist institutions which will give educat=
ion and
a sense of personal security to every one, this necessity of criticism is
likely to be most freely, frankly and disinterestedly provided. But it is w=
ell
to keep in mind the entire dependence of Socialism upon a high level of
intelligence, education and freedom. Socialist institutions, as I understand
them, are only possible in a civilized State, in a State in which the whole
population can read, write, discuss, participate and in a considerable meas=
ure
understand. Education must precede the Socialist State. Socialism, modern S=
ocialism
that is to say, such as I am now concerned with, is essentially an expositi=
on
of and training in certain general ideas; it is impossible in an illiterate
community, a basely selfish community, or in a community without the capaci=
ty
to use the machinery and the apparatus of civilization. At the best, and it=
is
a poor best, a stupid, illiterate population can but mock Socialism with a =
sort
of bureaucratic tyranny; for a barbaric population too large and various for
the folk-meeting, there is nothing but monarchy and the ownership of the ki=
ng;
for a savage tribe, tradition and the undocumented will of the strongest ma=
les.
Socialism, I will admit, presupposes intelligence, and demands as fundament=
al
necessities schools, organized science, literature and a sense of the State=
.
CHAPTER VI - WOULD SOCIAL=
ISM
DESTROY THE HOME?
§ 1.
For reasons that = will become clearer when we tell something of the early history and development = of Socialism, the Socialist propositions with regard to the family lie open to certain grave misconceptions. People are told--and told quite honestly and believingly--that Socialism will destroy the home, will substitute a sort of human stud farm for that warm and intimate nest of human life, will bring up our children in incubators and crèches and--Institutions generally.<= o:p>
But before we com=
e to
what modern Socialists do desire in these matters, it may be well to consid=
er
something of the present reality of the home people are so concerned about.=
The
reader must not idealize. He must not shut his eyes to facts, dream, as Lord
Hugh Cecil and Lord Robert Cecil--those admirable champions of a bad cause-=
-probably
do, of a beautiful world of homes, orderly, virtuous, each a little human
fastness, each with its porch and creeper, each with its books and harmoniu=
m,
its hymn-singing on Sunday night, its dear mother who makes such wonderful
cakes, its strong and happy father--and then say, "These wicked Social=
ists
want to destroy all this." Because, in the first place, such homes are
being destroyed and made impossible now by the very causes against which
Socialism fights, and because in this world at the present time very few ho=
mes
are at all like this ideal. In reality every poor home is haunted by the sp=
ectre
of irregular employment and undermined by untrustworthy insurance, it must
shelter in insanitary dwellings and its children eat adulterated food becau=
se
none other can be got. And that, I am sorry to say, it is only too easy to
prove, by a second appeal to a document of which I have already made use.
One hears at times
still of the austere, virtuous, kindly, poor Scotch home, one has a vision =
of
the "Cottar's Saturday night." "Perish all other dreams,&quo=
t;
one cries, "rather than that such goodness and simplicity should
end." But now let us look at the average poor Scotch home, and compare=
it
with our dream.
Here is the reali=
ty.
These entries come
from the recently published Edinburgh Charity Organization Society's report
upon the homes of about fourteen hundred school-children, that is to say, a=
bout
eight hundred Scotch homes. Remember they are sample homes. They are, as I =
have
already suggested by quoting authorities for London and York--and as any di=
strict
visitor will recognize--little worse and little better than the bulk of poor
people's homes in Scotland and England at the present time. I am just going=
to
copy down--not a selection, mind--but a series of consecutive entries taken
haphazard from this implacable list. My last quotation was from cases 1, 2,=
3
and so on; I've now thrust my fingers among the pages and come upon numbers=
191
and 192, etc. Here they are, one after the other, just as they come in the =
list:--
"191. A widow and=
child
lodging with a married son. Three grown-up people a=
nd
three children occupy one room and bed-closet. The w=
idow
leads a wandering life, and is intemperate. The =
house
is thoroughly bad and insanitary. The child is pallid a=
nd
delicate looking, and receives little attention, for the
mother is usually out working. He plays in the streets. Five
children are dead. Boy has glands and is fleabitten. Evide=
nce
from Police, School Officer and Employer.
"192. A miserable=
home.
Father dead. Mother and eldest son careless and
indifferent. Of the five children, the two eldest are grown up. The=
elder
girl is working, and she is of a better type and m=
ight
do well under better circumstances; she looks overworked.=
The
mother is supposed to char; she gets parish relief, and one child earns =
out of
school hours. Four children are dead=
. The
children at school are dirty and ragged. The mother
could get work if she did not drink. The children at schoo=
l get
free dinners and clothing, and the family is favoura=
bly
reported on by the Church. The second child impetigo; n=
eck
glands; body dirty. The third, glands; dirty and fleabit=
ten.
Housing: six in two small rooms. Evidence from Par=
ish
Sister, Parish Council, School Charity, Police, Teacher,
Children's Employment and School Officer.
"193. A widow,
apparently respectable and well-doing, but may drink. She must i=
n any
case have a struggle to maintain her family, though sh=
e has
much help from Parish, Church, etc. She works out. The ch=
ildren
at school are fed, and altogether a large amount of c=
harity
must be received, as two Churches have interested themse=
lves
in the matter. Three children dead. Housing: three in=
two
tiny rooms. Evidence from Church, Parish Council, School
Charity, Police, Parish Sister, Teacher, Insurance and Fac=
tor.
"194. The father
drinks, and, to a certain extent, the mother; but the home is t=
idy
and clean, and the rent is regularly paid. Indeed, the=
re is
no sign of poverty. There is a daughter who has got into
trouble. Only two children out of nine are alive. The father=
comes
from the country and seems intelligent enough, but he ap=
pears
to have degenerated. They go to a mission, it is be=
lieved
for what they can get from it. Housing: four in =
two
rooms. Evidence from Club, Church, Factor and Police.
"195. The husband=
is
intemperate. The mother is quiet, but it is feared that she
drinks also. She seems to have lost control of her little boy=
of
seven. The parents married very young, and the first chi=
ld was
born before the marriage. The man's work is not regul=
ar,
and probably things are not improving with him. Still, =
the
house is fairly comfortable, and they pay club money regula=
rly,
and have a good police report. One child has died. Housing=
: five
in two rooms. Evidence from Parish Sister, Police, C=
lub,
Employer, School-mistress and Factor.
"196. A filthy, d=
irty
house. The most elementary notions of cleanliness seem
disregarded. The father's earnings are not large, and the ho=
use is
insanitary, but more might be made of things if there w=
ere
sobriety and thrift. There does not, however, appear t=
o be
great drunkenness, and five small children must be
difficult to bring up on the money coming in. There are two wom=
en in
the house. The eldest child dirty and fleabitten. Housi=
ng:
seven in two rooms. Evidence from Police, Club, Employer,
School-mistress and School Officer.
"197. The parents= are thoroughly drunken and dissolute. They have sunk almost = to the lowest depths of social degradation. There is no furni= ture in the house, and the five children are neglected and sta= rved. One boy earns a trifle out of school hours. All accoun= ts agree as to the character of the father and mother, thoug= h they have not been in the hands of the police. Second ch= ild has rickets, bronchitis, slight glands and is bow-legged= . Two children have died. Housing: seven in two rooms. Eviden= ce from Police, Parish Sister, Employer and School-mistress.<= o:p>
"198. This house = is fairly comfortable, and there is no evidence of drink= , but the surroundings have a bad and depressing effect= on the parents. The children are sent to school very untidy and dirty, and a= re certainly underfed. The father's wages ar= e very small, and only one boy is working; there are six altogether. The mother chars occasionally. Food and clothing is g= iven to school-children. The man is in a saving club. The eldest= child fleabitten; body unwashed. The second, glands; fleabitten and dirty; cretinoid; much undergrown. Two h= ave died. Housing: seven in two rooms. Evidence from Sch= ool Charity, Factor, Police and School-mistress.<= o:p>
"199. The house w=
as
fairly comfortable and the man appeared to be intelligent an=
d the
wife hard-working, but the police reports are very =
bad;
there are several convictions against the former. He has
consequently been idle, and the burden of the family has re=
sted
on the wife. There are six children, two of them are worki=
ng and
earning a little, but a large amount of charity from s=
chool,
church and private generosity keeps the family going.=
The
children are fearfully verminous. There is a suggestion t=
hat
some baby farming is done, so many are about. Eldest chi=
ld
anæmic; glands; head badly crusted; lice very bad. Second =
child,
numerous glands; head covered with crusts; lice very=
bad.
Four have died. Housing: eight in two rooms. Evidence f=
rom
Police, Teacher, Church, Parish Sister and Factor.
"200. The home is
wretched and practically without furniture. The parents were
married at ages 17 and 18. One child died, and their mode of=
life
has been reckless, if not worse. The present means of
subsistence cannot be ascertained, as the man is idle; however,=
he
recently joined the Salvation Army and signed the pledge=
. The
child at school is helped with food and clothes. The girl=
very
badly bitten; lice and fleas, hair nits. Housing: fo=
ur in
one room. Evidence from Church, School Charity, Co-opera=
tive,
Employer, Parish Sister, Police and School-mistress.&=
quot;
Total of children
still living, 39.
Total of children
dead, 27.
Need I go on? They
are all after this fashion, eight hundred of them.
And if you turn f=
rom
the congested town to the wholesome, simple country, here is the sort of ho=
me
you have. This passage is a cutting from the Daily News of Jan. 1, 1907; and
its assertions have never been contradicted. It fills one with only the mil=
dest
enthusiasm for the return of our degenerate townsmen "back to the
land." I came upon it as I read that morning's paper after drafting th=
is
chapter.
"Our attention ha=
s been
called to a sordid Herefordshire tragedy recently
revealed at an inquest on a child aged one year and nine mon=
ths,
who died in Weobly Workhouse of pneumonia. She en=
tered
the institution emaciated to half the proper weight of =
her
age and with a broken arm--till then undiscovered--tha=
t the
doctors found to be of about three weeks' standing. =
Her
mother was shown to be in an advanced stage of consumpt=
ion;
one child had died at the age of seven months, and seven=
now
remain. The father, whose work consists in tending eighty=
-nine
head of cattle and ten pigs, is in receipt of eleven
shillings a week, three pints of skim milk a day, and a cottag=
e that
has been condemned by the sanitary inspector and des=
cribed
as having no bedroom windows. We are not surprised to =
learn
that the coroner, before taking the verdict, asked the
house surgeon, who gave evidence, whether he could say that=
death
'was accelerated by anything.' Our wonder is that the
reply was in the negative. The cottage is in the possession=
of
the farmer who employs the man, but his landlord is said =
to be
liable for repairs. That landlord is a clergyman of the =
Church
of England, a J.P., a preserver of game, and owner of
three or four thousand acres of land."
And here, again, =
is
the Times, by no means a Socialist organ, generalizing from official
statements:--
"Houses unfit for=
human
habitation, rooms destitute of light and ventilation,
overcrowding in rural cottages, contaminated water supplies,
accumulations of every description of filth and refuse, a tot=
al
absence of drainage, a reign of unbelievable dirt=
in
milk-shops and slaughter-houses, a total neglect of bye-la=
ws,
and an inadequate supervision by officials who are
frequently incompetent; such, in a general way, is the pictu=
re
that is commonly presented in the reports of inquiries in c=
ertain
rural districts made by medical officers of the L=
ocal
Government Board."
And even of such
homes as this there is an insufficiency. In 1891-95, more than a quarter of=
the
deaths in London occurred in workhouses and other charitable institutions.[=
9]
Now suppose the modern Socialist did want to destroy the home; suppose that
some Socialists have in the past really wanted to do so, remember that that=
is
the reality they wanted to destroy.
[9] Studies Scientific=
and
Social, Vol. II., Ch. XXIV.; by =
Dr.
Alfred Russel Wallace. (Macmillan & Co., 1900.)
But does the mode=
rn
Socialist want to destroy the home? Rather, I hold, he wants to save it fro=
m a
destruction that is even now going on, to--I won't say restore it, because I
have very grave doubts if the world has ever yet held a high percentage of =
good
homes, but raise it to the level of its better realizations of happiness and
security. And it is not only I say this, but all my fellow Socialists say i=
t too.
Read, for example, that admirable paper, "Economic and Social Justice,=
"
in Dr. Alfred Russel Wallace's Studies Scientific and Social, and you will =
have
the clearest statement of the attitude of a representative modern Socialist=
to
this question.
§ 2.
The reader must g=
et
quite out of his head the idea that the present system maintains the home a=
nd
social purity.
In London at the
present time there are thousands of prostitutes; in Paris, in Berlin, in ev=
ery
great city of Europe or America, thousands; in the whole of Christendom the=
re
cannot be less than a million of these ultimate instances of our civilizati=
on.
They are the logical extremity of a civilization based on cash payments. Ea=
ch
of these women represents a smashed and ruined home and wasted possibilitie=
s of
honour, service and love, each one is so much sheer waste. For the food they
consume, their clothing, their lodging, they render back nothing to the
community as a whole, and only a gross, dishonouring satisfaction to their
casual employers. And don't imagine they are inferior women, that there has
been any selection of the unfit in their sterilization; they are, one may s=
ee
for oneself, well above the average in physical vigour, in spirit and beaut=
y.
Few of them have come freely to their trade, the most unnatural in the worl=
d;
few of them have anything but shame and loathing for their life; and most o=
f them
must needs face their calling fortified by drink and drugs. For virtuous pe=
ople
do not begin to understand the things they endure. But it pays to be a
prostitute, it does not pay to be a mother and a home-maker, and the gist of
the present system of individual property is that a thing must pay to exist=
....
So much for one aspect of our present system of a "world of homes.&quo=
t;
Consider next the
great army of employed men and women, shop assistants, clerks, and so forth,
living in, milliners, typists, teachers, servants who have practically no
prospect whatever of marrying and experiencing those domestic blisses the
Socialist is supposed to want to rob them of. They are involuntary monks and
nuns, celibate not from any high or religious motive, but through economic =
hardship.
Consider all that amount of pent-up, thwarted or perverted emotional
possibility, the sheer irrational waste of life implied....
We have glanced at
the reality of the family among the poor; what is it among the rich? Does t=
he
wealthy mother of the upper middle-class or upper class really sit among her
teeming children, teaching them in an atmosphere of love and domestic
exaltation? As a matter of fact she is a conspicuously devoted woman if she
gives them an hour a day--the rest of the time they spend with nurse or
governess, and when they are ten or eleven off they go to board at the
preparatory school. Whenever I find among my press-cuttings some particular=
ly
scathing denunciation of Socialists as home-destroyers, as people who want =
to
snatch the tender child from the weeping mother to immure it in some terrib=
le wholesale
institution, I am apt to walk out into my garden, from which three
boarding-schools for little children of the prosperous classes are visible,=
and
rub my eyes and renew that sight and marvel at my kind....
Consider now, with
these things in mind, the real drift of the first main Socialist propositio=
n,
and compare its tendency with these contemporary conditions. Socialism rega=
rds
parentage under proper safeguards and good auspices as "not only a duty
but a service" to the State; that is to say it proposes to pay for good
parentage--in other words to endow the home. Socialism comes not to destroy=
but
to save.
And how will the
endowment be done? Very probably it will be found that the most convenient =
and
best method of doing this will be to subsidize the mother--who is, or should
be, the principal person concerned in this affair--for her children; to ass=
ist
her, not as a charity, but as a right in the period before the birth of her=
anticipated
child, and afterwards to provide her with support for that child so long as=
it
is kept clean in a tolerable home, in good health, well taught and properly
clad. It will say to the sound mothering woman, Not type-writing, nor
shirt-sewing, nor charing is your business--these children are. Neglect the=
m,
ill-treat them, prove incompetent, and your mother-right will cease and we
shall take them away from you and do what we can for them; love them, serve
them and, through them, the State, and you will serve yourself. Is that des=
troying
the home? Is it not rather the rescue of the home from economic destruction=
?
Certain restricti=
ons,
it is true, upon our present way of doing things would follow almost
necessarily from the adoption of these methods. It is manifest that no
intelligent State would willingly endow the homes of hopelessly diseased
parents, of imbecile fathers or mothers, of obstinately criminal persons or
people incapable of education. It is evident, too, that the State would not
tolerate chance fatherhood, that it would insist very emphatically upon
marriage and the purity of the home, much more emphatically than we do now.
Such a case as the one numbered 197, a beautiful instance of the sweet,
old-fashioned, homely, simple life of the poor we Socialists are supposed t=
o be
vainly endeavouring to undermine--would certainly be dealt with in a drastic
and conclusive spirit....
§ 3.
So far Socialism =
goes
toward regenerating the family and sustaining the home. But let there be no
ambiguity on one point. It will be manifest that while it would reinvigorate
and confirm the home, it does quite decidedly tend to destroy what has hith=
erto
been the most typical form of the family throughout the world, that is to s=
ay
the family which is in effect the private property of the father, the patri=
archal
family. The tradition of the family in which we are still living, we must
remember, has developed from a former state in which man owned the wife or
child as completely as he owned horse or hut. He was the family's irrespons=
ible
owner. Socialism seeks to make him and his wife its jointly responsible hea=
ds.
Until quite recently the husband might beat his wife and put all sorts of
physical constraint upon her; he might starve her or turn her out of doors;=
her
property was his; her earnings were his; her children were his. Under certa=
in circumstances
it was generally recognized he might kill her. To-day we live in a world th=
at
has faltered from the rigours of this position, but which still clings to i=
ts
sentimental consequences. The wife now-a-days is a sort of pampered and
protected half-property. If she leaves her husband for another man, it is
regarded not as a public offence on her part, but as a sort of mitigated th=
eft
on the part of the latter, entitling the former to damages. Politically she=
doesn't
exist; the husband sees to all that. But on the other hand he mustn't drive=
her
by physical force, but only by the moral pressure of disagreeable behaviour.
Nor has he the same large powers of violence over her children that once he
had. He may beat--within limits. He may dictate their education so far as h=
is
religious eccentricities go, and be generous or meagre with the supplies. He
may use his "authority" as a vague power far on into their adult
life, if he is a forcible character. But it is at its best a shorn splendou=
r he
retains. He has ceased to be an autocrat and become a constitutional monarc=
h;
the State, sustained by the growing reasonableness of the world, intervenes
more and more between him and the wife and children who were once powerless=
in
his hands.
The Socialist wou=
ld
end that old legal predominance altogether. The woman, he declares, must be=
as
important and responsible a citizen in the State as the man. She must cease=
to
be in any sense or degree private property. The man must desist from
tyrannizing in the nursery and do his proper work in the world. So far,
therefore, as the family is a name for a private property in a group of rel=
ated
human beings vesting in one of them, the Head of the Family, Socialism
repudiates it altogether as unjust and uncivilized; but so far as the famil=
y is
a grouping of children with their parents, with the support and consent and
approval of the whole community, Socialism advocates it, would make it for =
the
first time, so far as a very large moiety of our population is concerned, a
possible and efficient thing.
Moreover, as the
present writer has pointed out elsewhere,[10] this putting of the home upon=
a
public basis destroys its autonomy. Just as the Socialist and all who have =
the
cause of civilization at heart would substitute for the inefficient, wastef=
ul,
irresponsible, unqualified "private adventure school" that did su=
ch
infinite injury to middle-class education in Great Britain during the Victo=
rian
period a public school, publicly and richly endowed and responsible and con=
trolled,
so the Socialist would put an end to the uncivilized go-as-you-please of the
private adventure family. "Socialism in fact is the State family. The =
old
family of the private individual must vanish before it just as the old wate=
r-works
of private enterprise or the old gas company."[11] To any one not idio=
tic
nor blind with a passionate desire to lie about Socialism, the meaning of t=
his
passage is perfectly plain. Socialism seeks to broaden the basis of the fam=
ily and
to make the once irresponsible parent responsible to the State for its welf=
are.
Socialism creates parental responsibility.
[10] Socialism and the Famil=
y. (A.
C. Fifield. 6d.)
[11] Socialism and the Famil=
y.
§ 4.
And here we may g=
ive
a few words to certain questions that are in reality outside the scope of
Socialists altogether, special questions involving the most subtle ethical =
and
psychological decisions. Upon them Socialists are as widely divergent as pe=
ople
who are not Socialists, and Socialism as a whole presents nothing but an op=
en mind.
They are questions that would be equally open to discussion in relation to =
an
Individualist State or to any sort of State. Certain religious organizations
have given clear and imperative answers to some or all of these questions, =
and
so far as the reader is a member of such an organization, he may rest assur=
ed
that Socialism, as an authoritative whole, has nothing to say for or against
his convictions. This cannot be made too plain by Socialists, nor too frequ=
ently
repeated by them. A very large part of the so-called arguments against them
arise out of deliberate misrepresentations and misconceptions of some alleg=
ed
Socialist position in these indifferent matters.
I refer more
particularly to the numerous problems in private morality and social
organization arising from sexual conduct. May a man love one woman only in =
his
life, or more, and may a woman love only one man? Should marriage be an
irrevocable life union or not? Is sterile physical love possible, permissib=
le,
moral, honourable or intolerable? Upon all these matters individual Sociali=
sts,
like most other people, have their doubts and convictions, but it is no more
just to saddle all Socialism with their private utterances and actions upon
these issues than it would be to declare that the Roman Catholic Communion =
is
hostile to beauty because worshippers coming and going have knocked the nos=
es
off the figures on the bronze doors of the Church of San Zeno at Verona, or
that Christianity involves the cultivation of private vermin, because of the
condition of Saint Thomas à Beckett's hair shirt.[12] To argue in th=
at
way is to give up one's birthright as a reasonable being.
[12] "The haircloth enc=
ased
the whole body down to the =
knees;
the hair drawers, as well as the rest of the dress, =
being
covered on the outside with white linen so as to =
escape
observation; and the whole so fastened together as to =
admit
of being readily taken off for his daily scourgings, =
of
which yesterday's portion was still apparent in the =
stripes
on his body. Such austerity had hitherto been =
unknown
to English saints, and the marvel was increased by =
the
sight--to our notions so revolting--of the innumerable =
vermin
with which the haircloth abounded--boiling over with =
them,
as one account describes it, like water in a simmering =
cauldron.
At the dreadful sight all the enthusiasm of the =
previous
night revived with double ardour. They looked at =
each
other in silent wonder, then exclaimed, 'See, see what =
a
true monk he was, and we knew it not!' and burst into =
alternate
fits of weeping and laughter, between the sorrow =
of
having lost such a head, and the joy of having found such =
a
saint." (Historical Memorials of Canterbury, by the Rev. =
Arthur
Penrhyn Stanley, D.D.)
Upon certain poin=
ts
modern Socialism is emphatic; women and children must not be dealt with as
private property, women must be citizens equally with men, children must no=
t be
casually born, their parents must be known and worthy; that is to say there
must be deliberation in begetting children, marriage under conditions. And
there Socialism stops.
Socialism has not
even worked out what are the reasonable conditions of a State marriage
contract, and it would be ridiculous to pretend it had. This is not a defec=
t in
Socialism particularly, but a defect in human knowledge. At countless point=
s in
the tangle of questions involved, the facts are not clearly known. Socialism
does not present any theory whatever about the duration of marriage, whethe=
r,
as among the Roman Catholics, it should be absolutely for life, or, as some=
hold,
for ever; or, as among the various divorce-permitting Protestant bodies, un=
til
this or that eventuality; or even, as Mr. George Meredith suggested some ye=
ars
ago, for a term of ten years. In these matters Socialism does not decide, a=
nd
it is quite reasonable to argue that Socialism need not decide. Socialism
maintains an attitude of neutrality. And the practical effect of an attitud=
e of
neutrality is to leave these things as they are at present. The State is no=
t urgently
concerned with these questions. So long as a marriage contract provides for=
the
health and sanity of the contracting parties, and for their proper behaviou=
r so
far as their offspring is concerned, and for so long as their offspring need
it, the demands of the community, as the guardian of the children, are
satisfied. That certainly would be the minimum marriage, the State marriage,
and I, for my own part, would exact nothing more in the legal contract. But=
a
number of more representative Socialists than I are for a legally compulsory
life marriage. Some--but they are mostly of the older, less definite, Social
Democratic teaching--are for a looser tie. Let us clearly understand that we
are here talking of the legal marriage only--the State's share. We are not
talking of what people will do, but of how much they are to be made to do. A
vast amount of stupid confusion arises from forgetting that. What was needed
more than that minimum I have specified would be provided, I believe--it al=
ways
has been provided hitherto, even to excess--by custom, religion, social inf=
luence,
public opinion.
For it may not be
altogether superfluous to remind the reader how little of our present moral
code is ruled by law. We have in England, it is true, certain laws prescrib=
ing
the conditions of the marriage contract, penalties of a quite ferocious kin=
d to
prevent bigamy, and a few quite trivial disabilities put upon those
illegitimately born. But there is no legal compulsion upon any one to marry
now, and far less legal restriction upon irregular and careless parentage t=
han
would be put in any scientifically organized Socialism. Do let us get it ou=
t of
our heads that monogamy is enforced by law at the present time. It is not. =
You
are only forbidden to enter into normal marriage with more than one person.=
If
a man of means chooses to have as many concubines as King Solomon and live =
with
them all openly, the law (I am speaking of Great Britain) will do nothing to
prevent him. If he chooses to go through any sort of nuptial ceremony, prov=
ided
it does not simulate a legal marriage, with some or all of them he may. And=
to
any one who evades the legal marriage bond, there is a vast range of betray=
al
and baseness as open as anything can be. "Free Love" is open to a=
ny
one who chooses to practise it to-day. The real controlling force in these =
matters
is social influence, public opinion, a sort of conscience and feeling for t=
he
judgment of others that is part of the normal human equipment. And the same
motives and considerations that keep people's lives pure and discreet now, =
will
be all the more freely in operation under Socialism, when money will count =
for
less and reputation for more than they do now. Modern Socialism is a projec=
t to
change the organization of living and the circle of human ideas; but it is =
no sort
of scheme to attempt the impossible, to change human nature and to destroy =
the
social sensitiveness of man.
I do not deny the
intense human interest of these open questions, the imperative need there i=
s to
get the truth, whether one considers it to be one's own truth or the univer=
sal
truth, upon them. But my point is that they are to be discussed apart from
Socialist theory, and that anyhow they have nothing to do with Socialist
politics. It is no doubt interesting to discuss the benefits of vaccination=
and
the justice and policy of its public compulsion, to debate whether one shou=
ld
eat meat or confine oneself to a vegetable dietary, whether the overhead or=
the
slot system is preferable for tramway traction, whether steamboats are need=
ed
on the Thames in winter, and whether it is wiser to use metal or paper for
money; but none of these things have anything to do with the principles of
Socialism. Nor need we decide whether Whistler, Raphael or Carpaccio has le=
ft
us the most satisfying beauty, or which was the greater musician, Wagner,
Scarlatti or Beethoven, nor pronounce on the Bacon-Shakespeare controversy =
in
any prescribed way, because we accept Socialism.
Coming to graver
matters there are ardent theologians who would create an absolute antagonism
between Socialism and Christianity, who would tie up Socialism with some
extraordinary doctrine of Predestination, or deny the possibility of a
Christian being a Socialist or a Socialist being a Christian. But these are
matters on different planes. In a sense Socialism is a religion; to me it i=
s a
religion, in the sense, that is, that it gives a work to do that is not sel=
f-seeking,
that it determines one in a thousand indecisions, that it supplies that
imperative craving of so many human souls, a devotion. But I do not see why=
a
believer in any of the accepted creeds of Christianity, from the Apostles' =
Creed
upward, should not also whole-heartedly give himself to this great work of
social reconstruction. To believe in a real and personal Heaven is surely n=
ot to
deny earth with its tragedy, its sorrows, its splendid possibilities. It is
simply to believe a little more concretely than I do, that is all. To assert
the brotherhood of man under God seems to me to lead logically to a repudia=
tion
of the severities of Private Ownership--that is to Socialism. When the rich
young man was told to give up his property to follow Christ, when the disci=
ples
were told to leave father and mother, it seems to me ridiculous to present =
Christianity
as opposed to the self-abnegation of the two main generalizations of
Socialism--that relating to property in things, and that relating to proper=
ty
in persons. It is true that the Church of Rome has taken the deplorable ste=
p of
forbidding Socialism (or at least Socialismus) to its adherents; but there =
is
no need for Socialists to commit a reciprocal stupidity. Let us Socialists =
at
any rate keep our intellectual partitions up. The Church that now quarrels =
with
Socialism once quarrelled with astronomy and geology, and astronomers and
geologists went on with their own business. Both religion and astronomy are
still alive and in the same world together. And the Vatican observatory, by=
the
bye, is honourably distinguished for its excellent stellar photographs.
Perhaps, after all, the Church does not mean by Socialismus Socialism as it=
is
understood in English; perhaps it simply means the dogmatically anti-Christ=
ian Socialism
of the Continental type.
I am not advocati=
ng
indifference to any interest I have here set aside as irrelevant to Sociali=
sm.
Men have discussed and will, I hope, continue to discuss such questions as I
have instanced with passionate zeal; but Socialism need not be entangled by
their decisions. We can go on our road to Socialism, we can get to Socialis=
m,
to the Civilized State, whichever answer is given to any of these questions,
great or small.
CHAPTER VII - WOULD MODER=
N SOCIALISM
ABOLISH ALL PROPERTY?
§ 1.
Having in the
previous chapter cleared up a considerable mass of misconception and
possibility of misrepresentation about the attitude of Socialism to the hom=
e,
let us now devote a little more attention to the current theory of property=
and
say just exactly where Modern Socialism stands in that matter.
The plain fact of=
the
case is that the Socialist, whether he wanted to or no, would no more be ab=
le
to abolish personal property altogether than he would be able to abolish the
human liver. The extension of one's personality to things outside oneself is
indeed as natural and instinctive a thing as eating. But because the liver =
is
necessary and inevitable, there is no reason why it should be enlarged to u=
ncomfortable
proportions, and because eating is an unconquerable instinct there is no ex=
cuse
for repletion. The position of the modern Socialist is that the contemporary
idea of personal property is enormously exaggerated and improperly extended=
to
things that ought not to be "private"; not that it is not a socia=
lly
most useful and desirable idea within its legitimate range.
There can be no d=
oubt
that many of those older writers who were "Socialists before
Socialism," Plato, for instance, and Sir Thomas More, did very roundly
abolish private property altogether. They were extreme Communists, and so w=
ere
many of the earlier Socialists; in More's Utopia, doors might not be fasten=
ed,
they stood open; one hadn't even a private room. These earlier writers wish=
ed
to insist upon the need of self-abnegation in the ideal State, and to start=
le and
confound, they insisted overmuch. The early Christians, one gathers, were
almost completely communistic, and that interesting experiment in Christian
Socialism (of a rather unorthodox type of Christianity), the American Oneida
community, was successfully communistic in every respect for many years. But
the modern Socialist is not a communist; the modern Socialist, making his
scheme of social reconstruction for the whole world and for every type of
character, recognizes the entire impracticability of such dreams, recognizi=
ng, too,
it may be, the sacrifice of human personality and distinction such ideals
involve.
The word
"property," one must remember, is a slightly evasive word. Absolu=
te
property hardly exists--absolute, that is to say, in the sense of unlimited
right of disposal; almost all property is incomplete and relative. A man, u=
nder
our present laws, has no absolute property even in his own life; he is
restrained from suicide and punished if he attempt it. He may not go
offensively filthy nor indecently clad; there are limits to his free use of=
his
body. The owner of a house, of land, of a factory is subject to all sorts o=
f limitations,
building regulations for example, and so is the owner of horse or dog. Nor
again is any property exempt from taxation. Even now property is a limited
thing, and it is well to bear that much in mind. It can be defined as somet=
hing
one may do "what one likes with," subject only to this or that
specific restriction, and at any time, it would seem, the State is at least
legally entitled to increase the quantity and modify the nature of the
restriction. The extremest private property is limited to a certain sanity =
and
humanity in its use.
In that sense eve=
ry
adult now-a-days has private property in his or her own person, in clothes,=
in
such personal implements as hand-tools, as a bicycle, as a cricket-bat or
golf-sticks. In quite the same sense would he have it under Socialism so fa=
r as
these selfsame things go. The sense of property in such things is almost
instinctive; my little boys of five and three have the keenest sense of mine
and (almost, if not quite so vividly) thine in the matter of toys and garme=
nts.
The disposition of modern Socialism is certainly no more to override these
natural tendencies than it is to fly in the face of human nature in regard =
to
the home. The disposition of modern Socialism is indeed far more in the
direction of confirming and insuring this natural property. And again modern
Socialism has no designs upon the money in a man's pocket. It is quite true
that the earlier and extreme Socialist theorists did in their communism fin=
d no
use for money, but I do not think there are any representative Socialists n=
ow
who do not agree that the State must pay and receive in money, that money i=
s indispensable
to human freedom. The featurelessness of money, its universal convertibilit=
y,
gives human beings a latitude of choice and self-expression in its spending
that is inconceivable without its use.
All such property
Socialism will ungrudgingly sustain, and it will equally sustain property in
books and objects of æsthetic satisfaction, in furnishing, in the
apartments or dwelling-house a man or woman occupies and in their household
implements. It will sustain far more property than the average working-class
man has to-day. Nor will it prevent savings or accumulations, if men do not
choose to expend their earnings--nor need it interfere with lending. How fa=
r it
will permit or countenance usury is another question altogether. There will=
no
doubt remain, after all the work-a-day needs of the world have been met by a
scientific public organization of the general property in Nature, a great
number of businesses and enterprises and new and doubtful experiments outsi=
de
the range of legitimate State activity. In these, interested and prosperous
people will embark their surplus money as shareholders in a limited liabili=
ty
company, making partnership profits or losses in an entirely proper manner.=
But
whether there should be debentures and mortgages or preference shares, or
suchlike manipulatory distinctions, or interest in any shape or form, I am
inclined to doubt. A money-lender should share risk as well as profit--that=
is
surely the moral law in lending that forbids usury; he should not be allowe=
d to
bleed a failing business with his inexorable percentage and so eat up the
ordinary shareholder or partner any more than the landlord should be allowe=
d to
eat up the failing tenant for rent. That was once the teaching of Christian=
ity,
and I do not know enough of the history or spiritual development of the
Catholic Church to tell when she became what she now appears to be--the
champion of the rent-exacting landlord and the usurer against Socialism. It=
is
the present teaching of Socialism. If usury obtains at all under the Social=
ist
State, if inexorable repayments are to be made in certain cases, it will, I
conceive, be a State monopoly. The State will be the sole banker for every
hoard and every enterprise, just as it will be the universal landlord and t=
he
universal fire and accident and old age insurance office. In money matters =
as
in public service and administration, it will stand for the species, the pe=
rmanent
thing behind every individual accident and adventure.
Posthumous proper=
ty,
that is to say the power to bequeath and the right to inherit things, will =
also
persist in a mitigated state under Socialism. There is no reason whatever w=
hy
it should not do so. There is a strong natural sentiment in favour of the i=
nstitution
of heirlooms, for example; one feels a son might well own--though he should
certainly not sell--the intimate things his father desires to leave him. The
pride of descent is an honourable one, the love for one's blood, and I hope
that a thousand years from now some descendant will still treasure an obsol=
ete
weapon here, a picture there, or a piece of faint and faded needlework from=
our
days and the days before our own. One may hate inherited privileges and sti=
ll
respect a family tree.
Widows and widowe=
rs
again have clearly a kind of natural property in the goods they have shared
with the dead; in the home, in the garden close, in the musical instruments=
and
books and pleasant home-like things. Now, in nine cases out of ten, we do in
effect bundle the widow out; she remains nominally owner of the former home,
but she has to let it furnished or sell it, to go and live in a boarding-ho=
use
or an exiguous flat.
Even perhaps a
proportion of accumulated money may reasonably go to friend or kin. It is a
question of public utility; Socialism has done with absolute propositions in
all such things, and views these problems now as questions of detail, matte=
rs
for fine discriminations. We want to be quit of pedantry. All that property
which is an enlargement of personality, the modern Socialist seeks to prese=
rve;
it is that exaggerated property that gives power over the food and needs of
one's fellow-creatures, property and inheritance in land, in industrial
machinery, in the homes of others and in the usurer's grip upon others, tha=
t he
seeks to destroy. The more doctrinaire Socialists will tell you they do not
object to property for use and consumption, but only to property in "t=
he
means of production," but I do not choose to resort to over-precise
definitions. The general intention is clear enough, the particular instance
requires particular application. But it is just because we modern Socialists
want every one to have play for choice and individual expression in all the=
se
realities of property that we object to this monstrous property of a
comparatively small body of individuals expropriating the world.
§ 2.
I am inclined to
think--but here I speak beyond the text of contemporary Socialist
literature--that in certain directions Socialism, while destroying property,
will introduce a compensatory element by creating rights. For example,
Socialism will certainly destroy all private property in land and in natural
material and accumulated industrial resources; it will be the universal
landlord and the universal capitalist, but that does not mean that we shall=
all
be the State's tenants-at-will. There can be little doubt that the Socialist
State will recognize the rights of the improving occupier and the beneficial
hirer. It is manifestly in accordance both with justice and public policy t=
hat
a man who takes a piece of land and creates a value on it--by making a
vineyard, let us say--is entitled to security of tenure, is to be disposses=
sed
only in exceptional circumstances and with ample atonement. If a man who ta=
kes
an agricultural or horticultural holding comes to feel that there he will t=
oil
and there later he will rest upon his labours, I do not think a rational
Socialism will war against this passion for the vine and fig-tree. If it
absolutely refuses the idea of freehold, it will certainly not repudiate
leasehold. I think the State may prove a far more generous and sentimental
landlord in many things than any private person.
In another correl=
ated
direction, too, Socialism is quite reconcilable with a finer quality of
property than our landowner-ridden Britain allows to any but the smallest
minority. I mean property in the house one occupies.... If I may indulge in=
a
quite unauthorized speculation, I am inclined to think there may be two
collateral methods of home-building in the future. For many people always t=
here
will need to be houses to which they may come and go for longer and shorter=
tenancies
and which they will in no manner own. Now-a-days such people are housed in =
the
exploits of the jerry-builder--all England is unsightly with their meagre
pretentious villas and miserable cottages and tenement houses. Such homes in
the Socialist future will certainly be supplied by the local authority, but
they will be fair, decent houses by good architects, fitted to be clean and
lit, airy and convenient, the homes of civilized people, sightly things
altogether in a generous and orderly world. But in addition there will be t=
he prosperous
private person with a taste that way, building himself a home as a lease-ho=
lder
under the public landlord. For him, too, there will be a considerable measu=
re
of property, a measure of property that might even extend to a right, if no=
t of
bequest, then at any rate of indicating a preference among his possible
successors in the occupying tenancy....
Then there is a w=
hole
field of proprietary sensations in relation to official duties and
responsibility. Men who have done good work in any field are not to be ligh=
tly
torn from it. A medical officer of health who has done well in his district=
, a
teacher who has taught a generation of a town, a man who has made a public
garden, have a moral lien upon their work for all their lives. They do not =
get
it under our present conditions. I know that it will be quite easy to say a=
ll
this is a question of administration and detail. It is. But it is, neverthe=
less,
important to state it clearly here, to make it evident that the coming of
Socialism involves no destruction of this sort of identification of a man w=
ith
the thing he does; this identification that is so natural and desirable--th=
at
this living and legitimate sense of property will if anything be encouraged=
and
its claims strengthened under Socialism. To-day that particularly living so=
rt
of property-sense is often altogether disregarded. Every day one hears of m=
en
who have worked up departments in businesses, men who have created values f=
or
employers, men who have put their lives into an industrial machine, being f=
lung
aside because their usefulness is over, or out of personal pique, or to make
way for favourites, for the employer's son or cousin or what not, without a=
ny
sort of appeal or compensation. Ownership is autocracy; at the best it is
latent injustice in all such matters of employment.
Then again, consi=
der
the case of the artist and the inventor who are too often forced by poverty=
now
to sell their early inventions for the barest immediate subsistence.
Speculators secure these initial efforts--sometimes to find them worthless,
sometimes to discover in them the sources of enormous wealth. In no matter =
is
it more difficult to estimate value than in the case of creative work; few
geniuses are immediately recognized, and the history of art, literature and=
invention
is full of Chattertons and Savages who perished before recognition came, an=
d of
Dickenses who sold themselves unwisely. Consider the immense social benefit=
if
the creator even now possessed an inalienable right to share in the
appreciation of his work. Under Socialism it would for all his life be his-=
-and
the world's, and controllable by him. He would be free to add, to modify, to
repeat.
In all these resp=
ects
modern Socialism tends to create and confirm property and rights, the prope=
rty
of the user, the rights of the creator. It is quite other property it tends=
to
destroy; the property, the claim, of the creditor, the mortgagee, the landl=
ord,
and usurer, the forestaller, gambling speculator, monopolizer and absentee.=
...
In very truth Socialism would destroy no property at all, but only that sham
property that, like some wizard-cast illusion, robs us all.
§ 3.
And now we are
discussing the Socialist attitude towards property, it may be well to consi=
der
a little group of objections that are often made in anti-Socialist tracts. I
refer more particularly to a certain hard case, the hard case of the Saving=
s of
the Virtuous Small Man.
The reader, if he=
is
at all familiar with this branch of controversial literature, probably knows
how that distressing case is put. One is presented with a poor man of
inconceivable industry, goodness and virtue; he has worked, he has saved; at
last, for the security of his old age, he holds a few shares in a business,=
a
"bit of land" or--perhaps through a building society--house prope=
rty.
Would we--the Anti-Socialist chokes with emotion--so alter the world as to =
rob
him of that? ... The Anti-Socialist gathers himself together with an effort=
and
goes on to a still more touching thought ... the widow![13]
[13] "The ethical case =
for
slavery in the Southern States of =
America,"
my friend Mr. Graham Wallas reminds me, "was =
largely
argued on the instance of the widow 'with a few =
strong
slaves.'"
Well, I think the=
re
are assurances in the previous section to disabuse the reader's mind a litt=
le
in this matter. This solicitude for the Saving Small Man and for the widow =
and
orphan seems to me one of the least honest of all the anti-Socialist argume=
nts.
The man "who has saved a few pounds," the poor widow woman and her
children clinging to some scrap of freehold are thrust forward to defend the
harvest of the landlord and the financier. Let us look at the facts of the =
case
and see how this present economic system of ours really does treat the &quo=
t;stocking"
of the poor.
In the first plac=
e it
does not guarantee to the small investor any security for his little hoard =
at
all. He comes into the world of investment ill-informed, credulous or only
unintelligently suspicious--and he is as a class continually and systematic=
ally
deprived of his little accumulations. One great financial operation after
another in the modern world, as any well-informed person can witness, eats =
up the
small investor. Some huge, vastly respectable-looking enterprise is floated
with a capital of so many scores or hundreds of thousands, divided into so =
many
thousands of ordinary shares, so many five or six per cent. preference, so =
much
debentures. It begins its career with a flourish of prosperity, the ordinary
shares for a few years pay seven, eight, ten per cent. The Virtuous Small M=
an
provides for his widow and his old age by buying this estimable security. I=
ts
price clambers to a premium, and so it passes slowly and steadily from its
first speculative holder into the hands of the investing public. Then comes=
a
slow, quiet, downward movement, a check at the interim dividend, a rapid co=
ntraction.
Consider such a case as that of the great British Electric Traction Company
which began with ordinary shares at ten, which clambered above twenty-one
(21-7/8), which is now (October 1907) fluctuating about two. Its six per ce=
nt,
preference shares have moved between fourteen and five and a half. Its ordi=
nary
shares represent a total capital of £1,333,010, and its preference
£1,614,370; so that here in this one concern we have a phantom appear=
ance
and disappearance of over two million pounds' worth of value and a real
disappearance of perhaps half that amount. It requires only a very slight
knowledge of the world to convince one that the bulk of that sum was
contributed by the modest investments of mediocre and small people out of t=
ouch
with the real conditions of the world of finance.
These little investors, it is said,=
are
the bitter champions of private finance against the municipalities and
Socialists. One wonders why.
One could find a
score of parallels and worse instances representing in the end many scores =
of
millions of pounds taken from the investing public in the last few years. I
will, however, content myself with one sober quotation from the New York
Journal of Commerce, which the reader will admit is not likely to be a will=
ing
witness for Socialism. Commenting on the testimony of the principal witness,
Mr. Harriman, of the Illinois Central Railroad, before the Inter-State Comm=
erce
Commission (March 1907), it says:--
"On his own admis=
sion
he was one of a 'combine' of four who got possession of=
the
Chicago and Alton Railroad, and immediately issued
bonds for
40,000,000, out of
the proceeds of
which they paid themselves a dividend of 30 per cent, on the stock they he=
ld,
besides taking the bonds at 65 and subsequently sell=
ing
them at 90 or more, some of them to life insurance compani=
es
with which Mr. Harriman had some kind of relation. There w=
ere no
earnings or surplus out of which the dividend could be=
paid,
but the books of the company were juggled by transf=
erring
some
12,000,000 expend=
ed
for betterm=
ents
to capital account as a sort of bookkeeping basis for the performan=
ce.
"Besides this, the
Chicago and Alton Railroad was transformed into a 'railway,'=
and a
capitalization of a little under
40,000,000 was
swollen to nearly
123,000,000 to co=
ver
an actual
expenditure in improvements of
22,500,000. In th=
e process there was=
an
injection of about
60,600,000 of 'wa=
ter'
into the st=
ock
held by the four, some of which was sold to the Union Pacific, of=
which
Mr. Harriman was president, and more was 'unloaded' up=
on the
Rock Island. Mr. Harriman refused to tell how much he =
made
out of that operation.
"It shows how som=
e of
our enormous fortunes are made, as well as what motives a=
nd
purposes sometimes prevail in the use of the power entrust=
ed to
the directors and officers of corporations. It =
is a
simple and elementary principle that all values are create=
d by
the productive activity of capital, labour and ability in
industrial operations of one kind and another. No wealth
comes out of nothing, but all must be produced and
distributed, and what one gets by indirection another loses or =
fails
to get. The personal profit of these speculative opera=
tions
in which the capital, credit and power of corporations a=
re
used by those entrusted with their direction come ou=
t of
the general body of stockholders whose interests are
sacrificed, or out of the public investors who are lured and dec=
eived,
or out of shippers who are overtaxed for the service f=
or
which railroads are chartered, or out of all these in vary=
ing
proportions. In other words they are the fruits of
robbery."
So that you see i=
t is
not only untrue that Socialism would rob a poor man of his virtuously acqui=
red
"bit of property," but the direct contrary is the truth, that the
present system, non-Socialism, is now constantly butchering thrift! Simple
people believe the great financiers win and lose money to each other. They =
are
not--to put it plainly--such fools. They use the public, and the public goe=
s on
being used, as a perpetual source of freshly accumulated wealth. I know one=
case
of a man of fifty who serves in a shop, a most industrious, competent man, =
who
has been saving and investing money all his life in what he had every reaso=
n to
believe were safe and sober businesses; he has been denying himself pleasur=
es,
cramping his life to put by about a third of his wages every year since he =
was
two-and-twenty, and to-day he has not got his keep for a couple of years, a=
nd
his only security against disablement and old age is his subscription to a =
Friendly
Society, a society which I have a very strong suspicion is no better off th=
an
most other Friendly Societies--and that is by no means well off, and by no
means confident of the future.
It is possible to
argue that the small man ought to take more pains about his investments, bu=
t,
as a matter of fact, investing money securely and profitably is a special o=
ccupation
of extraordinary complexity, and the common man with a few hundred pounds h=
as
no more chance in that market than he would have under water in Sydney Harb=
our amidst
a shoal of sharks. It may be said that he is greedy, wants too much interes=
t,
but that is nonsense. One of the crudest gulfs into which small savings have
gone in the case of the British public has been the trap of Consols, which =
pay
at the present price less than three per cent. Servants and working men with
Post Office Savings' Bank accounts were urged, tempted and assisted to inve=
st
in this solemn security--even when it stood at 114. Those who did so have n=
ow (November
1907) lost almost a third of their money.
It is scarcely too
much to say that a very large proportion of our modern great properties,
tramway systems, railways, gas-works, bread companies, have been created for
their present owners the debenture holders and mortgagers, the great
capitalists, by the unintentional altruism of that voluntary martyr, the Sa=
ving
Small Man.
Of course the
habitual saver can insure with an insurance company for his old age and aga=
inst
all sorts of misadventures, and because of the Government interference with
"private enterprise" in that sort of business, be reasonably secu=
re;
but under Socialism he would be able to do that with absolute security in t=
he
State Insurance Office--if the universal old age pension did not satisfy hi=
m.
That, however, is beside our present discussion. I am writing now only of t=
he
sort of property that Socialism would destroy, and to show how little benef=
it or
safety it brings to the small owner now. The unthinking rich prate "th=
rift"
to the poor, and grow richer by a half-judicious, half-unconscious absorpti=
on
of the resultant savings; that, in brief, is the grim humour of our present
financial method.
It is not only in
relation to investments that this absorption of small parcels of savings go=
es
on. In every town the intelligent and sympathetic observer may see, vivid
before the eyes of all who are not blind by use and wont, the slow subsiden=
ce
of petty accumulations, The lodging-house and the small retail shop are, as=
it
were, social "destructors"; all over the country they are convert=
ing
hopeful, enterprising, ill-advised people with a few score or hundreds of p=
ounds,
slowly, inevitably into broken-hearted failures. It is, to my mind, the cru=
dest
aspect of our economic struggle. In the little High Street of Sandgate, over
which my house looks, I should say between a quarter and a third of the sho=
ps
are such downward channels from decency to despair; they are sanctioned,
inevitable citizen breakers. Now it is a couple of old servants opening a
"fancy" shop or a tobacco shop, now it is a young couple plunging
into the haberdashery, now it is a new butcher or a new fishmonger or a gro=
cer.
This perpetual procession of bankruptcies has made me lately shun that plea=
sant-looking
street, that in my unthinking days I walked through cheerfully enough. The
doomed victims have a way of coming to the doors at first and looking out
politely and hopefully. There is a rich and lucrative business done by cert=
ain
wholesale firms in starting the small dealer in almost every branch of reta=
il
trade; they fit up his shop, stock him, take his one or two hundred pounds =
and
give him credit for forty or fifty. The rest of his story is an impossible =
struggle
to pay rent and get that debt down. Things go on for a time quite bravely. =
I go
furtively and examine the goods in the window, with a dim hope that this ti=
me
something really will come off; I learn reluctantly from my wife that they =
are
no better than any one else's, and rather dearer than those of the one or t=
wo
solid and persistent shops that do the steady business of the place. Perhap=
s I
see the new people going to church once or twice very respectably, as I set=
out
for a Sunday walk, and if they are a young couple the husband usually wears=
a
silk hat. Presently the stock in the window begins to deteriorate in quanti=
ty
and quality, and then I know that credit is tightening. The proprietor no
longer comes to the door, and his first bright confidence is gone. He regar=
ds
one now through the darkling panes with a gloomy animosity. He suspects one=
all
too truly of dealing with the "Stores." ... Then suddenly he has
gone; the savings are gone, and the shop--like a hungry maw--waits for a new
victim. There is the simple common tragedy of the little shop; the landlord=
of the
house has his money all right, the ground landlord has, of course, every pe=
nny
of his money, the kindly wholesalers are well out of it, and the young coup=
le
or the old people, as the case may be, are looking for work or the nearest
casual ward--just as though there was no such virtue as thrift in the world=
.
The particular
function of the British lodging-house--though the science of economics is
silent on this point--is to use up the last strength of the trusty old serv=
ant
and the plucky widow. These people will invest from two or three hundred to=
a
thousand pounds in order to gain a bare subsistence by toiling for boarders=
and
lodgers. It is their idea of a safe investment. They can see it all the tim=
e.
All over England this process goes on. The curious inquirer may see every p=
hase
for himself by simply looking for rooms among the apartment houses of such a
region as Camden Town, London; he will realize more and more surely as he g=
oes
about that none of these people gain money, none of them ever recover the
capital they sink, they are happy if they die before their inevitable finan=
cial
extinction. It is so habitual with people to think of classes as stable, of=
a
butcher or a baker as a man who keeps a shop of a certain sort at a certain
level throughout a long and indeterminate life, that it may seem incredible=
to
many readers that those two typically thrifty classes, the lodging-letting =
householder
and the small retailer, are maintained by a steady supply of failing
individuals; the fact remains that it is so. Their little savings are no go=
od
to them, investments and business beginnings mock them alike: steadily,
relentlessly our competitive system eats them up.
It is said that no
class of people in the community is more hostile to Socialism and Socialist=
ic
legislation than these small owners and petty investors, these small
ratepayers. They do not understand. Rent they consider in the nature of thi=
ngs
like hunger and thirst; the economic process that dooms the weak enterprise=
to
ruin is beyond the scope of their intelligence; but the rate-collector who
calls and calls again for money, for more money, to educate "other
people's children," to "keep paupers in luxury," to "wa=
ste
upon roads and light and trams," seems the agent of an unendurable wro=
ng.
So the poor creatures go out pallidly angry to vote down that hated thing m=
unicipal
enterprise, and to make still more scope for that big finance that crushes =
them
in the wine-press of its exploitation. It is a wretched and tragic antagoni=
sm,
for which every intelligent Socialist must needs have sympathy, which he mu=
st
meet with patience--and lucid explanations. If the public authority took re=
nt there
would be no need of rates; that is the more obvious proposition. But the am=
pler
one is the cruelty, the absurdity and the social injury of the constant
consumption of unprotected savings which is an essential part of our present
system.
It is a doctrinai=
re
and old-fashioned Socialism that quarrels with the little hoard; the quarre=
l of
modern Socialism is with the landowner and the great capitalist who devour =
it.
§ 4.
While we are
discussing the true attitude of modern Socialism to property, it will be we=
ll
to explain quite clearly the secular change of opinion that is going on in =
the
Socialist ranks in regard to the process of expropriation. Even in the case=
of
those sorts of property that Socialism repudiates, property in land, natural
productions, inherited business capital and the like, Socialism has become =
humanized
and rational from its first extreme and harsh positions.
The earlier Socia=
lism
was fierce and unjust to owners. "Property is Robbery," said
Proudhon, and right down to the nineties Socialism kept too much of the spi=
rit
of that proposition. The property owner was
to be promptly and
entirely deprived of his goods, and to think himself lucky he was not lynch=
ed
forthwith as an abominable rascal. The first Basis of the Fabian Society, f=
ramed
so lately as 1884, seems to repudiate "compensation," even a part=
ial
compensation of property owners, though in its practical proposals the Fabi=
an
Society has always admitted compensatory arrangements. The exact words of t=
he Basis
are "without compensation though not without such relief to expropriat=
ed
individuals as may seem fit to the community." The wording is pretty
evidently the result of a compromise between modern views and older teachin=
gs.
If the Fabian Society were rewriting its Basis now I doubt if any section w=
ould
insist even upon that eviscerated "without compensation."
Now property is n=
ot
robbery. It may be a mistake, it may be unjust and socially disadvantageous=
to
recognize private property in these great common interests, but every one c=
oncerned,
and the majority of the property owners certainly, held and hold in good fa=
ith,
and do their best by the light they have. We live to-day in a vast traditio=
n of
relationships in which the rightfulness of that kind of private property is
assumed, and suddenly, instantly, to deny and abolish it would be--I write =
this
as a convinced and thorough Socialist--quite the most dreadful catastrophe
human society could experience. For what sort of provisional government sho=
uld
we have in that confusion?
Expropriation mus=
t be
a gradual process, a process of economic and political readjustment,
accompanied at every step by an explanatory educational advance. There is no
reason why a cultivated property owner should not welcome and hasten its
coming. Modern Socialism is prepared to compensate him, not perhaps
"fully" but reasonably, for his renunciations and to avail itself=
of
his help, to relieve him of his administrative duties, his excess of
responsibility for estate and business. It does not grudge him a compensati=
ng
annuity nor terminating rights of user. It has no intention of obliterating=
him
nor the things he cares for. It wants not only to socialize his possessions,
but to socialize his achievement in culture and all that leisure has taught=
him
of the possibilities of life. It wants all men to become as fine as he. Its
enemy is not the rich man but the aggressive rich man, the usurer, the swea=
ter,
the giant plunderer, who are developing the latent evil of riches. It
repudiates altogether the conception of a bitter class-war between those who
Have and those who Have Not.
But this new tole=
rant
spirit in method involves no weakening of the ultimate conception. Modern
Socialism sets itself absolutely against the creation of new private proper=
ty
out of land, or rights or concessions not yet assigned. All new great
monopolistic enterprises in transit, building and cultivation, for example,
must from the first be under public ownership. And the chief work of social
statesmanship, the secular process of government, must be the steady, order=
ly resumption
by the community, without violence and without delay, of the land, of the
apparatus of transit, of communication, of food distribution and of all the
great common services of mankind, and the care and training of a new genera=
tion
in their collective use and in more civilized conceptions of living.
CHAPTER VIII - THE
MIDDLE-CLASS MAN, THE BUSINESS MAN, AND SOCIALISM
§ 1.
Let me insert her=
e a
few remarks upon a question that arises naturally out of the preceding disc=
ussion,
and that is the future of that miscellaneous section of the community known=
as
the middle class. It is one that I happen to know with a peculiar intimacy.=
For a century or =
more
the grinding out of the middle class has been going on. I began to find it
interesting--altogether too interesting indeed, when I was still only a lit=
tle
boy. My father was one of that multitude of small shopkeepers which has been
caught between the "Stores" and such-like big distributors above =
and
the rising rates below, and from the knickerbocker stage onward I was acute=
ly
aware of the question hanging over us. "This isn't going on," was=
the
proposition. "This shop in which our capital is invested will never re=
turn
it. Nobody seems to understand what is happening, and there is nobody to ad=
vise
or help us. What are we going to do?"
Except that people
are beginning to understand a little now what it all means, exactly the same
question hangs over many hundreds of thousands of households to-day, not on=
ly
over the hundreds of small shopkeepers, but of small professional men, of
people living upon small parcels of investments, of clerks who find themsel=
ves
growing old and their value depreciated by the competition of a new, better=
-educated
generation, of private school-masters, of boarding-and lodging-house keepers
and the like. They are all vaguely aware of something more than personal
failure, of a drift and process which is against all their kind, of the nee=
d of
"doing something" for themselves and their children, something di=
fferent
from just sticking to the shop or the "situation"--and they don't
know what to do! What ought they to do?
Well, first, befo=
re
one answers that, let us ask what it is exactly that is grinding the middle
class in this way. Is it a process we can stop? Can we direct the millstone=
s?
If we can, ought we to do so? And if we cannot, or decide that it isn't wor=
th
while, then what can we do to mitigate this cruelty of slowly impoverishing=
and
taxing out of existence a class that was once the backbone of the community=
? It
is not mere humanity dictates this much, it is a question that affects the
State as a whole. It must be extremely bad for the spirit of the nation and=
for
our national future that its middle mass should be in a state of increasing
financial worry and stress, irritated, depressed, and broken in courage. One
effect is manifest in our British politics now. Each fresh election turns u=
pon
expenditure more evidently than the last, and the promise to reduce taxatio=
n or
lower the rates overrides more and more certainly any other consideration. =
What
are Empire or Education to men who feel themselves drifting helplessly into
debt? What chance has any constructive scheme with an electorate of men who=
are
being slowly submerged in an economic bog?
The process that =
has
brought the middle class into these troubles is a complex one, but the
essential thing about it seems to be this, that there is a change of scale
going on in most human affairs, a substitution of big organizations for
detached individual effort almost everywhere. A hundred and fifty years ago=
or
so the only very rich people in the community were a handful of great
landowners and a few bankers; the rest of the world's business was being do=
ne
by small prosperous independent men. The labourers were often very poor and=
wretched,
ill clad, bootless, badly housed and short of food, but there was neverthel=
ess
a great deal of middle-class comfort and prosperity. The country was covered
with flourishing farmers, every country town was a little world in itself, =
with
busy tradespeople and professional men; manufacturing was still done mainly=
by
small people employing a few hands, master and apprentice working together;=
in every
town you found a private school or so, an independent doctor and the like, =
doing
well in a mediocre, comfortable fashion. All the carrying trade was in the
hands of small independent carriers; the shipping was held by hundreds of s=
mall
shipowners. And London itself was only a larger country town. It was, in
effect, a middle-class world ruled over by aristocrats; the millstones had =
as
yet scarcely stirred.
Then machinery ca=
me
into the lives of men, and steam power, and there began that change of scale
which is going on still to-day, making an ever-widening separation of master
and man and an ever-enlarging organization of industry and social method. I=
ts
most striking manifestation was at first the substitution of organized
manufacture in factories for the half-domestic hand-industrialism of the
earlier period; the growth of the fortunes of some of the merchants and man=
ufacturers
to dimensions comparable with the wealth of the great landowners, and the
sinking of the rest of their class towards the status of wage-earners. The
development of joint-stock enterprise arose concurrently with this to creat=
e a
new sort of partnership capable of handling far greater concerns than any
single wealthy person, as wealth was measured by the old scale, could do. T=
here
followed a great development of transit, culminating for a time in the comi=
ng
of the railways and steamships, which abolished the isolation of the old to=
wns
and brought men at the remotest quarters of the earth into business
competition. Big towns of the modern type, with half-a-million inhabitants =
or
more, grew up rapidly all over Europe and America. For the European big tow=
ns
are as modern as New York, and the East End and south side of London scarce=
ly
older than Chicago. Shopkeeping, like manufactures, began to concentrate in
large establishments, and big wholesale distribution to replace individual =
buying
and selling. As the need for public education under the changing conditions=
of
life grew more and more urgent, the individual enterprise of this school-ma=
ster
and that gave place to the organized effort of such giant societies as (in =
Britain)
the old National School Society and the British School Society, and at last=
to
State education. And one after another the old prosperous middle-class call=
ings
fell under the stress of the new development.
The process still
goes on, and there can be little doubt of the ultimate issue. The old small
manufacturers are either ruined or driven into sweating and the slums; the =
old
coaching innkeeper and common carrier have been impoverished or altogether
superseded by the railways and big carrier companies; the once flourishing
shopkeeper lives to-day on the mere remnants of the trade that great
distributing stores or the branches of great companies have left him. Tea c=
ompanies,
provision-dealing companies, tobacconist companies, make the position of th=
e old-established
private shop unstable and the chances of the new beginner hopeless. Railways
and tramways take the custom more and more effectually past the door of the
small draper and outfitter to the well-stocked establishments at the centre=
of
things; telephone and telegraph assist that shopping at the centre more and=
more.
The small "middle-class" school-master finds himself beaten by re=
vived
endowed schools and by new public endowments; the small doctor, the local
dentist, find Harley Street always nearer to them and practitioners in
motor-cars from the great centres playing havoc with their practices. And w=
hile
the small men are more and more distressed, the great organizations of trad=
e,
of production, of public science, continue to grow and coalesce, until at l=
ast
they grow into national or even world trusts, or into publicly-owned
monopolies. In America slaughtering and selling meat has grown into a trust,
steel and iron are trustified, mineral oil is all gathered into a few hands=
. All
through the trades and professions and sciences and all over the world the =
big
eats up the small, the new enlarged scale replaces the old.
And this is equal=
ly
true, though it is only now beginning to be recognized, of the securities of
that other section of the middle class, the section which lives upon invest=
ed
money. There, too, big eats little. There, too, the small man is more and m=
ore
manifestly at the mercy of the large organization. It was a pleasant illusi=
on
of the Victorian time that one put one's hundred pounds or thousand pounds =
"into
something," beside the rich man's tens of thousands, and drew one's se=
cure
and satisfying dividends. The intelligent reader of Mr. Lawson's Frenzied
Finance or of the bankruptcy proceedings of Mr. Hooley realizes this idyll =
is
scarcely true to nature. Through the seas and shallows of investment flow g=
reat
tides and depressions, on which the big fortunes ride to harbour while the
little accumulations, capsized and swamped, quiver down to the bottom. It
becomes more and more true that the small man saves his money for the rich
man's pocket. Only by drastic State intervention is a certain measure of sa=
fety
secured for insurance, and in America recently we have had the spectacle of=
the
people's insurance-money used as a till by the rich financiers.
And when the
middle-class man turns in his desperation from the advance of the big
competitor who is consuming him, as a big codfish eats its little brother, =
to
the State, he meets a tax-paper; he sees as the State's most immediate aspe=
ct
the rate-collector and inexorable demands. The burthen of taxation certainly
falls upon him, and it falls upon him because he is collectively the weakest
class that possesses any property to be taxed. Below him are classes either=
too
poor to tax or too politically effective to stand taxation. Above him is the
class which owns a large part of the property in the world; but it also owns
the newspapers and periodicals that are necessary for an adequate discussio=
n of
social justice, and it finds it cheaper to pay a voluntary tax to the hoard=
ings
at election time than to take over the small man's burdens. He rolls about
between these two parties, antagonized first to one and then the other, and
altogether helpless and ineffectual. So the millstones grind, and so it wou=
ld
seem they will continue to grind until there is nothing between them; until=
organized
property in the hands of the few on the one hand and the proletariat on the
other grind face to face. So, at least, Karl Marx taught in Das Kapital.
But when one says=
the
middle class will disappear, one means that it will disappear as a class. I=
ts
individuals and its children will survive, and the whole process is not nea=
rly
so fatalistic as the Marxists would have us believe. The new great
organizations that are replacing the little private enterprises of the world
before machinery are not all private property. There are alternatives in the
matter of handling a great business. To the exact nature of these alternati=
ves the
middle-class mind needs to direct itself if it is to exert any control what=
ever
over its future. Take the case of the butcher. It is manifestly written on =
the
scroll of destiny that the little private slaughter-house, the little
independent butcher's shop, buying and selling locally, must disappear. The
meat will all be slaughtered at some great, conveniently organized centre, =
and
distributed thence to shops that will necessarily be mere agencies for
distributing meat. Now, this great slaughtering and distributing business m=
ay
either be owned by one or a group of owners working it for profit--in which
case it will be necessary for the State to employ an unremunerative army of=
inspectors
to see that the business is kept decently clean and honest--or it may be ru=
n by
the public authority. In the former case the present-day butcher or his son
will be a slaughterman or shopkeeper employed by the private owners; in the
latter case by the public authority. This is equally true of a milk-seller,=
of
a small manufacturer, of a builder, of a hundred and one other trades. They=
are
bound to be incorporated in a larger organization; they are bound to become
salaried men where formerly they were independent men, and it is no good
struggling against that. It is doubtful, indeed, whether from the standpoin=
t of
welfare it would be worth the middle-class man's while to struggle against
that. But in the case of very many great public services--meat, milk, bread,
transit, housing and land administration, education and research, and the
public health--it is still an open question whether the big organization is=
to
be publicly owned, publicly controlled, and constantly refreshed by public =
scrutiny
and comment, or whether it is to be privately owned, and conducted solely f=
or
the profit of a small group of very rich owners. The alternatives are
Plutocracy or Socialism, and between these the middle-class man remains wea=
kly
undecided and ineffectual, lending no weight to and getting small considera=
tion
therefore from either side. He remains so because he has not grasped the re=
al nature
of his problem, because he clings in the face of overwhelming fate to the b=
elief
that in some way the wheels of change may be arrested and his present metho=
d of
living preserved.
I think, if he co=
uld
shake himself free from that impossible conservatism he would realize that =
his
interests lie with the interests of the intelligent working-class man--that=
is
to say, in the direction of Socialism rather than in the direction of
capitalistic competition; that the best use he can make of such educational=
and
social advantages as still remain for him is to become the willing leader
instead of the panic-fierce antagonist of the Socialist movement. His place=
, I
hold, is to forward the development of that State and municipal machinery t=
he
Socialist foreshadows, and to secure for himself and his sons and daughters=
an
adequate position and voice in the administration. Instead of struggling to
diminish that burthen of public expenditure which educates and houses, conv=
eys
and protects him and his children, he ought rather to increase it joyfully,
while at the same time working manfully to transfer its pressure to the bro=
ad
shoulders of those very rich people who have hitherto evaded their legitima=
te
share of it. The other course is to continue his present policy of obstinate
resistance to the extension of public property and public services. In which
case these things will necessarily become that basis of monopolistic proper=
ty
on which the coming plutocracy will establish itself. The middle-class man =
will
be taxed and competed out of independence just the same, and he will become=
a
salaried officer just the same, but with a different sort of master and und=
er
different social conditions according as one or other of these alternatives
prevails.
Which is the bett=
er
master--the democratic State or a "combine" of millionaires? Which
will give the best social atmosphere for one's children to breathe--a
Plutocracy or a Socialism? That is the real question to which the middle-cl=
ass
man should address himself.
No doubt to many
minds a Plutocracy presents many attractions. In the works of Thomas Love
Peacock, and still more clearly in the works of Mr. W. H. Mallock, you will
find an agreeable rendering of that conception. The bulk of the people will=
be
organized out of sight in a state of industrious and productive congestion,=
and
a wealthy, leisurely, and refined minority will live in spacious homes, wit=
h excellent
museums, libraries, and all the equipments of culture; will go to town,
concentrate in Paris, London, and Rome, and travel about the world. It is to
these large, luxurious, powerful lives that the idealist naturally turns. T=
heir
motor-cars, their aeroplanes, their steam yachts will awaken terror and res=
pect
in every corner of the globe. Their handsome doings will fill the papers. T=
hey
will patronize the arts and literature, while at the same time mellowing th=
em
by eliminating that too urgent insistence upon contemporary fact which make=
s so
much of what is done to-day harsh and displeasing. The middle-class traditi=
on
will be continued by a class of stewards, tenants, managers, and foremen,
secretaries and the like, respected and respectful. The writer, the artist,
will lead lives of comfortable dependence, a link between class and class, =
the
lowest of the rich man's guests, the highest of his servants. As for the
masses, they will be fed with a sort of careless vigour and considerable
economy from the Chicago stockyards, and by agricultural produce trusts, bi=
g breweries,
fresh-water companies, and the like; they will be organized industrially and
carefully controlled. Their spiritual needs will be provided for by churches
endowed by the wealthy, their physical distresses alleviated by the hope of
getting charitable aid, their lives made bright and adventurous by the crum=
bs of
sport that fall from the rich man's table. They will crowd to see the motor=
-car
races, the aeroplane competitions. It will be a world rich in contrasts and=
not
without its gleam of pure adventure. Every bright young fellow of capacity =
will
have the hope of catching the eye of some powerful personage, of being adva=
nced
to some high position of trust, of even ending his days as a partner, a
subordinate assistant plutocrat. Or he may win a quite agreeable position by
literary or artistic merit. A pretty girl, a clever woman of the middle cla=
ss
would have before her even more brilliant and romantic possibilities.
There can be no
denying the promises of colour and eventfulness a Plutocracy holds out, and
though they do not attract me, I can quite understand their appeal to the m=
ore
ductile and appreciative mind of Mr. Mallock. But there are countervailing
considerations. There is, it is said, a tendency in Plutocracies either to
become unprogressive, unenterprising and stagnantly autocratic, or to devel=
op
states of stress and discontent, and so drift towards Cæsarism. The
latter was the fate of the Roman Republic, and may perhaps be the destiny of
the budding young Plutocracy of America. But the developing British Plutocr=
acy,
like the Carthaginian, will be largely Semitic in blood, and like the
Carthaginian may resist these insurgent tendencies.
So much for the Plutocratic possibility. If the middle-class man on any account does not li= ke that outlook, he can turn in the other direction; and then he will find fine promises indeed, but much more uncertainty than towards Plutocracy. Plutocracies the world has seen before, but a democratic civilization organ= ized upon the lines laid down by modern Socialists would be a new beginning in t= he world's history. It is not a thing that will come about by itself; it will = have to be the outcome of a sustained moral and intellectual effort in the community. If there is not that effort, if things go on as they are going n= ow, the coming of a Plutocracy is inevitable. That effort, I am convinced, cann= ot be successfully made by the lower-class man alone; from him, unaided and unguided, there is nothing to be expected but wild convulsive attempts at social upheaval, which, whether they succeed (as the French Revolution did)= or fail (as did the insurrectionary outbreaks of the Republic in Rome), lead ultimately to a Napoleon or a Cæsar. But our contemporary civilizatio= n is unprecedented in the fact that the whole population now reads, and that intelligence and free discussion saturate the whole mass. Only time can show what possibilities of understanding, leadership, and political action lie in our new generation of the better-educated middle class. Will it presently b= egin to define a line for itself? Will it remain disorganized and passive, or wi= ll it become intelligent and decisive between these millstones of the organized property and the organizing State, between Plutocracy and Socialism, whose = opposition is the supreme social and political fact in the world at the present time?<= o:p>
§ 2.
Perhaps, also, it=
may
be helpful here to insert a view of the contemporary possibilities of Socia=
lism
from a rather different angle, a view that follows on to the matter of the
previous section, but appeals to a different section of the Middle Class. I=
t is
a quotation from the Magazine of Commerce for September 1907, and leads to =
an explanation
by the present writer.
"The recent retur=
n of
Mr. Grayson, a Socialist, as member of Parliament for the
Colne Valley, has brought prominently before the public=
mind
the question of Socialism. Mr. Pete Curran's success =
at
Jarrow a month or so ago, and the large number of Labour
members returned at the last General Election, caused =
more
or less desultory comment on Socialism as a possible fea=
ture
of practical politics in the remote future; but Mr. G=
rayson
can certainly claim that his achievement at Co=
lne
Valley brought the question of Socialism in to the very
forefront at one bound. It is difficult to ignore Socialism,=
to dismiss
it as a mere fad and fancy of a few hare-brained
enthusiasts, after Mr. Grayson's success. The verdict of Colne =
Valley
may be the verdict of many another constituency wher=
e the
so-called working-class electors are numerically predo=
minant.
When we consider that the manual worker represents=
the
majority of the electorate of the country, this
contingency does not appear to be so very remote, provided =
that
the leaders of Socialism can organize their resources a=
nd
canvass the working-men on a wide and carefully-planned
scale. In this respect the Colne Valley result may very w=
ell
give them the lead and stimulus they have been waiting for.=
It
must be borne in mind, too, that the forward section o=
f the
Labour Party is avowedly Socialist in its sympathies, a=
nd a
definite start may therefore be said to have been made to=
wards
capturing the machinery of Government in the Cause of
Socialism.
"How will Sociali=
sm
affect the business world? This is a question which many thoughtful busi=
ness
men must have already put to themselves=
. For
reply we must go to the leaders of Socialism, and di=
scover
what their policy actually is. The common impression=
that
Socialism spells barefaced confiscation is too superficial to be
seriously adduced as an argument against Socialism=
. The
leaders of the Cause include some of the cleverest men=
of
the day--men who have a more rational basis for their p=
olicy
than that of simply robbing Peter to pay Paul. The
suggestion that Socialism means a compulsory 'share out' may be
rightly dismissed as an idle scare. The most bitter oppon=
ent of
Socialism must at least admit that there is a strong=
er
argument to be met than that implied by the parrot-cry of
'spoliation.' Socialism has, at any rate, so far advanced as t=
o be
allowed the ordinary courtesies of debate. We may op=
pose
it tooth and nail, but we must confront argument with arg=
ument
and not with abuse.
"Despite much exc=
ellent
literature which is read widely by cultured people, =
very
little is known by the general public of the principles wh=
ich
modern British Socialists have adopted as their guiding rul=
es.
Few business men care to study the subject. We have
therefore addressed a letter to the chief leaders of the Ca=
use,
with the purpose of ascertaining the effect which Soci=
alism
would have on our business habits. Our object was to dis=
cover
how far Socialism might disturb or improve business;=
whether
it would altogether subvert present methods, or wheth=
er it
could be applied without injury to these methods. To=
put
the matter very plainly, we wished to learn whether we =
should
carry on our business much as we do now, giving free =
play
to individual effort and individual fortune-building.=
"The reply of Mr.=
Wells
is as follows:--
"'MY DEAR SIR,
"'I wish very much I could reply at adequate length to =
your
very admirably framed question. The constant stream =
of
abuse and of almost imbecile misrepresentations of =
Socialism
in the Press has no doubt served to distort =
the
idea of our movement in the minds of a large =
proportion
of busy men, and filled them with an =
unfounded
dread of social insecurity. If it were =
possible
to allay that by an epigrammatic programme, =
"Socialism
in a Nutshell," so to speak, I would do my =
best.
But the economic and trading system of a modern =
State
is not only a vast and complex tangle of =
organizations,
but at present an uncharted tangle, and =
necessarily
the methods of transition from the limited =
individualism
of our present condition to the =
scientifically-organized
State, which is the Socialist =
ideal,
must be gradual, tentative and various.
"'To build up a body of social and economic science, to =
develop
a class of trained administrators, to rearrange =
local
government areas, to educate the whole community =
in
the "sense of the State" are necessary parts of the =
Socialist
scheme. You must try and induce your readers =
to
recognize that when Socialism finds such supporters =
as
Sir Oliver Lodge and Professor Karl Pearson, as William Mor=
ris
(who revolutionized the furniture trade), =
as
Granville Barker (who is revolutionizing the London =
stage),
as Mr. George Cadbury and Mr. Fels (whose names =
are
not unknown in the world of advertisement), as Mr. Allan (of the All=
an
Line), as Mr. George Bernard Shaw =
and
Mrs. Shaw, Mr. and Mrs. Sidney Webb and Sir Sidney =
Olivier
(the present Governor of Jamaica)--all of them =
fairly
comfortable and independent people, practically =
acquainted
with the business of investment and affairs =
generally
and quite alive to the present relations of =
property
to the civilized life--the suggestion that it =
is
a raid of the ignorant "Have-nots" on the possessions =
of
the wise and good "Haves" cannot be a very =
intelligent
one nor addressed to very intelligent =
people.
Essentially Socialism is the =
scientifically-organized
State as distinguished from the =
haphazard,
wasteful, blundering, child-sweating State of =
the
eighteenth century. It is the systematization of =
present
tendency. Necessarily its methods of transition =
will
be progressively scientific and humane.
"'So far as your specific questions go, I do not think =
there
could possibly be anything in the nature of =
"compulsory
profit-sharing" if a Socialist Government =
came
into office. There is at present a compulsory =
profit-sharing
in the form of an income-tax, but that =
tax
does not appeal to the Socialist as a particularly =
scientific
one. The advent of a strongly-Socialist =
Government
would mean no immediate revolutionary changes =
at
all. There would be, no doubt, a vigorous =
acceleration
of the educational movement to increase the =
economic
value and productivity of the average citizen =
of
the next generation, and legislation upon the lines =
laid
down by the principle of the "minimum wage" to =
check
the waste of our national resources by destructive =
employment.
Also a systematic shifting of the burthen of =
taxation
from enterprise to rent would begin. But =
nothing
convulsive would occur.'"
"'The means of transit and communication of the country =
(both
internal and external), and especially the =
railways
and canals (which are now rapidly falling into =
inefficiency
through the exhaustion of their capital =
upon
excessive dividends in the past), would probably be transferred
from competitive private to organized public =
control--a
transfer that would certainly be enormously =
stimulating
to business generally. There would be no =
"robbery,"
the former shareholders would become stock or annuity hol=
ders.
Nor would there be any financial =
convulsion
due to the raising of the "enormous sum" =
necessary
to effect this purchase. The country would =
simply
create stock, while at the same time taking over =
assets
to balance the new liability.
"'A Socialist Government would certainly also acquire =
the
coal mines and the coal trade, and relieve industry =
from
the inconveniences due to the manipulation of the =
supply
of this vitally important factor, and it would =
accelerate
the obvious tendency of the present time to =
bring
the milk trade, the drink trade, slaughtering, =
local
traffic, lighting and power supply into public =
hands.
But none of this is the destruction of property, =
but
only its organization and standardization. Such a =
State
organization of public services is, I submit, =
enough
to keep a Socialist Government busy for some few =
years,
and makes not only for social progress, but =
social
stability.
"'And does an honest and capable business man stand to =
lose
or gain by the coming of such a Socialist =
Government?
I submit that, on the whole, he stands to =
gain.
Let me put down the essential points in his =
outlook
as I conceive them.
"'Under a Socialist Government such as is quite possible =
in
England at the present time:--
"'He will be restricted from methods of production and =
sale
that are socially mischievous.
"'He will pay higher wages.
"'He will pay a larger proportion of his rate-rent =
outgoings
to the State and Municipality, and less to the =
landlord.
Ultimately he will pay it all to the State or =
Municipality,
and as a voter help to determine how it =
shall
be spent, and the landlord will become a =
Government
stock-holder. Practically he will get his =
rent
returned to him in public services.
"'He will speedily begin to get better-educated, =
better-fed
and better-trained workers, so that he will =
get
money value for the higher wages he pays.
"'He will get a regular, safe, cheap supply of power and =
material.
He will get cheaper and more efficient internal and external
transit.
"'He will be under an organized scientific State, which =
will
naturally pursue a vigorous scientific collective =
policy
in support of the national trade.
"'He will be less of an adventurer and more of a =
citizen....'"
So I wrote to the
Magazine of Commerce, and that for the energetic man who is conducting a re=
al
and socially useful business is the outlook. Socialism is not the coming of
chaos and repudiation, it is the coming of order and justice. For confusion=
and
accident and waste, the Socialist seeks to substitute design and collective
economy. That too is the individual aim of every good business man who is n=
ot a
mere advertising cheat or financial adventurer. To the sound-minded, clear-=
headed
man of affairs, Socialism appeals just as it appeals to the scientific man,=
to
the engineer, to the artist, because it is the same reality, the large scale
aspect of the same constructive motive, that stirs in himself.
§ 3.
Let me finally qu=
ote
the chairman of one of the most enterprising and enlightened business
organizations of our time to show that in claiming the better type of busin=
ess
man for modern Socialism I am making no vain boast. Sir John Brunner may not
call himself a Socialist, but this is very probably due to the fact that he
gets his ideas of Socialism from the misquotations of its interested advers=
aries.
This that follows from the Manchester Guardian is pure Socialism.
Speaking at the annual
meeting of Brunner, Mond and Co., Ltd., in Liverpool (190=
7),
the chairman, Sir John Brunner, M.P., made a remarkable
pronouncement on the subject of the collective owners=
hip of
canals. He said:--
"I have been one =
of a
Royal Commission visiting the North of France, Belgium, =
and
Northern Germany, and our duty has been to examine what t=
hose
three countries have done in the improvement of th=
eir
canals and their waterways. We have been very deeply impre=
ssed
by what we have seen, and I can tell you to-day, speaking =
as a
man of business to men of business, that the fact that in =
these
three countries there is communal effort--that is t=
o say,
that the State in money and in credit for the benefit o=
f the
national trade--has brought to those three countries
enormous, almost incalculable, benefits; and I think that any ma=
n, any
intelligent man, who studies this matter as I have
studied it for a great many years, will come the conclusion, a=
s I
have come very clearly and decidedly, that the old poli=
cy
which we have adopted for generations of leaving all public
works to private enterprise--the old policy, so called=
, of
laissez faire--is played out completely, and I=
am of
opinion, very firmly, that, if we mean to hold our own in
matters of trade, we must learn to follow the example that =
has
been set us not only by France, Belgium, and Germany, but =
by the
United States and by every one of the Colonies of our E=
mpire.
Everywhere do you find that trade is helped by the eff=
ort of
the community, by the force of the State, and I shal=
l be
very heartily pleased if those who hear me will think the
matter over and decide for themselves whether or not we=
as
business people--preeminently the business people o=
f the
world--are to maintain the old policy of leaving everyt=
hing
to private enterprise, or whether we are to act together f=
or the
good of all in this important matter of the national
trade."
CHAPTER IX - SOME COMMON
OBJECTIONS TO SOCIALISM
§ 1.
In the preceding
eight chapters I have sought to give as plain and full an account of the gr=
eat
generalizations of Socialism as I can, and to make it clear exactly what th=
ese
generalizations convey, and how far they go in this direction and that. Bef=
ore
we go on to a brief historical and anticipatory account of the actual Socia=
list
movement, it may be worth while to take up and consider compactly the chief=
objections
that are urged against the general propositions of Socialism in popular dis=
cussion.
Now a very large
proportion of these arise out of the commonest vice of the human mind, its
disposition to see everything as "yes" or "no," as
"black" or "white," its impatience, its incapacity for a
fine discrimination of intermediate shades.[14] The queer old scholastic lo=
gic
still prevails remarkably in our modern world; you find Mr. Mallock, for
example, going about arranging his syllogisms, extracting his opponent's
"self-contradictions," and disposing of Socialism with stupendous
self-satisfaction in all the magazines. He disposes of Socialism quite in t=
he
spirit of the young mediæval scholar returning home to prove beyond
dispute that "my cat has ten tails" and, given a yard's start, th=
at a
tortoise can always keep ahead of a running man. The essential fallacy is
always to declare that either a thing is A or it is not A; either a thing is
green or it is not green; either a thing is heavy or it is not heavy.
Unthinking people, and some who ought to know better, fall into that trap. =
They
dismiss from their minds the fact that there is a tinge of green in nearly
every object in the world, and that there is no such thing as pure green,
unless it be just one line or so in the long series of the spectrum; they
forget that the lightest thing has weight and that the heaviest thing can b=
e lifted.
The rest of the process is simple and has no relation whatever to the reali=
ties
of life. They agree to some hard and fast impossible definition of Socialis=
m,
permit the exponent to extract absurdities therefrom as a conjurer gets rab=
bits
from a hat, and retire with a conviction that on the whole it is well to ha=
ve
had this disturbing matter settled once for all.
[14] See "Scepticism of=
the
Instrument," the Appendix to A =
Modern
Utopia. (Chapman & Hall.)
For example, the
Anti-Socialist declares that Socialism "abolishes property." He m=
akes
believe there is a hard absolute thing called "property" which mu=
st
either be or not be, which is now, and which will not be under Socialism. To
any person with a philosophical education this is a ridiculous mental proce=
ss,
but it seems perfectly rational to an untrained mind--and that is the usual
case with the Anti-Socialist. Having achieved this initial absurdity, he th=
en
asks in a tone of bitter protest whether a man may not sleep in his own bed,
and is he to do nothing if he finds a coal-heaver already in possession whe=
n he
retires? This is the method of Mr. G. R. Sims, that delightful writer, who =
from
altitudes of exhaustive misunderstanding tells the working-man that under
Socialism he will have--I forget his exact formula, but it is a sort of
refrain--no money of his own, no home of his own, no wife of his own, no ha=
ir
of his own! It is effective nonsense in its way--but nonsense nevertheless.=
In
my preceding chapters I hope I have made it clear that "property"
even to-day is a very qualified and uncertain thing, a natural vague instin=
ct
capable of perversion and morbid exaggeration and needing control, and that
Socialism seeks simply to give it a sharper, juster and rationally limited =
form
in relation to the common-weal.
Or again, the
opponent has it that Socialism "abolishes the family"--and with i=
t,
of course, "every sacred and tender association," etc., etc. To t=
hat
also I have given a chapter.
I do not think mu=
ch
Anti-Socialism is dishonest in these matters. The tricks of deliberate
falsification, forgery and falsehood that discredit a few Conservative
candidates and speakers in the north of England and smirch the reputations =
of
one or two London papers, are due to a quite exceptional streak of baseness=
in
what is on the whole a straightforward opposition to Socialism. Anti-Social=
ism,
as its name implies, is no alternative doctrine; it is a mental resistance,=
not
a mental force. For the most part one is dealing with sheer intellectual in=
capacity;
with people, muddle-headed perhaps, but quite well-meaning, who are really
unable to grasp the quantitative element in things. They think with a simple
flat certitude that if, for example, a doctor says quinine is good for a ca=
se
it means that he wishes to put every ounce of quinine that can be procured =
into
his patient, to focus all the quinine in the world upon him; or that if a w=
oman
says she likes dancing, that thereby she declares her intention to dance un=
til
she drops. They are dear lumpish souls who like things "straightforwar=
d"
as they say--all or nothing. They think qualifications or any quantitative
treatment "quibbling," to be loudly scorned, bawled down and set
aside.
In controversy the
temptations for a hot and generous temperament, eager for victory, to misst=
ate
and overstate the antagonist's position are enormous, and the sensible
Socialist must allow for them unless he is to find discussion intolerable. =
The
reader of the preceding chapters should know exactly how Socialism stands to
the family relations, the things it urges, the things it regards with impar=
tiality
or patient toleration, the things it leaves alone. The preceding chapters
merely summarize a literature that has been accessible for years. Yet it is
extraordinary how few antagonists of Socialism seem able even to approach t=
hese
questions in a rational manner. One admirably typical critic of a pamphlet =
in
which I propounded exactly the same opinions as are here set out in the thi=
rd chapter,
found great comfort in the expression "brood mares." He took hold=
of
my phrase, "State family," and ran wild with it. He declared it t=
o be
my intention that women were no longer to be wives but "brood mares&qu=
ot;
for the State. Nothing would convince him that this was a glaring untruth. =
His
mind was essentially equestrian; "human stud farm" was another of=
his
expressions.[15] Ridicule and argument failed to touch him; I believe he wo=
uld
have gone to the stake to justify his faith that Socialists want to put wom=
an
in the Government haras. His thick-headedness had, indeed, a touch of the
heroic.
[15] What makes the expressi=
on
particularly inappropriate in =
my
case is the fact that in my Mankind in the Making there =
is
a clearly-reasoned chapter (Ch. II.) which has never been =
answered,
in which I discuss and, I think, conclusively =
dispose
of Mr. Francis Galton's ideas of Eugenics and =
deliberate
stirpiculture.
Then a certain Fa=
ther
Phelan of St. Louis, no doubt in a state of mental exaltation as honest as =
it
was indiscriminating, told the world through the columns of an American
magazine that I wanted to tear the babe from the mother's breast and thrust=
it
into an "Institution." He said worse things than that--but I set =
them
aside as pulpit eloquence. Some readers, no doubt, knew better and laughed,=
but
many were quite sincerely shocked, and resolved after that to give Socialis=
m a
very wide berth indeed. Honi soit qui mal y pense; the revolting ideas that
disgusted them were not mine, they came from some hot dark reservoir of evil
thoughts that years of chastity and discipline seem to have left intact in
Father Phelan's soul.
The error in all
these cases is the error of overstatement, of getting into a condition of
confused intellectual excitement, and because a critic declares your window
curtains too blue, saying, therefore, and usually with passion, that he wan=
ts
the whole universe, sky and sea included, painted bright orange. The inquir=
er
into the question of Socialism will find that an almost incurable disease of
these controversies. Again and again he will meet with it. If after that cr=
itic's
little proposition about your window curtains he chances to say that on the
whole he thinks an orange sky would be unpleasant, the common practice is to
accuse him of not "sticking to his guns."
My friends, Mr. G=
. K.
Chesterton and Mr. Max Beerbohm, those brilliant ornaments of our age, when
they chance to write about Socialism, confess this universal failing--albei=
t in
a very different quality and measure. They are not, it is true, distressed =
by
that unwashed coal-heaver who haunts the now private bed of the common Anti=
-Socialist,
nor have they any horrid vision of the fathers of the community being appro=
ved
by a select committee of the County Council--no doubt wrapped in horse-clot=
hs
and led out by their grooms--such as troubles the spurred and quivering sou=
l of
that equestrian--I forget his name--the "brood-mare" gentleman wh=
o denounced
me in the Pall Mall Gazette; but their souls fly out in a passion of protest
against the hints of discipline and order the advancement of Socialism reve=
als.
Mr. G. K. Chesterton mocks valiantly and passionately, I know, against an
oppressive and obstinately recurrent anticipation of himself in Socialist
hands, hair clipped, meals of a strictly hygienic description at regular ho=
urs,
a fine for laughing--not that he would want to laugh--and austere exercises=
in several
of the more metallic virtues daily. Mr. Max Beerbohm's conception is rather=
in
the nature of a nightmare, a hopeless, horrid, frozen flight from the pursu=
it
of Mr. Sidney Webb and myself, both of us short, inelegant men indeed, but =
for
all that terribly resolute, indefatigable, incessant, to capture him, to dr=
ag
him off to a mechanical Utopia and there to take his thumb-mark and his nam=
e, number
him distinctly in indelible ink, dress him in an unbecoming uniform, and let
him loose (under inspection) in a world of neat round lakes of blue lime wa=
ter
and vistas of white sanitary tiling....
The method of
reasoning in all these cases is the same; it is to assume that whatever the
Socialist postulates as desirable is wanted without limit or qualification,=
to
imagine whatever proposal is chosen for the controversy is to be carried ou=
t by
uncontrolled monomaniacs, and so to make a picture of the Socialist dream. =
This
picture is presented to the simple-minded person in doubt with "This i=
s Socialism.
Surely! SURELY! you don't want this!"
And occasionally =
the
poor, simple-minded person really is overcome by these imagined terrors. He
turns back to our dingy realities again, to the good old grimy world he kno=
ws,
thanking God beyond measure that he will never live to see the hateful day =
when
one baby out of every four ceases to die in our manufacturing towns, when l=
ives
of sordid care are banished altogether from the earth, and when the "s=
ense
of humour" and the cult of Mark Tapley which flourishes so among these
things will be in danger of perishing from disuse....
But the reader se=
es
now what Socialism is in its essentials, the tempered magnificence of the
constructive scheme to which it asks him to devote his life. It is a labori=
ous,
immense project to make the world a world of social justice, of opportunity=
and
full living, to abolish waste, to abolish the lavish unpremeditated cruelty=
of
our present social order. Do not let the wit or perversity of the adversary=
or,
what is often a far worse influence, the zeal and overstatement of the head=
long
advocate, do not let the manifest personal deficiencies of this spokesman or
that, distract you from the living heart in Socialism, its broad generosity=
of
conception, its immense claim in kinship and direction upon your Good Will.=
§ 2.
For the convenien=
ce
of those readers who are in the position of inquirers, I had designed at th=
is
point a section which was to contain a list of the chief objections to
Socialism--other than mere misrepresentations--which are current now-a-days=
. I
had meant at first to answer each one fully and gravely, to clear them all =
up exhaustively
and finally before proceeding. But I find now upon jotting them down, that =
they
are for the most part already anticipated by the preceding chapters, and so=
I
will note them here, very compactly indeed, and make but the briefest comme=
nt
upon each.
There is first the
assertion, which effectually bars a great number of people from further inq=
uiry
into Socialist teaching, that Socialism is contrary to Christianity. I would
urge that this is the absolute inversion of the truth. Christianity involve=
s, I
am convinced, a practical Socialism if it is honestly carried out. This is =
not
only my conviction, but the reader, if he is a Nonconformist, can find it s=
et out
at length by Dr. Clifford in a Fabian tract, Socialism and the Teaching of
Christ; and, if a Churchman, by the Rev. Stewart Headlam in another, Christ=
ian
Socialism. He will find a longer and fuller discussion of this question in =
the
Rev. R. J. Campbell's Christianity and Social Order. In the list of members=
of
such a Socialist Society as the Fabian Society will be found the names of
clergy of the principal Christian denominations, excepting only the Roman
Catholic Church. It is said, indeed, that a good Catholic of the Roman Comm=
union
cannot also be any sort of Socialist. Even this very general persuasion may=
not
be correct. I believe the papal prohibition was originally aimed entirely a=
t a
specific form of Socialism, the Socialism of Marx, Engels and Bebel, which =
is,
I must admit, unfortunately strongly anti-Christian in tone, as is the
Socialism of the British Social Democratic Federation to this day. It is tr=
ue
that many leaders of the Socialist party have also been Secularists, and th=
at
they have mingled their theological prejudices with their political work. T=
his
is the case not only in Germany and America, but in Great Britain, where Mr.
Robert Blatchford of the Clarion, for example, has also carried on a campai=
gn
against doctrinal Christianity. But this association of Secularism and
Socialism is only the inevitable throwing together of two sets of ideas bec=
ause
they have this in common, that they run counter to generally received opini=
ons;
there is no other connection. Many prominent Secularists, like Charles
Bradlaugh and Mr. J. M. Robertson, are as emphatically anti-Socialist as the
Pope. Secularists and Socialists get thrown together and classed together j=
ust
as early Christians and criminals and rebels against the Emperor were no do=
ubt
thrown together in the Roman gaols. They had this much in common, that they
were in conflict with what most people considered to be right. It is a
confusion that needs constant explaining away. It is to me a most lamentabl=
e association
of two entirely separate thought processes, one constructive socially and t=
he
other destructive intellectually, and I have already, in Chapter VI., §=
; 4,
done my best to disavow it.
Socialism is pure
Materialism, it seeks only physical well-being,--just as much as nursing le=
pers
for pity and the love of God is pure materialism that seeks only physical
well-being.
Socialism advocat=
es
Free Love. This objection I have also disposed of in Chapter VI., §&se=
ct;
2 and 4.
Socialism renders
love impossible, and reduces humanity to the condition of a stud farm. This,
too, has been already dealt with; see Chapter III., §§ 2 and 5, a=
nd
Chapter VI., §§ 2, 3, and 4. These two objections generally occur
together in the same anti-Socialist speech or tract.
Socialism would
destroy parental responsibility. This absurd perversion is altogether dispo=
sed
of in Chapter VI., § 3. It is a direct inversion of current Socialist
teaching.
§ 3.
Socialism would o=
pen
the way to vast public corruption. This is flatly opposed to the experience=
of
America, where local administration has been as little Socialistic and as
corrupt as anywhere in the world. Obviously in order that a public official=
should
be bribed, there must be some wealthy person outside the system to bribe him
and with an interest in bribing him. When you have a weak administration wi=
th
feeble powers and resources and strong unscrupulous private corporations se=
eking
to override the law and public welfare, the possibilities of bribing are at=
the
highest point. In a community given over to the pursuit of gain, powerful
private enterprises will resort to corruption to get and protract franchise=
s, to
evade penalties, to postpone expropriation, and they will do it systematica=
lly
and successfully. And even where there is partial public enterprise and a
competition among contractors, there will certainly be, at least, attempts =
at
corruption to get contracts. But where the whole process is in public hands,
where can the bribery creep in; who is going to find the money for the brib=
es,
and why?
It is urged that =
in
another direction there is likely to be a corruption of public life due to =
the
organized voting of the employés in this branch of the public servic=
e or
that, seeking some advantage for their own service. This is Lord Avebury's
bogey.[16] Frankly, such voting by services is highly probable. The tramway=
men
or the milk-service men may think they are getting too long hours or too low
pay in comparison with the teachers or men on the ocean liners, and the thi=
ng
may affect elections. That is only human nature, and the point to bear in m=
ind
is that this sort of thing goes on to-day, and goes on with a vigour out of=
all
proportion to the mild possibilities of a Socialist régime. The
landowners of Great Britain, for example, are organized in the most formida=
ble
manner against the general interests of the community, and constantly subor=
dinate
the interests of the common-weal to their conception of justice to their cl=
ass;
the big railways are equally potent, and so are the legal profession and the
brewers. But to-day these political interventions of great organized servic=
es
athwart the path of statesmanship are sustained by enormous financial
resources. The State employés under Socialism will be in the positio=
n of
employing one another and paying one another; the teacher, for example, wil=
l be
educating the sons of the tramway men up to the requirements of the public
paymaster, and travelling in the trams to and from his work; there will be
close mutual observation and criticism, therefore, and a strong community of
spirit, and that will put very definite limits indeed upon the possibly evil
influence of class and service interests in politics.
[16] On Municipal and Nation=
al
Trading, by Lord Avebury. =
(Macmillan
& Co., 1907.)
Socialism would
destroy Incentive and Efficiency. This is dealt with in Chapter V. on the
Spirit of Gain and the Spirit of Service.
Socialism is
economically unsound. The student of Socialism who studies--and every stude=
nt
of Socialism should study very carefully--the literature directed against
Socialism, will encounter a number of rather confused and frequently very
confusing arguments running upon "business" or "economic&quo=
t;
lines. In nearly all of these the root error is a misconception of the natu=
re
and aim of Socialist claims. Sometimes this misconception is stated and
manifest, often it is subtly implied, and then it presents the greatest dif=
ficulties
to the inexpert dialectician. I find, for instance, Mr. W. H. Lever, in an
article on Socialism and Business in the Magazine of Commerce for October 1=
907,
assuming that there will be no increase in the total wealth of the community
under Socialism, whereas, as my fourth chapter shows, Socialist proposals in
the matter of property aim directly at the cessation of the waste occasione=
d by
competition through the duplication and multiplication of material and
organizations (see for example the quotation from Elihu, p. 69), and at the
removal of the obstructive claims of private ownership (see p. 65) from the
path of production. If Socialism does not increase the total wealth of the =
community,
Socialism is impossible.
Having made this
assumption, however, Mr. Lever next assumes that all contemporary business =
is
productive of honest, needed commodities, and that its public utility and i=
ts
profitable conduct measure one another. But this ignores the manifest fact =
that
success in business now-a-days is far more often won by the mere salesmansh=
ip
of mediocre or inferior or short-weight goods than it is by producing
exceptional value, and the Kentish railways, for example, are a standing
contrast of the conflict between public service and private profit-seeking.=
But
having committed himself to these two entirely unsound assumptions, it is e=
asy
for Mr. Lever to show that since Socialism will give no more wealth, and si=
nce
what he calls Labour, Capital and the Employer (i.e. Labour, Plant and
Management) are necessary to production and must be maintained out of the t=
otal
product, there will be little more, practically, for the Labourer under
Socialist conditions than under the existing régime. Going on furthe=
r to
assume that the Owner is always enterprising and intelligent and
public-spirited, and the State stupid (which is a quite unjustifiable
assumption), he shows their share may even be less. But the whole case for =
the
Socialist proposals, the student must bear in mind, rests upon the recognit=
ion that
private management of our collective concerns means chaotic and socially
wasteful management--however efficient it may be in individual cases for
competitive purposes--and that the systematic abolition of the parasitic Ow=
ner
from our economic process implies the replacement of confusion by order and=
an
immense increase in the efficiency of that economic process. Socialism is
economy. If the student of Socialism does not bear this in mind, if once he
allows the assumption to creep in that Socialism is not so much a proposal =
to change,
concentrate and organize the economic process, as one to distribute the
existing wealth of the country in some new manner, he will find there is a =
bad
case for Socialism.
It is an amusing =
and
I think a fair comment on the arguments of Mr. Lever that a year or so ago =
he
was actually concerned--no doubt in the interests of the public as well as =
his
own--in organizing the production and distribution of soap so as to economi=
ze
the waste and avoid the public disservice due to the extreme competition of=
the
soap dealers. He wanted to do in the soap industry just exactly what Social=
ism
wants to do in the case of all public services, that is to say he wanted to
give it the economic advantages of a Great Combine. In some directions the
saving to the soap interest would have been immense; all the vast expenditu=
re
upon newspaper advertisements, for example, all the waste upon competing
travellers would have been saved. Whether the public would have benefited
greatly or not is beside the present question; Mr. Lever and other great so=
ap proprietors
would certainly have benefited enormously. They would have benefited by wor=
king
as a collective interest instead of as independent private owners. But in t=
his
little experiment in what was really a sort of voluntary Socialism for
particular ends, Mr. Lever reckoned without another great system of private
adventurers, the halfpenny newspaper proprietors, who had hitherto been dra=
wing
large sums from soap advertisement, and who had in fact been so far parasit=
ic on
the public soap supply. One group of these papers at once began a campaign
against the "Soap Trust," a campaign almost as noisy and untruthf=
ul
as the anti-Socialist campaign. They accused Mr. Lever of nearly every sort=
of
cheating that can be done by a soap seller, and anticipated every sort of
oppression a private monopolist can practise. In the end they paid
unprecedented damages for libel, but they stopped Mr. Lever's intelligent a=
nd
desirable endeavours to replace the waste and disorder of our existing soap
supply by a simple and more efficient organization. Mr. Lever cannot have
forgotten these facts; they were surely in the back of his mind when he wro=
te
his "Socialism and Business" paper, and it is a curious instance =
of
the unconscious limitations one may encounter in a mind of exceptional abil=
ity
that he could not bring them forward and apply them to the problem in hand.=
Socialism is
unbusinesslike. See Chapter VIII., §§ 2 and 3.
§ 4.
Socialism would
destroy freedom. This is a more considerable difficulty. To begin with it m=
ay
be necessary to remind the reader that absolute freedom is an impossibility=
. As
I have written in my Modern Utopia:--
"The idea of indi=
vidual
liberty is one that has grown in importance and gr=
ows
with every development of modern thought. To the classical
Utopists freedom was relatively trivial. Clearly they cons=
idered
virtue and happiness as entirely separable from li=
berty,
and as being altogether more important things. But the m=
odern
view, with its deepening insistence upon individualit=
y and
upon the significance of its uniqueness, stead=
ily
intensifies the value of freedom, until at last we begin =
to see
liberty as the very substance of life, that indeed it is=
life,
and that only the dead things, the choiceless things=
live
in absolute obedience to law. To have free play for one=
's
individuality is, in the modern view, the subjective triump=
h of
existence, as survival in creative work and offspring is =
its
objective triumph. But for all men, since man is a social
creature, the play of will must fall short of absolute freedom.
Perfect human liberty is possible only to a despot who is
absolutely and universally obeyed. Then to will would be to comma=
nd and
achieve, and within the limits of natural law we co=
uld at
any moment do exactly as it pleased us to do. All other
liberty is a compromise between our own freedom of will a=
nd the
wills of those with whom we come in contact. In an
organized state each one of us has a more or less elaborate co=
de of
what he may do to others and to himself, and what
others may do to him. He limits others by his rights and is
limited by the rights of others, and by considerations
affecting the welfare of the community as a whole.
"Individual liber=
ty in
a community is not, as mathematicians would say, always=
of
the same sign. To ignore this is the essential fallacy=
of
the cult called Individualism. But in truth, a general
prohibition in a State may increase the sum of liberty, and a
general permission may diminish it. It does not follow, as th=
ese
people would have us believe, that a man is more free where
there is least law, and more restricted where there is mo=
st
law. A socialism or a communism is not necessarily a sla=
very,
and there is no freedom under anarchy....
"It follows, ther=
efore,
in a modern Utopia, which finds the final hope of the=
world
in the evolving interplay of unique individualities, =
that
the State will have effectually chipped away just all tho=
se
spendthrift liberties that waste liberty, and not one liber=
ty
more, and so have attained the maximum general
freedom."...
That is the gist =
of
the Socialist's answer to this accusation. He asks what freedom is there to=
-day
for the vast majority of mankind? They are free to do nothing but work for a
bare subsistence all their lives, they may not go freely about the earth ev=
en,
but are prosecuted for trespassing upon the health-giving breast of our
universal mother. Consider the clerks and girls who hurry to their work of a
morning across Brooklyn Bridge in New York, or Hungerford Bridge in London;=
go and
see them, study their faces. They are free, with a freedom Socialism would =
destroy.
Consider the poor painted girls who pursue bread with nameless indignities
through our streets at night. They are free by the current standard. And the
poor half-starved wretches struggling with the impossible stint of oakum in=
a
casual ward, they too are free! The nimble footman is free, the crushed por=
ter
between the trucks is free, the woman in the mill, the child in the mine. A=
sk them!
They will tell you how free they are. They have happened to choose these wa=
ys
of living--that is all. No doubt the piquancy of the life attracts them in =
many
such cases.
Let us be frank; a
form of Socialism might conceivably exist without much freedom, with hardly
more freedom than that of a British worker to-day. A State Socialism tyrann=
ized
over by officials who might be almost as bad at times as uncontrolled small
employers, is so far possible that in Germany it is practically half-existe=
nt
now. A bureaucratic Socialism might conceivably be a state of affairs scarc=
ely
less detestable than our own. I will not deny there is a clear necessity of
certain addenda to the wider formulæ of Socialism if we are to be
safeguarded effectually from the official. We need free speech, free
discussion, free publication, as essentials for a wholesome Socialist State.
How they may be maintained I shall discuss in a later chapter. But these
admissions do not justify the present system. Socialism, though it failed to
give us freedom, would not destroy anything that we have in this way. We wa=
nt
freedom now, and we have it not. We speak of freedom of speech, but to-day,=
in
innumerable positions, Socialist employés who declared their opinions
openly would be dismissed. Then again in religious questions there is an im=
mense
amount of intolerance and suppression of social and religious discussion
to-day, especially in our English villages. As for freedom of action, most =
of
us, from fourteen to the grave, are chased from even the leisure to require
freedom by the necessity of earning a living....
Socialism, as I h=
ave
stated it thus far, and as it is commonly stated, would give economic liber=
ty
to men and women alike, it would save them from the cruel urgency of need, =
and
so far it would enormously enlarge freedom, but it does not guarantee them
political or intellectual liberty. That I frankly admit, and accept as one =
of
the incompletenesses of contemporary Socialism. I conceive, therefore, as I
shall explain at length in a later chapter, that it is necessary to supplem=
ent
such Socialism as is currently received by certain new propositions. But to
admit that Socialism does not guarantee freedom, is not to admit that Socia=
lism
will destroy it. It is possible, given certain conditions, for men to be ne=
arly
absolutely free in speech, in movement, in conduct; enormously free, that i=
s,
as compared with our present conditions, in a Socialist State established u=
pon
the two great propositions I have formulated in Chapters III. and IV. So th=
at the
statement that Socialism will destroy freedom is a baseless one of no value=
as
a general argument against the Socialist idea.
§ 5.
Socialism would
reduce life to one monotonous dead level! This in a world in which the majo=
rity
of people live in cheap cottages, villa residences and tenement houses, read
halfpenny newspapers and wear ready-made clothes!
Socialism would
destroy Art, Invention and Literature. I do not know why this objection is
made, unless it be that the objectors suppose that artists will not create,
inventors will not think, and no one write or sing except to please a wealt=
hy
patron. Without his opulent smile, where would they be? Well, do not let us=
be
ungrateful; the arts owe much to patronage. Go to Venice, go to Florence, a=
nd
you will find a glorious harvest of pictures and architecture, sown and rea=
ped by
a mercantile plutocracy. But then in Rome, in Athens, you will find an equal
accumulation made under very different conditions. Reach a certain phase of
civilization, a certain leisure and wealth, and art will out, however the
wealth may be distributed. In certain sumptuous directions art flourishes n=
ow,
and would certainly flourish less in a Socialist State; in the gear of
ostentatious luxury, in private furniture of all sorts, in palace building,=
in
the exquisite confections of costly feminine adornment, in the luxurious
binding of books, in the cooking of larks, in the distinguished portraiture=
of undistinguished
persons, in the various refinements of prostitution, in the subtle
accommodations of mystic theology, in jewellery. It is quite conceivable th=
at
in such departments Socialism will discourage and limit æsthetic and
intellectual effort. But no mercantile plutocracy could ever have produced a
Gothic cathedral, a folk-lore, a gracious natural type of cottage or beauti=
ful
clothing for the common people, and no mercantile plutocracy will ever tole=
rate
a literature of power. If the coming of Socialism destroys arts, it will al=
so create
arts; the architecture of private palaces will give place to an architectur=
e of
beautiful common homes, cottages and colleges, and to a splendid developmen=
t of
public buildings, the Sargents of Socialism will paint famous people instea=
d of
millionaires' wives, poetry and popular romantic literature will revive. Fo=
r my
own part I have no doubt where the balance of advantage lies.
It seems reasonab=
le
to look to the literary and artistic people themselves for a little guidanc=
e in
this matter. Well, we had in the nineteenth century an absolute revolt of
artists against Individualism. The proportion of open and declared Socialis=
ts
among the great writers, artists, playwrights, critics, of the Victorian pe=
riod
was out of all proportion to the number of Socialists in the general
population. Wilde in his Soul of Man under Socialism, Ruskin in many volume=
s of
imperishable prose, Morris in all his later life, have witnessed to the
unending protest of the artistic spirit against the rule of gain. Some of t=
hese
writers are not, perhaps, to be regarded as orthodox Socialists in the mode=
rn
sense, but their disgust with and contempt for Individualist competition is
entirely in the vein of our teaching.
Even this
Individualistic country of ours, after the shameful shock of the Great
Exhibition of 1851, decided that it could no longer leave art to private
enterprise, and organized that systematic government Art Teaching that has,=
in
spite of its many defects, revolutionized the æsthetic quality of this
country. And so far as research and invention go, one may very reasonably
appeal to such an authority on the other side, as the late Mr. Beit, of Wer=
nher
Beit & Co. The outcome of his experience as an individualist financier =
was
to convince him that the only way to raise the standard of technical scienc=
e in
England, and therewith of economic enterprise, was by the endowment of publ=
ic
teaching, and the huge "London Charlottenburg" rises--out of his
conviction. Even Messrs. Rockefeller and Carnegie admit the failure of
Individualism in this matter by pouring money into public universities and
public libraries. All these heads of the commercial process confess by such
acts just exactly what this objection of the inexperienced denies, that is =
to
say the power of the State to develop art, invention and knowledge; the
necessity that this duty should be done if not by, then at any rate through,
the State.
Socialism may very
seriously change the direction of intellectual and æsthetic endeavour;
that one admits. But there is no reason whatever for supposing it will not,=
and
there are countless reasons for supposing that it will, enormously increase=
the
opportunities and encouragements for æsthetic and intellectual endeav=
our.
§ 6.
Socialism would
arrest the survival of the Fittest. Here is an objection from quite a new
quarter. It is the stock objection of the science student. Hitherto we have
considered religious and æsthetic difficulties, but this is the
difficulty of the mind that realizes clearly the nature of the biological
process, the secular change in every species under the influence of its
environment, and is most concerned with that. Species, it is said, change--=
and
the student of the elements of science is too apt to conclude that this cha=
nge
is always ascent in the scale of being--by the killing off of the individua=
ls
out of harmony with the circumstances under which the species is living. Th=
is
is not quite true. The truer statement is that species change because, allo=
wing
for chance and individual exceptions, only those individuals survive to
reproduce themselves who are fairly well adjusted to the conditions of life=
; so
that in each generation there is only a small proportion of births out of
harmony with these conditions. This sounds very like the previous propositi=
on,
but it differs in this that the accent is shifted from the "killing&qu=
ot;
to the suppression of births, that is the really important fact. In any cas=
e, then,
the believer in evolution holds that the qualities encouraged by the
environment increase in the species and the qualities discouraged diminish.=
The
qualities that have survival value are not always what we human beings cons=
ider
admirable--that is a consideration many science students fail to grasp. The
remarkable habits of all the degenerating crustacea, for example, the appet=
ite
of the vulture, the unpleasing personality of the common hyæna, all t=
hat
less charming side of Mother Nature that her scandalized children may read =
of
in Cobbold's Human Parasites, are the result of survival under the pressure=
of
environment, just as much as the human eye or the wing of an eagle. Let the
objector therefore ask himself what sort of "fittest" are survivi=
ng
now.
The plain answer =
is
that under our present conditions the Breeding-Getter wins, the man who can
hold and keep and reproduce his kind. People with the instinct of owning
stronger than any other instinct float out upon the top of our seething mas=
s,
and flourish there. Aggressive, intensely acquisitive, reproductive people-=
-the
ignoble sort of Jew is the very type of it--are the people who will prevail=
in
a social system based on private property and mercantile competition. No
creative power, no nobility, no courage can battle against them. And below-=
-in
the slums and factories, what will be going on? The survival of a race of
stunted toilers, with great resisting power to infection, contagion and
fatigue, omnivorous as rats....
Don't imagine that
the high infantile death rate of our manufacturing centres spares the fine =
big
children. It does not. Here is the effectual answer to that. It is taken fr=
om
the Report of the Education Committee of the London County Council for the =
year
1905, and it is part of an account of an inquiry conducted by the headmaste=
r of
one school in a poor neighbourhood.
"The object of the
inquiry was to discover the causes of variation in the
physical condition of children within the limits of this si=
ngle
school. Each of the 405 boys was carefully weighed and measured with=
out
boots, a note was made of the condition =
of the
teeth, and a general estimate of the personal cleanlin=
ess
and sufficiency of clothing as a basis for determining t=
he
home conditions of neglect or otherwise from external evi=
dence.
The teacher of each class added an estimate of mental
capacity." (Here follow tabular arrangements of
results, and height and weight charts.)
"... It may be no=
ted in
the heights and weights for each age that the curve is=
not a
continuous line of growth, but that at some ages it spri=
ngs
nearer to, and at others sinks further from, the normal.=
The
greatest effect upon the life capital of the population is
produced by the infantile mortality, which in some years act=
ually
kills off during the first year one in five of all child=
ren
born; the question naturally arises what is its effect upo=
n the
survivors--do the weakly ones get killed off and on=
ly the
strong muddle through, or does the adverse environme=
nt
which slaughters one in five have a maiming effect up=
on
those left?... When the infantile mortality for the
parish in which the school is situate was charted above the
physique curve, an absolute correspondence is to be observed=
. The
children born in a year when infantile mortality is low =
show
an increased physique, rising nearest to the normal in the
extraordinary good year 1892; and those born in the years of h=
igh
mortality show a decreased physique.... It appears certai=
n,
therefore, that in years of high infantile mortality the
conditions, to which one in five or six of the children born are
sacrificed, have a maiming effect upon the other four or
five."
The fine big chil=
dren
are born in periods of low infantile mortality, that is the essential point=
.
So that anyhow, s=
ince
the fittest under present conditions is manifestly the ratlike, the surviva=
l of
the fittest that is going on now is one that it is highly desirable to stop=
as
soon as possible, and so far Socialism will arrest the survival of the fitt=
est.
But that does not mean that it will stop the development of the species alt=
ogether.
It will merely shift the incident of selection and rejection to a new set of
qualities. I think I have already hinted (Chapter VI., § 2) that a Sta=
te
that undertakes to sustain all the children born into it will do its best to
secure good births. That implies a distinct bar to the marriage and
reproduction of the halt and the blind, the bearers of transmissible diseas=
es
and the like. And women being economically independent will have a far freer
choice in wedlock than they have now. Now they must in practice marry men w=
ho can
more or less keep them, they must subordinate every other consideration to
that. Under Socialism they will certainly look less to a man's means and
acquisitive gifts, and more to the finer qualities of his personality. They
will prefer prominent men, able men, fine, vigorous and attractive persons.
There will, indeed, be far more freedom of choice on either side than under=
the
sordid conditions of the present time. I submit that such a free choice is =
far
more likely to produce a secular increase in the beauty, the intellectual a=
nd
physical activity and the capacity of the race, than our present haphazard
mercenariness.
The science stude=
nt
will be interested to read in this connection The Ethic of Free Thought (A.
& C. Black, 1888), Socialism in Theory and Practice (1884), and The Cha=
nces
of Death, and other Studies in Evolution (Arnold, 1897), by Karl Pearson.
Professor Pearson is not in all respects to be taken as an authoritative
exponent of Modern Socialism, and he is associated with no Socialist
organization, but his treatment of the biological aspect is that of a
specialist and a master.
§ 7.
Socialism is agai=
nst
Human Nature. This objection I have left until last because, firstly, it is
absolutely true, and secondly, it leads naturally to the newer ideas that h=
ave
already peeped out once or twice in my earlier chapters and which will now =
ride
up to a predominance in what follows, and particularly the idea that an edu=
cational
process and a moral discipline are not only a necessary part, but the most
fundamental part of any complete Socialist scheme. Socialism is against Hum=
an
Nature. That is true, and it is equally true of everything else; capitalism=
is
against human nature, competition is against human nature, cruelty, kindnes=
s,
religion and doubt, monogamy, polygamy, celibacy, decency, indecency, piety=
and
sin are all against human nature. The present system in particular is again=
st
human nature, or what is the policeman for, the soldier, the debt-collector,
the judge, the hangman? What means the glass along my neighbour's wall? Hum=
an
nature is against human nature. For human nature is in a perpetual conflict=
; it
is the Ishmael of the universe, against everything, and with everything aga=
inst
it; and within, no more and no less than a perpetual battleground of passio=
n,
desire, cowardice, indolence and good will. So that our initial proposition=
as it
stands at the head of this section, is, as an argument against Socialism, j=
ust
worth nothing at all.
None the less
valuable is it as a reminder of the essential constructive task of which the
two primary generalizations of Socialism we have so far been developing are=
but
the outward and visible forms. There is no untutored naturalness in Sociali=
sm,
no uneducated blind force on our side. Socialism is made of struggling Good
Will, made out of a conflict of wills. I have tried to let it become appare=
nt
that while I do firmly believe not only in the splendour and nobility of the
Socialist dream but in its ultimate practicality, I do also recognize quite
clearly that with people just as they are now, with their prejudices, their
ignorances, their misapprehensions, their unchecked vanities and greeds and
jealousies, their crude and misguided instincts, their irrational tradition=
s,
no Socialist State can exist, no better State can exist, than the one we ha=
ve
now with all its squalor and cruelty. Every change in human institutions mu=
st
happen concurrently with a change of ideas. Upon this plastic, uncertain,
teachable thing Human Nature, within us and without, we have, if we really
contemplate Socialism as our achievement, to impose guiding ideas and guidi=
ng
habits, we have to co-ordinate all the Good Will that is active or latent in
our world in one constructive plan. To-day the spirit of humanity is lost t=
o itself,
divided, dispersed and hidden in little narrow distorted circles of thought.
These divided, misshapen circles of thought are not "human nature,&quo=
t;
but human nature has fallen into these forms and has to be released. Our
fundamental business is to develop the human spirit. It is in the enlargeme=
nt
and enrichment of the average circle of thought that the essential work and
method of Socialism is to be found.
CHAPTER X - SOCIALISM A
DEVELOPING DOCTRINE
§ 1.
So far we have be=
en
discussing the broad elementary propositions of Modern Socialism. As we have
dealt with them, they amount to little more than a sketch of the foundation=
for
a great scheme of social reconstruction. It would be a poor service to
Socialism to pretend that this scheme is complete. From this point onward o=
ne
enters upon a series of less unanimous utterances and more questionable
suggestions. Concerning much of what follows, Socialism has as yet not
elaborated its teaching. It has to do so, it is doing so, but huge labours =
lie before
its servants. Before it can achieve any full measure of realization, it has=
to
overcome problems at present but half solved, problems at present scarcely
touched, the dark unsettling suggestion of problems that still await
formulation. The Anti-Socialist is freely welcome to all these admissions. =
No
doubt they will afford grounds for some cheap transitory triumph. They affe=
ct
our great generalizations not at all; they detract nothing from the fact th=
at
Socialism presents the most inspiring, creative scheme that ever came into =
the
chaos of human affairs. The fact that it is not cut and dried, that it live=
s and
grows, that every honest adherent adds not only to its forces but to its
thought and spirit, is itself inspiration.
The new adherent =
to
Socialism in particular must bear this in mind, that Socialism is no garment
made and finished that we can reasonably ask the world to wear forthwith. I=
t is
not that its essentials remain in doubt, it is not that it does not stand f=
or
things supremely true, but that its proper method and its proper expedients
have still to be established. Over and above the propaganda of its main
constructive ideas and the political work for their more obvious and practi=
cal application,
an immense amount of intellectual work remains to be done for Socialism. The
battle for Socialism is to be fought not simply at the polls and in the
market-place, but at the writing-desk and in the study. To many questions, =
the
attitude of Socialism to-day is one of confessed inquiring imperfection.[17=
] It
would indeed be very remarkable if a proposition for changes so vast and
comprehensive as Socialism advances was in any different state at this pres=
ent
time.
[17] The student will find v=
ery
clear, informing, and =
suggestive
reading in Kirkup's History of Socialism (A. & =
C.
Black, 1906). It is a fine, impartial account of these devel=
opments,
which may well be used as a corrective (or =
confirmation)
of this book.
It is so recently=
as
1833 that the world first heard the word Socialism.[18] It appeared then, w=
ith
the vaguest implications and the most fluctuating definition, as a general =
term
for a disconnected series of protests against the extreme theories of
Individualism and Individualist Political Economy; against the cruel,
race-destroying industrial spirit that then dominated the world. Of these
protests the sociological suggestions and experiments of Robert Owen were m=
ost prominent
in the English community, and he it is, more than any other single person, =
whom
we must regard as the father of Socialism. But in France ideas essentially
similar were appearing about such movements and personalities as those of S=
aint
Simon, Proudhon and Fourier. They were part of a vast system of questionings
and repudiations, political doubts, social doubts, hesitating inquiries and
experiments.
[18] It was probably first u=
sed in
the Poor Man's Guardian =
in
that year. See The Life of Francis Place, by Graham =
Wallas,
p. 353.
It is only to be
expected that early Socialism should now appear as not only an extremely
imperfect but a very inconsistent system of proposals. Its value lay not so
much in its plans as in its hopeful and confident denials. It had hold of o=
ne
great truth; it moved one great amendment to the conception of practical
equality the French Revolution had formulated, and that was its clear
indication of the evil of unrestricted private property and of the necessary
antagonism of the interests of the individual to the common-weal, of
"Wealth against Commonwealth," that went with that. While most men
had to go propertyless in a world that was privately owned, the assertion o=
f equality
was an empty lie. For the rest, primordial Socialism was entirely sketchy a=
nd
experimental. It was wild as the talk of school-boys. It disregarded the mo=
st
obvious needs. It did not provide for any principle of government, or for t=
he
maintenance of collective thought and social determination, it offered no
safeguards and guarantees for even the most elementary privacies and freedo=
ms;
it was extraordinarily non-constructive. It was extreme in its proposed abo=
lition
of the home, and it flatly ignored the huge process of transition needed fo=
r a
change so profound and universal.
The early Sociali=
sm
was immediately millennial. It had no patience. The idea was to be made int=
o a
definite project forthwith; Fourier drew up his compact scheme, arranged how
many people should live in each phalange and so forth, and all that remaine=
d to
do, he thought, was to sow phalanges as one scatters poppy seed. With him it
was to be Socialism by contagion, with many of his still hastier contempora=
ries
it was to be Socialism by proclamation. All the evils of society were to
crumble to ruins like the Walls of Jericho at the first onset of the Great
Idea.
Our present
generation is less buoyant perhaps, but wiser. However young you may be as a
reformer, you know you must face certain facts those early Socialists ignor=
ed.
Whatever sort of community you dream of, you realize that it has to be made=
of
the sort of people you meet every day or of the children growing up under t=
heir
influence. The damping words of the old philosopher to the ardent Social
reformer of seventeen were really the quintessence of our criticism of revo=
lutionary
Socialism: "Will your aunts join us, my dear? No! Well--is the grocer =
on
our side? And the family solicitor? We shall have to provide for them all, =
you
know, unless you suggest a lethal chamber."
For a generation
Socialism, in the exaltation of its self-discovery, failed to measure these
primary obstacles, failed to recognize the real necessity, the quality of t=
he
task of making these people understand. To this day the majority of Sociali=
sts
still fail to grasp completely the Herbartian truth, the fact that every hu=
man
soul moves within its circle of ideas, resisting enlargement, incapable ind=
eed if
once it is adult of any extensive enlargement, and that all effectual human
progress can be achieved only through such enlargement. Only ideas cognate =
to a
circle of ideas are assimilated or assimilable; ideas too alien, though you
shout them in the ear, thrust them in the face, remain foreign and
incomprehensible.
The early Sociali=
sts,
arriving at last at their Great Idea, after toilsome questionings, after
debates, disputations, studies, trials, saw, and instantly couldn't underst=
and
those others who did not see; they failed altogether to realize the leaps t=
hey
had made, the brilliant omissions they had achieved, the difficulties they =
had evaded
to get to this magnificent conception. I suppose such impatience is as natu=
ral
and understandable as it is unfortunate. None of us escape it. Much of this
early Socialism is as unreal as mathematics, has much the same relation to
truth as the abstract absolute process of calculation has to concrete
individual things; much of it more than justifies altogether that "bla=
ck
or white" method of criticism of which I wrote in the preceding chapte=
r.
They were as downright and unconsidering, as little capable of the reasoned
middle attitude. Proudhon, perceiving that the world was obsessed by a misc=
onception
of the scope of property whereby the many were enslaved to the few, went of=
f at
a tangent to the announcement that "Property is Robbery," an
exaggeration that, as I have already shown, still haunts Socialist discussi=
on.
The ultimate factor of all human affairs, the psychological factor, was
disregarded. Like the classic mathematical problem, early Socialism was alw=
ays
"neglecting the weight of the elephant"--or some other--from the
practical point of view--equally essential factor. This was, perhaps, an
unavoidable stage. It is probable that by no other means than such exaggera=
tion
and partial statement could Socialism have got itself begun. The world of 1=
830
was fatally wrong in its ideas of property; early Socialism rose up and gave
those ideas a flat, extreme, outrageous contradiction. After that analysis =
and
discussion became possible.
The early Sociali=
st
literature teems with rash, suggestive schemes. It has the fertility, the
confusion, the hopefulness, the promise of glowing youth. It is a quarry of
ideas, a mine of crude expedients, a fountain of emotions. The abolition of
money, the substitution of Labour Notes, the possibility, justice and advan=
tage
of equalizing upon a time-basis the remuneration of the worker, the relatio=
n of
the new community to the old family, a hundred such topics were ventilated-=
-were
not so much ventilated as tossed about in an impassioned gale.
Much of this earl=
ier
Socialist literature was like Cabet's book, actually Utopian in form; a sti=
ll
larger proportion was Utopian in spirit; its appeal was imaginative, and it
aimed to be a plan of a new state as definite and detailed as the plan for =
the
building of a house. It has been the fashion with a number of later Sociali=
st writers
and speakers, mind-struck with that blessed word "evolution," con=
fusing
"scientific," a popular epithet to which they aspired, with "=
;unimaginative,"
to sneer at the Utopian method, to make a sort of ideal of a leaden
practicality, but it does not follow because the Utopias produced and the
experiments attempted were in many aspects unreasonable and absurd that the
method itself is an unsound one. At a certain phase of every creative effort
you must cease to study the thing that is, and plan the thing that is not. =
The
early Socialisms were only premature plans and hasty working models that fa=
iled
to work.
And it must be
remembered when we consider Socialism's early extravagancies, that any idea=
or
system of ideas which challenges the existing system is necessarily, in
relation to that system, outcast. Mediocre men go soberly on the highroads,=
but
saints and scoundrels meet in the gaols. If A and B rebel against the
Government, they are apt, although they rebel for widely different reasons,=
to
be classed together; they are apt indeed to be thrown together and tempted =
to sink
even quite essential differences in making common cause against the enemy. =
So
that from its very beginning Socialism was mixed up--to this day it remains
mixed up--with other movements of revolt and criticism, with which it has no
very natural connection. There is, for example, the unfortunate entanglement
between the Socialist theory and that repudiation of any but subjective sex=
ual
limitations which is called "free love," and there is that still =
more
unfortunate association of its rebellion against orthodox economic theories,
with rebellion against this or that system of religious teaching. Several of
the early Socialist communities, again, rebelled against ordinary clothing,=
and
their women made short hair and bloomers the outward and visible associatio=
ns
of the communistic idea. In Holyoake's History of Co-operation it is stated
that one early experiment was known to its neighbours as "the grass-ea=
ting
Atheists of Ham Common." I have done my very best (in Chapter VIII.,
§ 2) to clear the exposition of Socialism from these entanglements, bu=
t it
is well to recognize that these are no corruptions of its teaching, but an
inevitable birth-infection that has still to be completely overcome.
§ 2.
The comprehensive=
ly
constructive spirit of modern Socialism is very much to seek in these child=
hood
phases that came before Marx. These early projects were for the most part
developed by literary men (and by one philosophic business man, Owen) to wh=
ose
circle of ideas the conception of State organization and administration was
foreign. They took peace and order for granted--they left out the
school-master, the judge and the policeman, as the amateur architect of the
anecdote left out the staircase. They set out to contrive a better industri=
al organization,
or a better social atmosphere within the present scheme of things. They wis=
hed
to reform what they understood, and what was outside their circle of ideas =
they
took for granted, as they took the sky and sea. Not only was their literatu=
re
Utopian literature, about little islands of things begun over again from the
beginning, but their activities tended in the direction of Utopian experime=
nts equally
limited and isolated. Here again a just critic will differ from many
contemporary Socialists in their depreciation of this sort of work. Owen's
experiments in socialized production were of enormous educational and
scientific value. They were, to use a mining expert's term, "hand
specimens" of human welfare of the utmost value to promoters. They made
factory legislation possible; they initiated the now immense co-operative
movement; they stirred commonplace imaginations as only achievement can stir
them; they set going a process of amelioration in industrial conditions that
will never, I believe, cease again until the Socialist state is attained.
But apart from Ow=
en
and the general advertisement given to Socialist ideas, it must be admitted
that a great majority of Socialist communities have, by every material
standard, failed rather than succeeded. Some went visibly insolvent and to
pieces, others were changed by prosperity. Some were wrecked by the sudden
lapse of the treasurer into an extreme individualism. Essentially Socialism=
is
a project for the species, but these communities made it a system of relati=
onships
within a little group; to the world without they had necessarily to turn a
competitive face, to buy and sell and advertise on the lines of the system =
as
it is. If they failed, they failed; if they succeeded they presently found
themselves landlords, employers, no more and no less than a corporate indiv=
idualism.
I have described elsewhere[19] the fate of the celebrated Oneida community =
of
New York State, and how it is now converted into an aggressive, wealthy, fi=
ghting
corporation of the most modern type, employing immigrant labour.
[19]
The Future in America. (Chapman & Hall, 1906.)
Professed and
conscious Socialism in its earliest stages, then, was an altogether extreme
proposition, it was at once imperfect and over-emphatic, and it was confused
with many quite irrelevant and inconsistent novelties with regard to diet,
dress, medicine and religion. Its first manifest, acknowledged and labelled
fruits were a series of futile "communities"--Noyes' History of
American Socialisms gives their simple history of births and of fatal infan=
tile
ailments--Brook Farm, Fourierite "Phalanges" and the like. But
correlated with these extreme efforts, drawing ideas and inspiration from t=
hem,
was the great philanthropic movement for the amelioration of industrialism,
that was, I insist, for all its absence of a definite Socialist label in ma=
ny
cases, an equally legitimate factor in the making of the great conception of
modern Socialism. Socialism may be the child of the French Revolution, but =
it
certainly has one aristocratic Tory grandparent. There can be little disput=
e of
the close connection of Lord Shaftesbury's Factory Acts, that commencement =
of
constructive statesmanship in industrialism, with the work of Owen. The who=
le
Victorian period marks a steady development of social organization out of t=
he
cruel economic anarchy of its commencement; the beginnings of public educat=
ion,
adulteration acts and similar checks upon the extremities of private
enterprise, the great successful experiments of co-operative consumers'
associations and the development of what has now become a quasi-official re=
presentation
of labour in the State through the Trade Unions. Two great writers, Carlyle=
and
Ruskin, the latter a professed Socialist, spent their powers in a relentless
campaign against the harsh theories of the liberty of property, the gloomy
superstitions of political economy that barred the way to any effectual
constructive scheme. An enormous work was done throughout the whole Victori=
an
period by Socialists and Socialistic writers, in criticizing and modifying =
the average
circle of ideas, in bringing conceptions that had once seemed weird, outcast
and altogether fantastic, more and more within the range of acceptable
practicality.
The first early
Socialisms were most various and eccentric upon the question of government =
and
control. They had no essential political teaching. Many, but by no means al=
l,
were inspired by the democratic idealism of the first French Revolution. Th=
ey
believed in a mystical something that was wiser and better than any
individual,--the People, the Common Man. But that was by no means the case =
with
all of them. The Noyes community was a sort of Theocratic autocracy; the Sa=
int Simonian
tendency was aristocratic. The English Socialism that in the middle Victori=
an
period developed partly out of the suggestions of Owen's beginnings and par=
tly
as an independent fresh outpouring of the struggling Good Will in man, that
English Socialism that found a voice in Ruskin and in Maurice and Kingsley =
and
the Christian Socialists, was certainly not democratic. It kept much of what
was best in the "public spirit" of contemporary English life, and=
it
implied if it did not postulate a "governing class." Benevolent a=
nd
even generous in conception, its exponents betray all too often the ties of
social habituations, the limited circle of ideas of English upper and upper=
middle-class
life, easy and cultivated, well served and distinctly, most unmistakably,
authoritative.
While the
experimental Utopian Socialisms gave a sort of variegated and conflicting
pattern of a reorganized industrialism and (incidentally to that) a new hea=
ven
and earth, the benevolent Socialism, Socialistic Liberalism and Socialistic
philanthropy of the middle Victorian period, really went very little furthe=
r in
effect than a projected amelioration and moralization of the relations of r=
ich
and poor. It needed the impact of an entirely new type of mind before Socia=
lism
began to perceive its own significance as an ordered scheme for the entire
reconstruction of the world, began to realize the gigantic breadth of its
implications.
CHAPTER XI - REVOLUTIONARY
SOCIALISM
§ 1.
It was Karl Marx =
who
brought the second great influx of suggestion into the intellectual process=
of
Socialism. Before his time there does not seem to have been any clear view =
of
economic relationships as having laws of development, as having interactions
that began and went on and led towards new things. But Marx had vision. He
had--as Darwin and the evolutionists had, as most men with a scientific
training, and many educated men without that advantage now have--a sense of
secular change. Instead of being content with the accepted picture of the w=
orld
as a scene where men went on producing and distributing wealth and growing =
rich
or poor, it might be for endless ages, he made an appeal to history and
historical analogies, and for the first time viewed our age of individualist
industrial development, not as a possibly permanent condition of humanity, =
but
as something unstable and in motion, as an economic process, that is to say,
with a beginning, a middle, and as he saw it, an almost inevitable end.
The last thing men
contrive to discern in every question is the familiar obvious, and it came =
as a
great and shattering discovery to the economic and sociological thought of =
the
latter half of the nineteenth century that there was going on not simply a
production but an immense concentration of wealth, a differentiation of a
special wealthy class of landholder and capitalist, a diminution of small p=
roperty
owners and the development of a great and growing class of landless, nearly
propertyless men, the proletariat. Marx showed--he showed so clearly that
to-day it is recognized by every intelligent man--that given a continuance =
of
our industrial and commercial system, of uncontrolled gain seeking, that is,
given a continuance of our present spirit and ideas of property, there must
necessarily come a time when the owner and the proletarian will stand face =
to
face, with nothing--if we except a middle class of educated professionals d=
ependent
on the wealthy, who are after all no more than the upper stratum of the
proletariat--to mask or mitigate their opposition. We shall have two classe=
s,
the class-conscious worker and the class-conscious owner, and they will be =
at
war. And with a broad intellectual sweep he flung the light of this concept=
ion
upon the whole contemporary history of mankind. Das Kapital was no sketch o=
f Utopias,
had no limitation to the conditions or possibilities of this country or tha=
t.
"Here," he says, in the widest way, "is what is going on all
over the world. So long as practically untrammelled private property, such =
as
you conceive it to-day, endures, this must go on. The worker gravitates
steadily everywhere to a bare subsistence, the rest of the proceeds of his
labour swell the power of the owners. So it will go on while gain and getti=
ng
are the rule of your system, until accumulated tensions between class and c=
lass
smash this present social organization and inaugurate a new age."
In considering the
thought and work of Karl Marx, the reader must bear in mind the epoch in wh=
ich
that work commenced. The intellectual world was then under the sway of an
organized mass of ideas known as the Science of Political Economy, a mass of
ideas that has now not so much been examined and refuted as slipped away
imperceptibly from its hold upon the minds of men. In the beginning, in the
hands of Adam Smith--whose richly suggestive book is now all too little rea=
d--political
economy was a broad-minded and sane inquiry into the statecraft of trade ba=
sed
upon current assumptions of private ownership and personal motives, but from
him it passed to men of perhaps, in some cases, quite equal intellectual en=
ergy
but inferior vision and range. The history of Political Economy is indeed o=
ne
of the most striking instances of the mischief wrought by intellectual minds
devoid of vision, in the entire history of human thought. Special definitio=
n,
technicality, are the stigmata of second-rate intellectual men; they cannot
work with the universal tool, they cannot appeal to the general mind. They =
must
abstract and separate. On such men fell the giant's robe of Adam Smith, and
they wore it after their manner. Their arid atmospheres are intolerant of
clouds, an outline that is not harsh is abominable to them. They criticized
their master's vagueness and must needs mend it. They sought to give politi=
cal
economy a precision and conviction such a subject will not stand. They took
such words as "value," an incurably and necessarily vague word,
"rent," the name of the specific relation of landlord and tenant,=
and
"capital," and sought to define them with relentless exactness and
use them with inevitable effect. So doing they departed more and more from
reality. They developed a literature more abundant, more difficult and less
real than all the exercises of the schoolmen put together. To use common wo=
rds
in uncommon meanings is to sow a jungle of misunderstanding. It was only to=
be
expected that the bulk of this economic literature resolves upon analysis i=
nto
a ponderous, intricate, often astonishingly able and foolish wrangling abou=
t terminology.
Now in the early
Victorian period in which Marx planned his theorizing, political economy ru=
led
the educated world. Ruskin had still to attack the primary assumptions of t=
hat
tyrannous and dogmatic edifice. The duller sort of educated people talked of
the "immutable laws of political economy" in the blankest ignoran=
ce
that the basis of everything in this so-called science was a plastic human
convention. Humane impulses were checked, creative effort tried and condemn=
ed
by these mystical formulæ. Political economy traded on the splendid a=
chievements
of physics and chemistry and pretended to an inexorable authority. Only a m=
an
of supreme intelligence and power, a man resolved to give his lifetime to t=
he
task, could afford in those days to combat the pretensions of the political
economist; to deny that his categories presented scientific truth, and to c=
ast
that jargon aside. As for Marx, he saw fit to accept the verbal instruments=
of
his time (albeit he bent them not a little in use), to accommodate himself =
to their
spirit and to split and re-classify and re-define them at his need. So that=
he
has become already difficult to follow, and his more specialized exponents
among Socialists use terms that arouse no echoes in the contemporary mind. =
The
days when Socialism need present its theories in terms of a science whose
fundamental propositions it repudiates, are at an end. One hears less and l=
ess
of "surplus value" now, as one hears less and less of McCulloch's=
Law
of Wages. It may crop up in the inquiries of some intelligent mechanic seek=
ing knowledge
among the obsolescent accumulations of a public library, or it may for a mo=
ment
be touched upon by some veteran teacher. But the time when social and econo=
mic
science had to choose between debatable and inexpressive technicalities on =
the
one hand or the stigma of empiricism on the other, is altogether past.
The language a man
uses, however, is of far less importance than the thing he has to say, and =
it
detracts little from the cardinal importance of Marx that his books will
presently demand restatement in contemporary phraseology, and revision in t=
he
light of contemporary facts. He opened out Socialism. It is easy to quibble
about Marx, and say he didn't see this or that, to produce this eddy in a
backwater or that as a triumphant refutation of his general theory. One may
quibble about the greatness of Marx as one may quibble about the greatness =
of Darwin;
he remains great and cardinal. He first saw and enabled the world to see
capitalistic production as a world process, passing by necessity through
certain stages of social development, and unless some change of law and spi=
rit
came to modify it, moving towards an inevitable destiny. His followers are =
too
apt to regard that as an absolutely inevitable destiny, but the fault lies =
not
at his door. He saw it as Socialism. It did not appear to him as it does to
many that there is a possible alternative to Socialism, that the process ma=
y give
us, not a triumph for the revolting proletariat, but their defeat, and the
establishment of a plutocratic aristocracy culminating in imperialism and
ending in social disintegration. From his study, from the studious rotunda =
of
the British Museum Reading-room he made his prophecy of the growing class
consciousness of the workers, of the inevitable class war, of the revolution
and the millennium that was to follow it. He gathered his facts, elaborated=
his
deductions and waited for the dawn.
So far as his bro=
ad
generalization of economic development goes, events have wonderfully confir=
med
Marx. The development of Trusts, the concentration of property that America=
in
particular displays, he foretold. Given that men keep to the unmodified ide=
as
of private property and individualism, and it seems absolutely true that so=
the
world must go. And in the American Appeal to Reason, for example, which goes
out weekly from Kansas to a quarter of a million of subscribers, one may, if
one chooses, see the developing class consciousness of the workers, and the
promise--and when strikers take to rifles and explosives as they do in
Pennsylvania and Colorado, something more than the promise--of the class
war....
But the modern
Socialist considers that this generalization is a little too confident and
comprehensive; he perceives that a change in custom, law or public opinion =
may
delay, arrest or invert the economic process, and that Socialism may arrive
after all not by a social convulsion, but by the gradual and detailed
concession of its propositions. The Marxist presents dramatically what after
all may come methodically and unromantically, a revolution as orderly and q=
uiet
as the precession of the equinoxes. There may be a concentration of capital=
and
a relative impoverishment of the general working mass of people, for exampl=
e,
and yet a general advance in the world's prosperity and a growing sense of
social duty in the owners of capital and land may do much to mask this
antagonism of class interests and ameliorate its miseries. Moreover, this
antagonism itself may in the end find adequate expression through temperate
discussion, and the class war come disguised beyond recognition, with hates
mitigated by charity and swords beaten into pens, a mere constructive
conference between two classes of fairly well-intentioned albeit perhaps st=
ill biassed
men and women.
§ 2.
The circle of ide=
as
in which Marx moved was that of a student deeply tinged with the idealism of
the renascent French Revolution. His life was the life of a recluse from af=
fairs--an
invalid's life; a large part of it was spent round and about the British Mu=
seum
Reading-room, and his conceptions of Socialism and the social process have =
at
once the spacious vistas given by the historical habit and the abstract qua=
lity
that comes with a divorce from practical experience of human government. On=
ly
in England and in the eighties did the expanding propositions of Socialism =
come
under the influence of men essentially administrative. As a consequence Mar=
x,
and still more the early Marxists, were and are negligent of the necessitie=
s of
government and crude in their notions of class action. He saw the economic
process with a perfect lucidity, practically he foretold the consolidation =
of the
Trusts, and his statement of the necessary development of an entirely
propertyless working-class with an intensifying class consciousness is a
magnificent generalization. He saw clearly up to that opposition of the many
and the few, and then his vision failed because his experience and interests
failed. There was to be a class war, and numbers schooled to discipline by
industrial organization were to win.
After that the
teaching weakens in conviction. The proletariat was to win in the class war;
then classes would be abolished, property in the means of production and
distribution would be abolished, all men would work reasonably--and the
millennium would be with us.
The constructive =
part
of the Marxist programme was too slight. It has no psychology. Contrasted,
indeed, with the splendid destructive criticisms that preceded it, it seems
indeed trivial. It diagnoses a disease admirably, and then suggests rather =
an
incantation than a plausible remedy. And as a consequence Marxist Socialism
appeals only very feebly to the man of public affairs or business or social=
experience.
It does not attract teachers or medical men or engineers. It arouses such m=
en
to a sense of social instability but it offers no remedy. They do not belie=
ve
in the mystical wisdom of the People. They find no satisfactory promise of a
millennium in anything Marx foretold.
To the labouring =
man,
however, accustomed to take direction and government as he takes air and sk=
y,
these difficulties of the administrative and constructive mind do not occur.
His imagination raises no questioning in that picture of the proletariat
triumphant after a class war and quietly coming to its own. It does not occ=
ur
to him for an instant to ask "how?"
Question the comm=
on
Marxist upon these difficulties and he will relapse magnificently into the
doctrine of laissez faire. "That will be all right," he will tell
you.
"How?"<= o:p>
"We'll take =
over
the Trusts and run them."...
It is part of the
inconveniences attending all powerful new movements of the human mind that =
the
disciple bolts with the teacher, overstates him, underlines him, and it is =
no
more than a tribute to the potency of Marx that he should have paralyzed the
critical faculty in a number of very able men. To them Marx is a final form=
of
truth. They talk with bated breath of a "classic Socialism," to w=
hich
no man may add one jot or one tittle, to which they are as uncritically ple=
dged
as extreme Bible Christians are bound to the letter of the "Word."=
;...
The peculiar evil=
of
the Marxist teaching is this, that it carries the conception of a necessary
economic development to the pitch of fatalism, it declares with all the
solemnity of popular "science" that Socialism must prevail. Such a
fatalism is morally bad for the adherent; it releases him from the inspiring
sense of uncertain victory, it leads him to believe the stars in their cour=
ses
will do his job for him. The common Marxist is apt to be sterile of effort,=
therefore,
and intolerant--preaching predestination and salvation without works.
By a circuitous route, indeed, the Marxist reaches a moral position curiously analogous to = that of the disciple of Herbert Spencer. Since all improvement will arrive by leaving things alone, the worse things get, the better; for so much the nea= rer one comes to the final exasperation, to the class war and the Triumph of the Proletariat. This certainty of victory in the nature of things makes the Marxists difficult in politics, pedantic sticklers for the letter of the te= aching, obstinate opponents of what they call "Palliatives"--of any insta= lment system of reform. They wait until they can make the whole journey in one stride, and would, in the meanwhile, have no one set forth upon the way. In America the Marxist fatalism has found a sort of supreme simplification in = the gospel of Mr. H. G. Wilshire. The Trusts, one learns, are to consolidate all the industry in the country, own all the property. Then when they own everything, the Nation will take them over. "Let the Nation own the Trusts!" The Nation in the form of a public, reading capitalistic newspapers, inured to capitalistic methods, represented and ruled by capita= l-controlled politicians, will suddenly take over the Trusts and begin a new system....<= o:p>
It would be quite
charmingly easy--if it were only in the remotest degree credible.
§ 3.
The Marxist teach=
ing
tends to an unreasonable fatalism. Its conception of the world after the cl=
ass
war is over is equally antagonistic to intelligent constructive effort. It
faces that Future, utters the word "democracy," and veils its eye=
s.
The conception of
democracy to which the Marxist adheres is that same mystical democracy that=
was
evolved at the first French Revolution; it will sanction no analysis of the
popular wisdom. It postulates a sort of spirit hidden as it were in the mas=
ses
and only revealed by a universal suffrage of all adults--or, according to s=
ome
Social Democratic Federation authorities who do not believe in women, all a=
dult
males--at the ballot box. Even a large proportion of the adults will not do=
--it
must be all. The mysterious spirit that thus peers out and vanishes again at
each election is the People, not any particular person, but the quintessenc=
e,
and it is supposed to be infallible; it is supposed to be not only morally =
but
intellectually omniscient. It will not even countenance the individuality of
elected persons, they are to be mere tools, delegates, from this diffused,
intangible Oracle, the Ultimate Wisdom....
Well, it may seem
ungracious to sneer at the grotesque formulation of an idea profoundly wise=
, at
the hurried, wrong, arithmetical method of rendering that collective spirit=
a
community undoubtedly can and sometimes does possess--I myself am the
profoundest believer in democracy, in a democracy awake intellectually,
conscious and self-disciplined--but so long as this mystic faith in the cro=
wd,
this vague, emotional, uncritical way of evading the immense difficulties of
organizing just government and a collective will prevails, so long must the
Socialist project remain not simply an impracticable but, in an illiterate,
badly-organized community, even a dangerous suggestion. I as a Socialist am=
not
blind to these possibilities, and it is foolish because a man is in many wa=
ys
on one's side that one should not call attention to his careless handling o=
f a
loaded gun. Social-Democracy may conceivably become a force that in the she=
er power
of untutored faith may destroy government and not replace it. I do not know=
how
far that is not already the case in Russia. I do not know how far this may =
not
ultimately be the case in the United States of America.
The Marxist teach=
ing,
great as was its advance on the dispersed chaotic Socialism that preceded i=
t,
was defective in other directions as well as in its innocence of any scheme=
of
State organization. About women and children, for example, it was ill-infor=
med;
its founders do not seem to have been inspired either by educational
necessities or philoprogenitive passion. No biologist--indeed no scientific
mind at all--seems to have tempered its severely "economic"
tendencies. It so over-accentuates the economic side of life that at moments
one might imagine it dealt solely with some world of purely
"productive" immortals, who were never born and never aged, but o=
nly
warred for ever in a developing industrial process.
Now reproduction =
and
not production is the more central fact of social life. Women and children =
and
education are things in the background of the Marxist proposal--like a man's
dog, or his private reading, or his pet rabbits. They are in the foreground=
of
modern Socialism. The Social Democrat's doctrines go little further in this
direction than the Liberalism that founded the United States, which ignored
women, children and niggers, and made the political unit the adult white ma=
n. They
were blind to the supreme importance of making the next generation better t=
han
the present as the aim and effort of the whole community. Herr Bebel's book,
Woman, is an ample statement of the evils of woman's lot under the existing
régime, but the few pages upon the Future of Woman with which he
concludes are eloquent of the jejune insufficiency of the Marxist outlook in
this direction. Marriage, which modern Socialism tends more and more to
sustain, was to vanish--at least as a law-made bond; women were to count as=
men
so far as the State is concerned....
This disregard of=
the
primary importance of births and upbringing in human affairs and this advoc=
acy
of mystical democracy alike contribute to blind the Marxist to the necessit=
y of
an educational process and of social discipline and to the more than person=
al
importance of marriage in the Socialist scheme. He can say with a light and
confident heart to untrained, ignorant, groping souls: "Destroy the
Government; expropriate the rich, establish manhood suffrage, elect delegat=
es strictly
pledged--and you will be happy!"
A few modern Marx=
ists
stipulate in addition for a Referendum, by which the acts of the elected
delegates can be further checked by referring disputed matters to a general
vote of all the adults in the community....
§ 4.
My memory, as I w=
rite
these things of Marxism, carries me to the dusky largeness of a great meeti=
ng
in Queen's Hall, and I see again the back of Mr. Hyndman's head moving quic=
kly,
as he receives and answers questions. It was really one of the strangest and
most interesting meetings I have ever attended. It was a great rally of the
Social Democratic Federation, and the place--floor, galleries and platform-=
-was
thick but by no means overcrowded with dingy, earnest people. There was a g=
reat
display of red badges and red ties, and many white faces, and I was struck =
by
the presence of girls and women with babies. It was more like the Socialist
meetings of the popular novel than any I had ever seen before. In the chair
that night was Lady Warwick, that remarkable intruder into the class confli=
ct,
a blond lady, rather expensively dressed, so far as I could judge, about wh=
om the
atmosphere of class consciousness seemed to thicken. Her fair hair, her
floriferous hat, told out against the dim multitudinous values of the gathe=
ring
unquenchably; there were moments when one might have fancied it was simply a
gathering of village tradespeople about the lady patroness, and at the end =
of
the proceedings, after the red flag had been waved, after the "Red
Flag" had been sung by a choir and damply echoed by the audience, some=
one
moved a vote of thanks to the Countess in terms of familiar respect that
completed the illusion.
Mr. Hyndman's lec=
ture
was entitled "In the Rapids of Revolution," and he had been
explaining how inevitable the whole process was, how Russia drove ahead, and
Germany and France and America, to the foretold crisis and the foretold
millennium. But incidentally he also made a spirited exhortation for effort,
for agitation, and he taunted England for lagging in the schemes of fate. S=
ome
one amidst the dim multitude discovered an inconsistency in that.
Now the questions
were being handed in, written on strips of paper, and at last that listener=
's
difficulty cropped up.
"What's
this?" said Mr. Hyndman; unfolded the slip and read out: "Why tro=
uble
to agitate or work if the Trusts are going to do it all for us?"
The veteran leade=
r of
the Social Democratic Federation paused only for a moment.
"Well, we've=
got
to get ready for it, you know," he said, rustling briskly with the fol=
ds
of the question to follow--and with these words, it seemed to me, that
fatalistic Marxism crumbled down to dust.
We have got to get
ready for it. Indeed, we have to make it--by education and intention and set
resolve. Socialism is to be attained not by fate, but by will.
§ 5.
And here, as a so=
rt
of Eastern European gloss upon Marxist Socialism, as an extreme and indeed
ultimate statement of this marriage of mystical democracy to Socialism, we =
may
say a word of Anarchism. Anarchism carries the administrative laissez faire=
of
Marx to its logical extremity. "If the common, untutored man is right
anyhow--why these ballot boxes; why these intermediaries in the shape of law
and representative?"
That is the perfe=
ctly
logical outcome of ignoring administration and reconstruction. The extreme
Social-Democrat and the extreme Individualist meet in a doctrine of
non-resistance to the forces of Evolution--which in this connection they de=
ify
with a capital letter. Organization, control, design, the disciplined will,
these are evil, they declare--the evil of life. So you come at the end of t=
he process,
if you are active-minded, to the bomb as the instrument of man's release to
unimpeded virtue, and if you are pacific in disposition to the Tolstoyan
attitude of passive resistance to all rule and property.
Anarchism, then, =
is
as it were a final perversion of the Socialist stream, a last meandering of
Socialist thought, released from vitalizing association with an active crea=
tive
experience. Anarchism comes when the Socialist repudiation of property is
dropped into the circles of thought of men habitually ruled and habitually =
irresponsible,
men limited in action and temperamentally adverse to the toil, to the vexat=
ious
rebuffs and insufficiencies, the dusty effort, fatigue, and friction of the=
practical
pursuit of a complex ideal. So that it most flourishes eastwardly, where me=
n,
it would seem, are least energetic and constructive, and it explodes or die=
s on
American soil.
Anarchism, with i=
ts
knife and bomb, is a miscarriage of Socialism, an acephalous birth from that
fruitful mother. It is an unnatural offspring, opposed in nature to its par=
ent,
for always from the beginning the constructive spirit, the ordering and
organizing spirit has been strong among Socialists. It was by a fallacy, an
oversight, that laissez faire in politics crept into a movement that was be=
fore
all things an organized denial of laissez faire in economic and social life=
....
I write this of t=
he
Anarchism that is opposed to contemporary Socialism, the political Anarchis=
m.
But there is also another sort of Anarchism, which the student of these sch=
ools
of thought must keep clear in his mind from this, the Anarchism of Tolstoy =
and
that other brand of William Morris, neither of which waves any flag of blac=
k,
nor counsels violence; they present that conception of untrammelled and spo=
ntaneous
rightness and goodness which is, indeed, I hazard, the moral ideal of all
rightly-thinking men. It is worth while to define very clearly the relation=
of
this second sort of Anarchism, the nobler Anarchism, to the toiling
constructive Socialism which many of us now make our practical guide in lif=
e's
activities, to say just where they touch and where they are apart.
Now the ultimate
ideal of human intercourse is surely not Socialism at all, but a way of life
that is not litigious and not based upon jealously-guarded rights, which is
free from property, free from jealousy, and "above the law." Ther=
e,
there shall not be "marriage or giving in marriage." The whole ma=
ss
of Christian teaching points to such an ideal; Paul and Christ turn again a=
nd
again to the ideal of a world of "just men made perfect," in which
right and beauty come by instinct, in which just laws and regulations are
unnecessary and unjust ones impossible. "Turn your attention," sa=
ys my
friend, the Rev. Stewart Headlam, in his admirable tract on Christian
Socialism--
"Turn your attent=
ion to
that series of teachings of Christ's which we call
parables--comparisons, that is to say, between what Christ saw g=
oing
on in the every-day world around Him and the Kingdom of He=
aven.
If by the Kingdom of Heaven in these parables is meant=
a
place up in the clouds, or merely a state in which people w=
ill be
after death, then I challenge you to get any kind of m=
eaning
out of them whatever. But if by the Kingdom of Heaven=
is
meant (as it is clear from other parts of Christ's teaching=
is
the case) the righteous society to be established upon =
earth,
then they all have a plain and beautiful meaning=
; a
meaning well summed up in that saying so often quoted agai=
nst us
by the sceptic and the atheist, 'Seek ye first the King=
dom of
God and His righteousness, and all these things shal=
l be
added unto you;' or, in other words, 'Live,' Christ sa=
id,
'all of you together, not each of you by himself; live as
members of the righteous society which I have come to found upon
earth, and then you will be clothed as beautifully as the
Eastern lily and fed as surely as the birds.'"
And the Rev. R. J.
Campbell, who comes to Socialism by way of Nonconformity, is equally convin=
cing
in support of this assertion that the "Kingdom of Heaven" was and=
is
a terrestrial ideal.
This is not simply
the Christian ideal of society, it is the ideal of every right-thinking man=
, of
every man with a full sense of beauty. You will find it rendered in two
imperishably beautiful Utopias of our own time, both, I glory to write, by
Englishmen, the News from Nowhere of William Morris, and Hudson's exquisite
Crystal Age. Both these present practically Anarchist States, both assume
idealized human beings, beings finer, simpler, nobler than the heated, limi=
ted and
striving poor souls who thrust and suffer among the stresses of this present
life. And the present writer, too--I must mention him here to guard against=
a
confusion in the future--when a little while ago he imagined humanity exalt=
ed
morally and intellectually by the brush of a comet's tail,[20] was forced by
the logic of his premises and even against his first intention to present n=
ot a
Socialist State but a glorious anarchism as the outcome of that rejuvenesce=
nce
of the world.
[20] In the Days of the Come=
t.
(Macmillan & Co., 1906.) =
Anti-Socialist
speakers and writers are in the habit of =
quoting
passages of a review from the Times Literary =
Supplement,
published during the heat of the "Book War," =
and
promptly controverted, as though they were quotations =
from
this book.
But the business =
of
Socialism lies at a lower level and concerns immediate things; our material=
is
the world as it is, full of unjust laws, bad traditions, bad habits, inheri=
ted
diseases and weaknesses, germs and poisons, filths and envies. We are not
dealing with magnificent creatures such as one sees in ideal paintings and
splendid sculpture, so beautiful they may face the world naked and unashame=
d; we
are dealing with hot-eared, ill-kempt people, who are liable to indigestion,
baldness, corpulence and fluctuating tempers; who wear top-hats and bowler =
hats
or hats kept on by hat-pins (and so with all the other necessary clothing);=
who
are pitiful and weak and vain and touchy almost beyond measure, and very
naughty and intemperate; who have, alas! to be bound over to be in any degr=
ee
faithful and just to one another. To strip such people suddenly of law and
restraint would be as dreadful and ugly as stripping the clothes from their
poor bodies....
That Anarchist wo=
rld,
I admit, is our dream; we do believe--well, I, at any rate, believe this
present world, this planet, will some day bear a race beyond our most exalt=
ed
and temerarious dreams, a race begotten of our wills and the substance of o=
ur
bodies, a race, so I have said it, "who will stand upon the earth as o=
ne
stands upon a footstool, and laugh and reach out their hands amidst the
stars," but the way to that is through education and discipline and la=
w.
Socialism is the preparation for that higher Anarchism; painfully, laboriou=
sly we
mean to destroy false ideas of property and self, eliminate unjust laws and
poisonous and hateful suggestions and prejudices, create a system of social
right-dealing and a tradition of right-feeling and action. Socialism is the
school-room of true and noble Anarchism, wherein by training and restraint =
we
shall make free men.
There is a gracef=
ul
and all too little known fable by Mr. Max Beerbohm, The Happy Hypocrite, wh=
ich
gives, I think, not only the relation of Socialism to philosophic Anarchism,
but of all discipline to all idealism. It is the story of a beautiful mask =
that
was worn by a man in love, until he tired even of that much of deceit and, =
a little
desperately, threw it aside--to find his own face beneath changed to the
likeness of the self he had desired. So would we veil the greed, the suspic=
ion
of the self-seeking scramble of to-day under institutions and laws that will
cry "duty and service" in the ears and eyes of all mankind, keep =
down
the evil so long and so effectually that at last law will be habit, and gre=
ed
and self-seeking cease for ever, from being the ruling impulse of the world.
Socialism is the mask that will mould the world to that better Anarchism of
good men's dreams....
But these are long
views, glimpses beyond the Socialist horizon. The people who would set up
Anarchism to-day are people without human experience or any tempering of
humour, only one shade less impossible than the odd one-sided queer beings =
one
meets, ridiculously inaccessible to laughter, who, caricaturing their Nietz=
sche
and misunderstanding their Shaw, invite one to set up consciously with them=
in
the business of being Overmen, to rule a world full of our betters, by fraud
and force. It is a foolish teaching saved only from being horrible by being
utterly ludicrous. For us the best is faith and humility, truth and service,
our utmost glory is to have seen the vision and to have failed--not
altogether.... For ourselves and such as we are, let us not "deal in
pride," let us be glad to learn a little of this spirit of service, to
achieve a little humility, to give ourselves to the making of Socialism and=
the
civilized State without presumption--as children who are glad they may help=
in
a work greater than themselves and the toys that have heretofore engaged th=
em.
CHAPTER XII - ADMINISTRAT=
IVE
SOCIALISM
§ 1.
Marx gave to
Socialism a theory of world-wide social development, and rescued it altoget=
her
from the eccentric and localized associations of its earliest phases; he
brought it so near to reality that it could appear as a force in politics,
embodied first as the International Association of Working Men, and then as=
the
Social Democratic movement of the continent of Europe that commands to-day =
over
a third of the entire poll of German voters. So much Marx did for Socialism.
But if he broadened its application to the world, he narrowed its range to =
only
the economic aspect of life. He arrested for a time the discussion of its
biological and moral aspects altogether. He left it an incomplete doctrine =
of
merely economic reconstruction supplemented by mystical democracy, and both=
its
mysticism and incompleteness, while they offered no difficulties to a labou=
ring
man ignorant of affairs, rendered it unsubstantial and unattractive to peop=
le
who had any real knowledge of administration.
It was left chief=
ly
to the little group of English people who founded the Fabian Society to sup=
ply
a third system of ideas to the amplifying conception of Socialism, to conve=
rt
Revolutionary Socialism into Administrative Socialism.
This new developm=
ent
was essentially the outcome of the reaction of its broad suggestions of eco=
nomic
reconstruction upon the circle of thought of one or two young officials of
genius, and of one or two persons upon the fringe of that politic-social
stratum of Society, the English "governing class." I make this
statement, I may say, in the loosest possible spirit. The reaction is one t=
hat
was not confined to England, it was to some extent inevitable wherever the =
new
movement in thought became accessible to intelligent administrators and
officials. But in the peculiar atmosphere of British public life, with its =
remarkable
blend of individual initiative and a lively sense of the State, this reacti=
on
has had the freest development. There was, indeed, Fabianism before the Fab=
ian
Society; it would be ingratitude to some of the most fruitful social work of
the middle Victorian period to ignore the way in which it has contributed in
suggestion and justification to the Socialist synthesis. The city of
Birmingham, for example, developed the most extensive process of
municipalization as the mere common-sense of local patriotism. But the move=
ment
was without formulæ and correlation until the Fabians came.
That unorganized,
unpaid public service of public-spirited aristocratic and wealthy financial=
and
business people, the "governing class," which dominated the Briti=
sh
Empire throughout the nineteenth century, has, through the absence of defin=
ite
class boundaries in England and the readiness of each class to take its tone
from the class above, that "Snobbishness" which is so often
heedlessly dismissed as altogether evil, given a unique quality to British =
thought
upon public questions and to British conceptions of Socialism. It has made =
the
British mind as a whole "administrative." As compared with the
American mind, for example, the British is State-conscious, the American
State-blind. The American is no doubt intensely patriotic, but the nation a=
nd
the State to which his patriotism points is something overhead and
comprehensive like the sky, like a flag hoisted; something, indeed, that not
only does not but must not interfere with his ordinary business occupations=
. To
have public spirit, to be aware of the State as a whole and to have an admi=
nistrative
feeling towards it, is necessarily to be accessible to constructive ideas--=
that
is to say, to Socialistic ideas. In the history of thought in Victorian Gre=
at
Britain, one sees a constant conflict of this administrative disposition wi=
th
the individualistic commercialism of the aggressively trading and manufactu=
ring
class, the class that in America reigns unchallenged to this day. In the la=
tter
country Individualism reigns unchallenged, it is assumed; in the former it =
has
fought an uphill fight against the traditions of Church and State and has n=
ever
absolutely prevailed. The political economists and Herbert Spencer were its
prophets, and they never at any time held the public mind in any invincible
grip. Since the eighties that grip has weakened more and more. Socialistic
thought and legislation, therefore, was going on in Great Britain through a=
ll
the Victorian period. Nevertheless, it was the Fabian Society that, in the
eighties and through the intellectual impetus of at most four or five perso=
nalities,
really brought this obstinately administrative spirit in British affairs in=
to
relation with Socialism as such.
The dominant
intelligence of this group was Mr. Sidney Webb, and as I think of him thus
coming after Marx to develop the third phase of Socialism, I am struck by t=
he
contrast with the big-bearded Socialist leaders of the earlier school and t=
his
small, active, unpretending figure with the finely-shaped head, the little
imperial under the lip, the glasses, the slightly lisping, insinuating voic=
e.
He emerged as a Colonial Office clerk of conspicuous energy and capacity, a=
nd
he was already the leader and "idea factory" of the Fabian Society
when he married Miss Beatrice Potter, the daughter of a Conservative Member=
of Parliament,
a girl friend of Herbert Spencer, and already a brilliant student of
sociological questions. Both he and she are devotees to social service, liv=
ing
laborious, ordered, austere, incessant lives, making the employment of
secretaries their one extravagance, and alternations between research and
affairs their change of occupation. A new type of personality altogether th=
ey
were in the Socialist movement, which had hitherto been richer in eloquence
than discipline. And during the past twenty years of the work of the Fabian
Society through their influence, one dominant question has prevailed. Assum=
ing the
truth of the two main generalizations of Socialism, taking that statement of
intention for granted, how is the thing to be done? They put aside the glib
assurances of the revolutionary Socialists that everything would be all rig=
ht
when the People came to their own; and so earned for themselves the undying
resentment of all those who believe the world is to be effectually mended b=
y a
liberal use of chest notes and red flags. They insisted that the administra=
tive
and economic methods of the future must be a secular development of existing
institutions, and inaugurated a process of study--which has long passed bey=
ond
the range of the Fabian Society, broadening out with the organized work of =
the
New University of London, with its special School of Economics and Political
Science and of a growing volume of university study in England and America-=
-to
the end that this "how?" should be answered....
The broad lines of
the process of transition from the present state of affairs to the Socialist
state of the future as they are developed by administrative Socialism lie a=
long
the following lines.
1. The peaceful a=
nd
systematic taking over from private enterprise, by purchase or otherwise,
whether by the national or by the municipal authorities as may be most
convenient, of the great common services of land control, mining, transit, =
food
supply, the drink trade, lighting, force supply and the like.
2. Systematic
expropriation of private owners by death-duties and increased taxation.
3. The building u=
p of
a great scientifically organized administrative machinery to carry on these
enlarging public functions.
4. A steady incre=
ase
and expansion of public education, research, museums, libraries and all such
public services. The systematic promotion of measures for raising the
school-leaving age, for the public feeding of school children, for the
provision of public baths, parks, playgrounds and the like.
5. The systematic
creation of a great service of public health to take over the disorganized
confusion of hospitals and other charities, sanitary authorities, officers =
of
health and private enterprise medical men.
6. The recognitio=
n of
the claim of every citizen to welfare by measures for the support of mothers
and children and by the establishment of old-age pensions.
7. The systematic
raising of the minimum standard of life by factory and other labour
legislation, and particularly by the establishment of a legal minimum wage.=
...
These are the bro=
ad
forms of the Fabian Socialist's answer to the question of how, with which t=
he
revolutionary Socialists were confronted. The diligent student of Socialism
will find all these proposals worked out to a very practicable-looking pitch
indeed in that Bible of Administrative Socialism, the collected tracts of t=
he Fabian
Society,[21] and to that volume I must refer him. The theory of the minimum
standard and the minimum wage is explained, moreover, with the utmost lucid=
ity
in that Socialist classic, Industrial Democracy, by Sidney and Beatrice Web=
b.
It is a theory that must needs be mastered by every intelligent Socialist, =
but
it is well to bear in mind that the method of the minimum wage is no integr=
al
part of the general Socialist proposition, and that it still lies open to d=
iscussion
and modification.
[21] Fabian Tracts. (Fabian
Society, 5s.)
§ 2.
Every movement has
the defects of its virtues, and it is not, perhaps, very remarkable that the
Fabian Society of the eighties and nineties, having introduced the concepti=
on
of the historical continuity of institutions into the Propaganda of Sociali=
sm,
did certainly for a time greatly over-accentuate that conception and draw a=
way
attention from aspects that may be ultimately more essential.
Beginning with the
proposition that the institutions and formulæ of the future must
necessarily be developed from those of the present, that one cannot start de
novo even after a revolution; one may easily end in an attitude of excessive
conservatism towards existing machinery. In spite of the presence of such f=
ine
and original intelligences as Mr. (now Sir) Sydney Olivier and Mr. Graham
Wallas in the Fabian counsels, there can be no denial that for the first tw=
enty
years of its career, Mr. Webb was the prevailing Fabian. Now his is a mind
legal as well as creative, and at times his legal side quite overcomes his
constructive element; he is extraordinarily fertile in expedients and skilf=
ul
in adaptation, and with a real horror of open destruction. This statement b=
y no
means exhausts him, but it does to a large extent convey the qualities that
were uppermost in the earlier years, at any rate, of his influence. His
insistence upon continuity pervaded the Society, was re-echoed and intensif=
ied
by others, and developed into something like a mania for achieving Socialism
without the overt change of any existing ruling body. His impetus carried t=
his reaction
against the crude democratic idea to its extremest opposite. Then arose
Webbites to caricature Webb. From saying that the unorganized people cannot
achieve Socialism, they passed to the implication that organization alone,
without popular support, might achieve Socialism. Socialism was to arrive a=
s it
were insidiously.
To some minds this
new proposal had the charm of a school-boy's first dark-lantern. Socialism
ceased to be an open revolution, and became a plot. Functions were to be
shifted, quietly, unostentatiously, from the representative to the official=
he
appointed; a bureaucracy was to slip into power through the mechanical
difficulties of an administration by debating representatives; and since th=
ese
officials would by the nature of their positions constitute a scientific bu=
reaucracy,
and since Socialism is essentially scientific government as distinguished f=
rom
haphazard government, they would necessarily run the country on the lines o=
f a
pretty distinctly undemocratic Socialism.
The process went =
even
further than secretiveness in its reaction from the large rhetorical forms =
of
revolutionary Socialism. There arose even a repudiation of
"principles" of action, and a type of worker which proclaimed its=
elf
"Opportunist-Socialist." It was another instance of Socialism los=
ing
sight of itself, it was a process quite parallel at the other extreme with =
the
self-contradiction of the Anarchist-Socialist. Socialism as distinguished f=
rom
mere Liberalism, for example, is an organized plan for social reconstructio=
n,
while Liberalism relies upon certain vague "principles"; Socialism
declares that good intentions and doing what comes first to hand will not s=
uffice.
Now Opportunism is essentially benevolent adventure and the doing of first-=
hand
things.
This conception of
indifference to the forms of government, of accepting whatever governing bo=
dies
existed and using them to create officials and "get something done,&qu=
ot;
was at once immediately fruitful in many directions, and presently producti=
ve
of many very grave difficulties in the path of advancing Socialism. Webb
himself devoted immense industry and capacity to the London County Council-=
-it
is impossible to measure the share he has had in securing such great public
utilities as water supply, traction and electric supply, for example, from
complete exploitation by private profit seekers, but certainly it is a huge
one--and throughout England and presently in America, there went on a
collateral activity of Fabian Socialists. They worked like a ferment in
municipal politics, encouraging and developing local pride and local enterp=
rise
in public works. In the case of large public bodies, working in suitable ar=
eas
and commanding the services of men of high quality, striking advances in So=
cial
organization were made, but in the case of smaller bodies in unsuitable
districts and with no attractions for people of gifts and training, the
influence of Fabianism did on the whole produce effects that have tended to
discredit Socialism. Aggressive, ignorant and untrained men and women, usua=
lly
neither inspired by Socialist faith nor clearly defining themselves as
Socialists, persons too often of wavering purpose and doubtful honesty, got
themselves elected in a state of enthusiasm to undertake public functions a=
nd
challenge private enterprise under conditions that doomed them to waste and=
failure.
This was the case in endless parish councils and urban districts; it was al=
so
the case in many London boroughs. It has to be admitted by Socialists with
infinite regret that the common borough-council Socialist is too often a
lamentable misrepresentative of the Socialist idea.
The creation of t=
he
London Borough Councils found English Socialism unprepared. They were bodies
doomed by their nature to incapacity and waste. They represented neither
natural communities nor any practicable administrative unit of area. Their
creation was the result of quite silly political considerations. The slowne=
ss
with which Socialists have realized that for the larger duties that they wi=
sh
to have done collectively, a new scheme of administration is necessary; that
bodies created to sweep the streets and admirably adapted to that duty may =
be
conspicuously not adapted to supply electric power or interfere with transi=
t,
is accountable for much disheartening bungling. Instead of taking a clear l=
ine
from the outset, and denouncing these glorified vestries as useless, imposs=
ible
and entirely unscientific organs, too many Socialists tried to claim Bumble=
as
their friend and use him as their tool. And Bumble turned out to be a very =
bad
friend and a very poor tool....
In all these matt=
ers
the real question at issue is one between the emergency and the implement. =
One
may illustrate by a simple comparison. Suppose there is a need to dig a hole
and that there is no spade available, a Fabian with Mr. Webb's gifts becomes
invaluable. He seizes upon a broken old cricket-bat, let us say, uses it wi=
th admirable
wit and skill, and presto! there is the hole made and the moral taught that=
one
need not always wait for spades before digging holes. It is a lesson that
Socialism stood in need of, and which henceforth it will always bear in min=
d.
But suppose we want to dig a dozen holes, it may be worth while to spend a
little time in going to beg, borrow or buy a spade. If we have to dig holes
indefinitely, day after day, it will be sheer foolishness sticking to the b=
at.
It will be worth while then not simply to get a spade, but to get just the =
right
sort of spade in size and form that the soil requires, to get the proper me=
ans
of sharpening and repairing the spade, to insure a proper supply. Or to poi=
nt
the comparison, the reconstruction of our legislative and local government
machinery is a necessary preliminary to Socialization in many directions. M=
r.
Webb has very effectually admitted that, is in fact himself leading us away
from that by taking up the study of local government as his principal
occupation, but the typical "Webbite" of the Fabian Society, who =
is
very much to Webb what the Marxist is to Marx, entranced by his leader's sk=
ill,
still clings to a caricature distortion of this earlier Fabian ideal. He dr=
eams
of the most foxy and wonderful digging by means of box-lids, table-spoons,
dish-covers--anything but spades designed and made for the job in hand--jus=
t as
he dreams of an extensive expropriation of landlords by a legislature that
includes the present unreformed House of Lords....
§ 3.
It was only at the
very end of the nineteenth century that the Fabian Socialist movement was at
all quickened to the need of political reconstruction as extensive as the
economic changes it advocated, and it is still far from a complete apprehen=
sion
of the importance of the political problem. To begin with, Mr. and Mrs. Web=
b,
having completed their work on Labour Regulation, took up the study of local
government and commenced that colossal task that still engages them, their =
book
upon English Local Government, of which there has as yet appeared (1907) on=
ly
one volume out of seven. (Immense as this service is, it is only one part of
conjoint activities that will ultimately give constructive social conceptio=
ns
an enormous armoury of scientifically arranged fact.)
As the outcome of
certain private experiences, the moral of which was pointed by discussion w=
ith
Mr. and Mrs. Webb, the present writer in 1902 put before the Fabian Society=
a
paper on Administrative Areas,[22] in which he showed clearly that the
character and efficiency and possibilities of a governing body depend almos=
t entirely
upon the suitability to its particular function of the size and quality of =
the
constituency it represents and the area it administers. This may be stated =
with
something approaching scientific confidence. A local governing body for too
small an area or elected upon an unsound franchise cannot be efficient. But=
obviously
before you can transfer property from private to collective control you mus=
t have
something in the way of a governing institution which has a reasonably good
chance of developing into an efficient controlling body. The leading concep=
tion
of this Administrative Area paper appeared subsequently running through a
series of tracts, The New Heptarchy Series, in which one finds it applied f=
irst
to this group of administrative problems and then to that.[23] These tracts=
are
remarkable if only because they present the first systematic recognition on=
the
part of any organized Socialist body of the fact that a scientific
reconstruction of the methods of government constitutes not simply an
incidental but a necessary part of the complete Socialist scheme, the first
recognition of the widening scope of the Socialist design that makes it aga=
in a
deliberately constructive project.[24]
[22] See Appendix to Mankind=
in
the Making. (Chapman and =
Hall,
1905.)
[23] 1. Municipalization by
Provinces. 2. On the Reform =
of
Municipal Service. 3. Public Control of Electric Power =
and
Transit. 4. The Revival of Agriculture: a National =
Policy
for Great Britain. 5. The Abolition of Poor Law =
Guardians.
Others to follow. (Fabian Society, 1905-6.)
[24] This generalization is a
sweeping one, and would need, =
were
one attempting to give more than a very broad =
impression
of the sequence of Socialist ideas, considerable =
modification.
Such earlier tracts as The New Reform Bill, =
Facts
for Londoners, Facts for Bristol, dealt mainly =
with
the question of machinery.
It is only an ini=
tial
recognition, a mere first raid into a great and largely unexplored province=
of
study. This province is in the broadest terms, social psychology. A huge am=
ount
of thought, discussion, experiment, is to be done in this field--needs
imperatively to be done before the process of the socialization of economic
life can go very far beyond its present attainments. Except for these first
admissions, Socialism has concerned itself only with the material
reorganization of Society and its social consequences, with economic changes
and the reaction of these changes on administrative work; it has either acc=
epted
existing intellectual conditions and political institutions as beyond its
control or assumed that they will obediently modify as economic and
administrative necessity dictates. Declare the Social revolution, we were t=
old
in a note of cheery optimism by the Marxist apostles, and political
institutions will come like flowers in May! Achieve your expropriation, said
the early Fabians, get your network of skilled experts spread over the coun=
try,
and your political forms, your public opinion, your collective soul will not
trouble you.
The student of
history knows better. These confident claims ignore the psychological facto=
rs
in government and human association; they disregard a jungle of difficulties
that lie directly in our way. Socialists have to face the facts; firstly, t=
hat
the political and intellectual institutions of the present time belong to t=
he
present condition of things, and that the intellectual methods, machinery a=
nd political
institutions of the better future must almost inevitably be of a very diffe=
rent
type; secondly, that such institutions will not come about of themselves--w=
hich
indeed is the old superstition of laissez faire in a new form--but must be
thought out, planned and organized just as completely as economic socializa=
tion
has had to be planned and organized; and thirdly, that so far Socialism has
evolved scarcely any generalizations even, that may be made the basis of new
intellectual and governmental--as distinguished from administrative--method=
s.
It has preached collective ownership and collective control, and it has onl=
y begun
to recognize that this implies the necessity of a collective will and new m=
eans
and methods altogether for the collective mind.
The administrative
Socialism which Mr. Webb and the Fabian Society developed upon a modificati=
on
of the broad generalizations of the Marx phase, is as it were no more than =
the
first courses above those foundations of Socialism. It supplies us with a
conception of methods of transition and with a vision of a great and
disciplined organization of officials, a scientific bureaucracy appointed b=
y representative
bodies of diminishing activity and importance, and coming to be at last the
real working control of the Socialist State. But it says nothing of what is
above the officials, what drives the officials. It is a palace without livi=
ng
rooms, with nothing but offices; a machine, as yet unprovided with a motor.=
No
doubt we must have that organization of officials if we mean to bring about=
a Socialist
State, but the mind recoils with something like terror from the conception =
of a
State run and ruled by officials, terminating in officials, with an officia=
l as
its highest expression. One has a vision of a community with blue-books ins=
tead
of a literature, and inspectors instead of a conscience. The mystical democ=
racy
of the Marxist, though manifestly impossible, had in it something attractiv=
e, something
humanly and desperately pugnacious and generous, something indeed heroic; t=
he
bureaucracy of the Webbite, though far more attainable, is infinitely less
inspiring. But that may be because the inspiring elements remain to be stat=
ed
rather than that these practical constructive projects are in their nature,=
and
incurably, hard and narrow. Instead of a gorgeous flare in the darkness, we
have the first cold onset of daylight heralding the sun. If the letter of t=
he
teaching of Mr. and Mrs. Webb is bureaucracy, that is certainly not the spi=
rit
of their lives.
The earlier
Socialists gave Socialism substance, rudis indigestaque moles, but noble st=
uff;
Administrative Socialism gave it a physical structure and nerves, defined i=
ts
organs and determined its functions; it remains for the Socialist of to-day=
to
realize in this shaping body of the civilized State of the future the breat=
h of
life already unconfessedly there, to state in clear terms the reality for w=
hich
our plans are made, by which alone they can be realized, that is to say, the
collective mind of humanity, the soul and moral being of mankind.
CHAPTER XIII - CONSTRUCTI=
VE
SOCIALISM
§ 1.
Such a group of i=
deas
and motives as Socialism, fundamentally true as it is to the needs of life,=
and
arising as it does from the inevitable suggestion of very widely dispersed
evils and insufficiencies, does not spring from any one source, nor develop
along any single line. It appears as a smouldering fire appears, first here,
then there, first in one form of expression and then another, now under this
name and now under that.
The manifest new
possibilities created by the progress of applied science, the inevitable ch=
ange
of scale and of the size and conception of a community that arises out of t=
hem,
necessitate at least the material form of Socialism--that is to say, the
replacement of individual action by public organization, in spite of a hund=
red
vested interests. The age that regarded Herbert Spencer as its greatest phi=
losopher,
for example, was urged nevertheless, unwillingly and protestingly but
effectually, through phase after phase of more and more co-ordinated volunt=
ary
effort, until at last it had to undertake a complete system of organized fr=
ee
public primary education. There the moving finger of change halts not a mom=
ent;
already it is going on to secondary education, to schemes for a complete pu=
blic
educational organization from reformatory school up to professorial chair. =
The practical
logic of the case is invincible.
So, too, the publ=
ic
organization of scientific research goes on steadily against all prejudices=
and
social theories, and, in a very different field, the plain inconveniences o=
f a
private control of traffic in America and England alike, force the affected
property owners whose businesses are hampered and damaged towards the reali=
zation
that freedom of private property, in these services at least, is evil and m=
ust
end. As the proofs of these pages pass through my hands comes the news of M=
r.
Lloyd George's settlement of the dispute between railway directors and
employés by the establishment of a method of compulsory arbitration.
Then, again, the movement for public sanitation and hygiene spreads and
broadens, and the natural alarm of even the most conservative at the falling
birth-rate and the stationary infantile death-rate is evidently ripening fo=
r an
advance towards public control and care even in the relation of child to pa=
rent,
the most intimate of all personal affairs.
Inevitably all su=
ch
movements must coalesce--their spirit is one, the spirit of construction--a=
nd
inevitably their coalescence will take the form of a wide and generous
restatement of Socialism. Nothing but a broader understanding of the broade=
ning
propositions of Socialism is needed for that recognition now.
Socialism, indeed,
does not simply look, it appeals to the constructive professions at the pre=
sent
time, to the medical man, the engineer, the architect, the scientific
agriculturist.
Each of these sor=
ts
of men, in just so far as he is concerned with the reality of his professio=
n,
in just so far as he is worthy of his profession, must resent the
considerations of private profit, of base economies, that constantly limit =
and
spoil his work and services in the interests of a dividend or of some finan=
cial
manœuvre. So far they have been antagonized towards Socialism by the
errors of its adherents, by the impression quite wantonly created, that
Socialism meant either mob rule or the rule of pedantic, unsympathetic offi=
cials.
They have heard too much of democracy, too much of bureaucracy, and not eno=
ugh
of construction. They have felt that on the whole the financial exploiter,
detestable master as he often is, was better than the rule of either clamou=
r on
the one hand or red tape on the other. But, as I have been seeking to sugge=
st,
mob rule and official rule do not exhaust the possible alternatives. Neithe=
r ignorant
democracy nor narrow bureaucracy can be the destined rulers of a Socialist
State. The only conceivable rule in a Socialist civilization is through the
operation of a collective mind that must be by its nature constructive and
enterprising, because only through the creation of such a mind can Socialis=
m be
brought about. A Socialist State cannot exist without that mind existing al=
so,
and a collective mind can scarcely appear without some form of Socialism gi=
ving
it a material body. Now it is only under an intelligent collective mind that
any of the dreams of these constructive professions can attain an effective
realization. Where will the private profit in a universal sanitation, for
example, be found, in the abolition of diseases, in the planned control of =
the
public health, in the abolition of children's deaths? What thought of priva=
te gain
will ever scrap our obsolescent railroads and our stagnating industrial
monopolies for new clean methods? So long as they pay a dividend they will =
keep
on upon their present lines. The modern architect knows, the engineer knows=
we
might build ourselves perfectly clean, smokeless magnificent cities to-day,=
as
full of pure water as ancient Rome, as full of pure air as the Engadine, if
private ownership did not block the way. Who can doubt it who understands w=
hat a
doctor, or an electrical engineer, or a real architect understands? Surely =
all
the best men in these professions are eager to get to work on the immense
possibilities of life, possibilities of things cleared up, of things made a=
new,
that their training has enabled them to visualize! What stands in their way,
stands in our way; social disorganization, individualist self-seeking,
narrowness of outlook, self-conceit, ignorance.
With that concept=
ion
they must surely turn in the end, as we Socialists turn, to the most creati=
ve
profession of all, to that great calling which with each generation renews =
the
world's "circle of ideas," the Teachers!
The whole trend a=
nd
purpose of this book from the outset has been to insist upon the mental qua=
lity
of Socialism, to maintain that it is a business of conventions about proper=
ty
and plans of reorganization, that is to say, of changes and expansions of t=
he
ideas of men, changes and expansions of their spirit of action and their
habitual circles of ideas. Unless you can change men's minds you cannot eff=
ect
Socialism, and when you have made clear and universal certain broad underst=
andings,
Socialism becomes a mere matter of science and devices and applied
intelligence. That is the constructive Socialist's position. Logically,
therefore, he declares the teacher master of the situation. Ultimately the
Socialist movement is teaching, and the most important people in the world =
from
the Socialist's point of view are those who teach--I mean of course not sim=
ply
those who teach in schools, but those who teach in pulpits, in books, in the
press, in universities and lecture-theatres, in parliaments and councils, i=
n discussions
and associations and experiments of every sort, and, last in my list but mo=
st
important of all, those mothers and motherly women who teach little childre=
n in
their earliest years. Every one, too, who enunciates a new and valid idea, =
or
works out a new contrivance, is a teacher in this sense.
And these Teachers
collectively, perpetually renew the collective mind. In the measure that in
each successive generation they apprehend Socialism and transmit its spirit=
, is
Socialism nearer its goal.
§ 2.
At the present ti=
me
in America and all the western European countries, there is a collective mi=
nd,
a public opinion made up of the most adventitious and interesting elements.=
It
is not even a national or a racial thing, it is curiously international,
curiously responsive to thought from every quarter; a something, vague here,
clear there, here diffused, there concentrated. It demands the closest
attention from Socialists this something, this something which is so hard to
define and so impossible to deny--civilized feeling, the thought of our age=
, the
mind of the world. It has organs, it has media, yet it is as hard to locate=
as
the soul of a man. We know that somewhere in the brain and body of a man li=
ves
his Self; that you must preserve that brain entire, aërate it, nourish=
it
lest it die and his whole being die, and yet you cannot say it is in this
cell--or in that. So with an equal mystery of diffusion the mind of mankind
exists. No man, no organization, no authority, can be more than a part of i=
t.
Twice at least have there been attempts of parts to be the whole; the Catho=
lic Church
and the Chinese Academy have each in varying measure sought to play the par=
t of
a collective mind for all humanity and failed. All individual achievement, =
fine
books, splendid poems, great discoveries, new generalizations, lives of
thought, are no more than flashes in this huge moral and intellectual being
which grows now self-conscious and purposeful, just as a child grows out of=
its
early self-ignorance to an elusive, indefinable, indisputable sense of itse=
lf.
This collective mind has to be filled and nourished with the Socialist purp=
ose,
to receive and assimilate our great idea. That is the true work of Socialis=
m.
Consider the orga=
ns
and media of the collective mind as one finds them in England or America no=
w,
how hazardous they are and accidental! At the basis of this strange
thought-process is the intelligence of the common man, once illiterate and
accessible only to the crude, inarticulate influences of talk and rumour, n=
ow
rapidly becoming educated, or at any rate educated to the level of a reader=
and
writer, and responding more and more to literary influences. The great mass=
of the
population is indeed at the present time like clay which has hitherto been a
mere deadening influence underneath, but which this educational process, li=
ke
some drying and heating influence upon that clay, is rendering resonant,
capable of, in a dim answering way, ringing to the appeals made upon it.
Reaching through this mass, appealing to it in various degrees at various
levels and to various ends, there are a number of systems of organizations =
of
unknown value and power. Its response, such as it is, robbed by multitudino=
usness
of any personality or articulation, is a broad emotional impulse.
Above this
fundamental mass is the growing moiety which has a conscious thought-proces=
s,
of a sort. Its fundamental ideas, its preconceptions, are begotten of a mix=
ture
of social traditions learnt at home and in school and from the suggestions =
of
contemporary customs and affairs. But it reads and listens more or less. And
scattered through this, here and there, are people really learning, really =
increasing
and accumulating knowledge, really thinking and conversing--the active
mind-cells, as it were, of the world. Their ideas are conveyed into the mass
much as impulses are conveyed into an imperfectly innervated tissue, they a=
re
conveyed by books and pamphlets, by lecturing, by magazine articles and
newspaper articles, by the agency of the pulpit, by organized propaganda, by
political display and campaigns. The gross effect is considerable, but it i=
s just
as well that the Socialist should look a little closely at the economic pro=
cesses
that underlie these intellectual activities at the present time. Except for=
the
universities and much of the public educational organization, except for a =
few
pulpits endowed for good under conditions that limit freedom of thought and
expression, except for certain needy and impecunious propagandas, the whole=
of
this apparatus of public thought and discussion to-day has been created and=
is
sustained by commercial necessity.
For example, cons=
ider
what is I suppose by far the most important vehicle of ideas at the present
time, which for a huge majority of adults is the sole vehicle of ideas, the
newspaper. It is universal because it is cheap, and it is cheap because the
cost of production is paid for by the advertisements of private enterprise.=
The
newspaper is to a very large extent parasitic upon competition; its critici=
sm,
its discussion, its correspondence, are, from the business point of view, w=
ritten
on the backs of puffs of competing tobaccos, soaps, medicines and the like.=
No
newspaper could pay upon its sales alone, and the same thing is true of most
popular magazines and weekly publications. It is highly probable that whate=
ver
checks public advertisement in other directions, the prohibition of
bill-posting upon hoardings, for example, the protection of scenery, railway
carriages and architecture from the advertiser, stimulates the production of
attractive literature. Necessarily what is published in newspapers and
magazines must be acceptable to advertising businesses and not too openly c=
ontrary
to their interests. With that limitation the newspapers provide a singularly
free and various arena for discussion at the present time. It must, however=
, be
obvious that to advance towards Socialism is, if not to undermine the newsp=
aper
altogether, at least to change very profoundly this material vehicle of pop=
ular
thought....
The newspaper
disseminates ideas. So, too, does the book and the pamphlet, and so far as
these latter are concerned, their distribution does not at present rest in =
the
same degree upon their value as vehicles of advertisement. They are saleable
things unaided. The average book of to-day at its nominal price of six
shillings pays in itself and supports its producers. So in a lesser degree =
does
the sixpenny pamphlet, but neither book nor pamphlet reach so wide a public=
as
the halfpenny and penny press. The methods and media of the book trade have
grown up, no man designing them; they change, and no one is able to foretell
the effect of their changes. At present there is a great movement to cheapen
new books, and it would seem the cheapening is partly to be made up for in
enhanced sales and partly by an increased use of new books for advertisemen=
t.
Many people consider this cheapening of new books as being detrimental to t=
he
interests of all but the most vulgarly popular authors. They believe it wil=
l increase
the difficulty of new writers, and hopelessly impoverish just the finest
element in our literary life, those original and exceptional minds who dema=
nd
educated appreciation and do not appeal to the man in the street. This may =
or
may not be true; the aspect of interest to Socialists is that here is a pro=
cess
going on which is likely to produce the most far-reaching results upon the
collective mind, upon that thought-process of the whole community which is =
necessary
for the progressive organization of Society. It is a process which is likel=
y to
spread one type of writer far and wide, which may silence or demoralize
another, which may vulgarize and debase discussion, and which will certainly
make literature far more dependent than it is at present upon the goodwill =
of
advertising firms. Yet as Socialists they have no ideas whatever in this
matter; their project of activities ignores it altogether....
Books and newspap=
ers
constitute two among the chief mental organs of a modern community, but alm=
ost,
if not equally important is that great apparatus for the dissemination of i=
deas
made up of the pulpits and lecture halls of a thousand sects and societies.
Towards all these things Socialism has hitherto maintained an absurd attitu=
de
of laissez faire....
So far I have loo=
ked
at the collective mind as a thought process only, but it has much graver and
more immediate functions in a democratic State. It has, one must remember, =
to
will social order and development. In every country the machinery for
determining and expressing this will is complex. The common method in the
modern western State is through the voting of a numerous electorate, which =
tends,
it would seem, to become more and more the entire manhood, if not the entire
adult population of the country. It is a curious but perhaps inevitable met=
hod.
Practically thought has to percolate down to the common man through all tho=
se
strange and accidental channels, newspapers which are advertisement sheets,
books which may be boycotted in a "Book War," pulpits pledged to
doctrine and lecture halls kept open by rich people's subscriptions; it has=
to
reach him, to mingle itself with generalized emotional forces in the heat o=
f mysteriously
subsidized election campaigns, and then return as a collective determinatio=
n.
For the Statesman and the Socialist there could hardly be any study more
important, one might think, than the science of these processes and methods.
Yet the world has still to produce even the rudimentary generalizations of =
this
needed science of collective psychology.
§ 3.
Now, I ask the re=
ader
to consider very carefully how the Socialist movement, using that expression
now in its wider sense, stands to this very vague and very real outcome of
social evolution, the Collective Mind; what it is really aspiring to do in =
that
Collective Mind.
One has to recogn=
ize
that this mind is at present a mind in a state of confusion, full of warring
suggestions and warring impulses. It is like a very disturbed human mind, i=
t is
without a clear aim, it does not know except in the vaguest terms what it w=
ants
to do, it has impulses, it has fancies, it begins and forgets. In addition =
it
is afflicted with a division within itself that is strictly analogous to th=
at
strange mental disorder, which is known to psychologists as multiple
personality. It has no clear conception of the whole of itself, it goes abo=
ut
forgetting its proper name and address. Part of it thinks of itself as one
great being, as, let us say, Germany; another thinks of itself as Catholici=
sm,
another as the White Race, or Judæa. At times one might deem the whole
confusion not so much a mind as incurable dementia, a chaos of mental eleme=
nts,
haunted by invincible and mutually incoherent fixed ideas. This you will
remember is the gist of that melancholy torso of irony, Flaubert's Bouvard =
et Pécuchet.
In its essence the
Socialist movement amounts to this; it is an attempt in this warring chaos =
of a
collective mind to pull itself together, to develop and establish a governi=
ng
idea of itself. It is like a man saying to himself resolutely, "What a=
m I?
What am I doing with myself? Where am I drifting?" and making an answe=
r,
hesitating at first, crude at first, and presently clear and lucid.
The Socialist
movement is from this point of view, no less than the development of the
collective self-consciousness of humanity. Necessarily, therefore, it must =
be
international as well as outspoken, making no truce with prejudices against
race and colour. These national and racial collective consciousnesses of to=
-day
are things as vague, as fluctuating as mists or clouds, they melt, dissolve
into one another, they coalesce, they split. No clear isolated national min=
d can
ever maintain itself under modern conditions; even the mind of Japan now co=
mes
into the common melting-pot of thought. We Socialists take up to-day the
assertion the early Christians were the first to make, that mankind is of o=
ne
household and one substance; the Samaritan who stoops to the wounded strang=
er
by the wayside our brother rather than that Levite....
In a very differe=
nt
sense indeed the Socialist propaganda must be the germ of the collective
self-consciousness of mankind in the coming time. If the purpose of Sociali=
sm
is to prevail, its scattered writings, its dispersed, indistinct and confus=
ed
utterances must increase in height and breadth and range, increase in power=
and
service, gather to themselves every means of expression, grow into an order=
ed
system of thought, art, literature and will. The Socialist Propaganda of to=
-day
must beget the whole Public Opinion of to-morrow or fail, the Socialists mu=
st
play the part of a little leaven to leaven the whole world. If they do not
leaven it then they are altogether defeated....
§ 4.
Now, this concept= ion of Socialism as being ultimately a moral and intellectual synthesis of mank= ind from which fresh growth may come, sets a fresh test of value upon all the activities of the Socialist--and opens up altogether new departments for research. Let us face the peculiar difficulty of the Socialist position. We propose to destroy the competitive capitalistic system that owns and sustai= ns our present newspapers, gives and leaves money to universities, endows fresh pulpits, publishes, advertises, and buys books; we have to ask, as reasonab= le creatures, what new media we propose to give in the place of these accident= al and unsatisfactory methods of distributing and exchanging thought. It would almost seem as though current Socialism breathes public opinion as the Midd= le Ages breathed air, without realizing that it existed, that it might be viti= ated or withheld. And so we are beyond the range of prepared and digested Social= ist proposals here altogether. It is still open to the Anti-Socialist to allege that Socialism may incidentally destroy itself by choking the channels of i= ts own thinking, and the Socialist has still to reply in vague general terms.<= o:p>
We must insure the
continuity of the collective mind; that is manifestly a primary necessity f=
or
Socialism. The attempt to realize the Marxist idea of a democratic Socialism
without that, might easily fail into the abortive birth of an acephalous
monster, the secular development of administrative Socialism give the world
over to a bureaucratic mandarinate, self-satisfied, interfering and
unteachable, with whom wisdom would die. And yet we Socialists can produce =
in
our plans no absolute bar to these possibilities. Here I can suggest only in
the most general terms methods and certain principles. They need to be laid
down as vitally necessary to Socialism, and so far they have not been so la=
id
down. They have still to be incorporated in the Socialist creed. They are
essentially principles of that Liberalism out of whose generous aspirations
Socialism sprang, but they are principles that even to-day, unhappily, do n=
ot
figure in the fundamental professions of any Socialist body.
The first of thes=
e is
the principle of freedom of speech; the second, freedom of writing; and the
third, universality of information. In the civilized State every one must be
free to know, knowledge must be patent and at hand, and any one must be fre=
e to
discuss, write, suggest and persuade. These freedoms must be guarded as sac=
red
things. It is not in the untutored nature of man to respect any of these
freedoms; it is not in the bureaucratic habit of mind. Indeed, the desire to
suppress opinions adverse to our own is almost instinctive in human nature.=
It
is an instinct we have to conquer. Fair play in discussion is sustained by a
cultivated respect, by a correction of natural instinct; men need to be tra=
ined
to be jealous of obscurantism, of unfair argument, of authoritative
interference with opinion when that opinion is against them. In England suc=
h a jealousy
does already largely exist, it has been cultivated with us since the
seventeenth century at least; America, it seemed to me during my short visi=
t to
the States, has somewhat retrograded from its former British standard in th=
is
respect, there is a crude majority tyranny in the matter of publication, an
un-English disposition to boycott libraries, books, authors and publications
upon petty issues, a growing disposition to discriminate in the mails again=
st
unpopular views. These interferences with open statement and discussion are=
decivilizing
forces.
Given a clear pub=
lic
understanding of these necessities as primary, then one may point out that =
the
next necessity for the mental existence of a Socialist State is an extension
and cheapening of the impartial universal distributing activity of the publ=
ic
post so that it becomes not only the means of correspondence, but also of d=
istributing
books and newspapers, pamphlets and every form of printed matter. The
post-office must become bookseller and newsagent. In France this is already=
the
case with the press, and newspapers are handed in not by the newsboy but by=
the
public mail. In England Messrs. Smith and Mudie, and so forth, may censor w=
hat
they like among periodicals or books. The remedy is more toilsome and vexat=
ious
than the injury. Neither England nor America has any security against findi=
ng
its public supply of magazines or literature suddenly choked by the
manœuvres of some blackmailing Book or News Trust squalidly "figh=
ting"
author or publisher for an increase in its proportion of profits, or intere=
sted
in financial exploitations liable to exposure. Neither country is secure
against the complete control of its channels of thought by some successful
monopolistic adventurer....
The Socialist Sta=
te
will not for a moment permit such risks as these; it must certainly be a
ubiquitous newsvendor and bookseller; the ordinary newsvendor and bookseller
must become an impartial State official, working for a sure and comfortable
salary instead of for precarious profits. And this amplification of the book
and news post and the book and news trades will need to be not simply a
municipal but a State service of the widest range.
Distribution,
however, is only the beginning of the problem. There is the more difficult
issue of getting books and papers printed and published. And here we come t=
o an
intricate puzzle in reconciling the indisputable need for untrammelled
individual expression on the one hand with public ownership on the other, a=
nd
also with the difficult riddle how authors may be supported under Socialist
conditions. It is not within the design of this book to do more than indica=
te a
possible solution. These are problems the Socialist has still to work out. =
At present
authors with business shrewdness and the ability to be interesting get an
income from the sale of their books, and it seems possible that they might
continue to be paid in that way under Socialism. It is difficult outside the
field of specialist work (which under any social system has to be endowed in
relation to colleges and universities) to find any other just way of
discriminating between the author who ought to get a living from writing, a=
nd
the author who has no reasonable claim to do so. But under Socialism, in
addition to the private publisher or altogether replacing him, there will h=
ave
to be some sort of public publisher.
Here again
difficulties arise. It is difficult to see how, if there is only one general
State publishing department, a sort of censorship can be altogether avoided,
and even if, for example, one insists upon the right of every one who cares=
to
pay for it to have matter printed, bound and issued by the public presses a=
nd
binders, it still leaves a disagreeable possibility of uniformity haunting =
the
mind. But the whole trend of administrative Socialism is towards a concepti=
on
of great local governments, of land, elementary education, omnibus-transit,
power distribution and the like, vesting in the hands of municipalities as
great as mediæval principalities; and it seems possible to look to th=
ese
great bodies and to the municipal patriotism and inter-municipal rivalries =
that
will develop about them, for just that spirited and competitive publishing =
that
is desirable, just as one looks now to their rivalries as a stimulus for art
and architecture and public dignity and display.[25] Already, as I have poi=
nted
out in a previous chapter (Chapter IX., § 5), the decorative arts had =
to
be rescued from the degrading influence of private enterprise; no one wants=
to
go back now to the early Victorian state of affairs, and so it is reasonabl=
e to
hope that out of the municipal art and technical schools, which teach print=
ing,
binding and the like, public presses, public binderies and all the machiner=
y of
book production may be developed in a natural and convenient manner. So, to=
o, the
municipalities might publish, seek out, maintain and honour writers and sell
the books they produced, against each other all over the world. It would be=
a
matter of pride for authors still unrecognized to go forth to the world with
the arms of some great city on their covers, and it would be a matter of pr=
ide
for any city to have its arms upon work become classic and immortal. So at
least one method of competition is possible in this matter....
[25] I visited Liverpool and
Manchester the other day for =
the
first time in my life, and was delighted to find how the =
inferiority
of the local art galleries to those of Glasgow =
rankled
in people's minds.
This, however, is=
but
one passing suggestion out of many possibilities. But in all these issues of
the intellectual life, it is manifest that public ownership must be so
contrived, and can be so contrived as to avoid centralization and a control
without alternatives. Moreover, whatever public publishing is done, it must=
be left
open to any one to set up as an independent publisher or printer, and to se=
ll
and advertise through the impartial public book and news distributing
organization.
I lay some stress
upon this matter of book issuing because I think it is a remarkable and
regrettable thing about contemporary Socialist discussion that it does not =
seem
to be in the least alive to the great public disadvantage of leaving this
vitally important service to private gain getting. Municipal coal, municipal
milk, municipal house owning, the Socialists seem prepared for, and even
municipal theatres, but municipal publication they still do not take into
consideration. They leave the capitalist free to contrive the control of th=
eir
book supply and to check and determine all the provender of their minds....=
The problem of the
press is perhaps to be solved by some parallel combination of individual
enterprise and public resources. All sorts of things may happen to the
newspaper of to-day even in the near future, it cannot but be felt that in =
its
present form it is an extremely transitory phenomenon, that it no longer
embodies and rules public thought as it did in the middle and later Victori=
an
period, and that a separation of public discussion from the news sheet is
already in progress. Both in England and America the popular magazine seems=
taking
over an increasing share of the public thinking. The newspaper appears to b=
e in
the opening throes of a period of fundamental change.
But I will not go
into the future of the newspaper here. All these suggestions are merely thr=
own
out in the most tentative way to indicate the nature of the field for study
that lies open for any intelligent worker to cultivate, and that Socialists
have so far been too busy to consider....
The same truth th=
at
controls must be divided and a competition at least for honour and repute k=
ept
alive under Socialism, needs also to be applied to schools and colleges, and
all the vast machinery of research. It is imperative that there should be
overlapping and competing organizations. An educated and prosperous communi=
ty
such as we postulate for the Socialist State will necessarily be more alert=
for
interest and intellectual quality than our present "driven" multi=
tude;
its ampler leisure, its wider horizons, will keep it critical and exacting =
of
what claims its attention. The rivalries of institutions and municipalities
will be part of the drama of life. Under Socialism, with the extension of t=
he
educational process it contemplates, universities and colleges must become =
the
most prominent of facts; nearly every one will have that feeling for some s=
uch
place which now one finds in a Trinity man for Trinity; the sort of feeling=
that
sent the last thoughts of Cecil Rhodes back to Oriel. Everywhere, balanced
against the Town Hall or the Parliament House, will be the great university
buildings and art museums, the lecture halls open to all comers, the great
noiseless libraries, the book exhibitions and book and pamphlet stores, kee=
nly
criticized, keenly used, will teem with unhurrying, incessant, creative
activities.
And all this imme=
nse
publicly sustained organization will be doing greatly and finely what now o=
ur
scattered line of Socialist propagandists is doing under every disadvantage,
that is to say it will be developing and sustaining the social
self-consciousness, the collective sense of the State.
§ 5.
I am naturally
preoccupied with the Mind of that Civilized State we seek to make; because =
my
work lies in this department. But while the writer, the publisher and print=
er,
the bookseller and librarian, and teacher and preacher must chiefly direct
himself to developing this great organized mind and intention in the world,
other sorts of men will be concerned with parallel aspects of the Socialist
synthesis. The medical worker or the medical investigator will be building =
up
the body of a new generation, the Body of the Civilized State, and he will =
be
doing all he can not simply as an individual, but as a citizen, to organize=
his
services of cure and prevention, of hygiene and selection. And the speciali=
zed
man of science--he will be concerned with his own special synthesis, the
Knowledge of the Civilized State, whether he measure crystals or stain
microtome sections or count stars. A great and growing multitude of men wil=
l be
working out the Apparatus of the Civilized State; the students of transit a=
nd
housing, the engineers in their incessantly increasing variety, the miners =
and geologists
estimating the world's resources in metals and minerals, the mechanical
inventors perpetually economizing force. The scientific agriculturist, agai=
n,
will be studying the food supply of the world as a whole, and how it may be
increased and distributed and economized. And to the student of law comes t=
he
task of rephrasing his intricate and often quite beautiful science in relat=
ion
to the new social assumptions we have laid down. All these and a hundred ot=
her
aspects are integral to the wide project of Constructive Socialism as it sh=
apes
itself now.
And to the man or
woman who looks at these issues not as one specialized in relation to some
constructive calling but as a common citizen, a mere human being eager to m=
ake
and do from the standpoint of personal liberty and personal affections, the
appeal of this great constructive project is equally strong. You want secur=
ity
and liberty! Here it is, safe from the greed of trust and landlord; here is=
investment
with absolute assurance and trading with absolute justice; this is the only
safe way to build your own house in perfect security, to make your own gard=
en
safe for yourself and for your children's children, the only way in which y=
ou
can link a hundred million kindred wills in loyal co-operation with your ow=
n,
and that is to do it not for yourself alone and for your children alone, but
for all the world--all the world doing it also for you--to join yourself to
this great making of a permanent well-being for mankind.
And here, finally,
let me set out a sort of programme of Constructive Socialism, as it seems t=
o be
shaping itself in the minds of contemporary Socialists out of the Fabianism=
of
the eighties and nineties, in order that the reader may be able to measure =
this
fuller and completer proposition against the earlier Administrative Sociali=
sm whose
propositions are set out in Chapter XI., § 1. All those are incorporat=
ed
in this that follows--there is no contradiction whatever between them, but
there is amplification; new elements are taken into consideration, once
disregarded difficulties have been faced and partially resolved.
First, then, the
Constructive Socialist has to do whatever lies in his power towards the
enrichment of the Socialist idea. He has to give whatever gifts he has as
artist, as writer, as maker of any sort to increasing and refining the
conception of civilized life. He has to embody and make real the State and =
the
City. And the Socialist idea, constantly restated, refreshed and elaborated,
has to be made a part of the common circle of ideas; has to be grasped and =
felt
and assimilated by the whole mass of mankind, has to be made the basis of e=
ach
individual's private morality. That mental work is the primary, most essent=
ial
function of Constructive Socialism.
And next,
Constructive Socialism has in every country to direct its energies and
attention to political reform, to the scientific reconstruction of our
representative and administrative machinery so as to give power and real
expression to the developing collective mind of the community, and to remove
the obstructions to Socialization that are inevitable where institutions st=
and
for "interests" or have fallen under the sway of aggressive priva=
te
property or of narrowly organized classes. Governing and representative bod=
ies,
advisory and investigatory organizations of a liberal and responsive type h=
ave
to be built up, bodies that shall be really capable of the immense administ=
rative
duties the secular abolition of the great bulk of private ownership will
devolve upon them.
Thirdly, the
constructive Socialist sets himself to forward the resumption of the land by
the community, by increased control, by taxation, by death duties, by purch=
ase
and by partially compensated confiscation as circumstances may render
advisable, and so to make the municipality the sole landlord in the reorgan=
ized
world.
And meanwhile the
constructive Socialist goes on also with the work of socializing the main
public services, by transferring them steadily from private enterprise to
municipal and State control, by working steadily for such transfers and by
opposing every party and every organization that does not set its face
resolutely against the private exploitation of new needs and services.
There are four
distinct systems of public service which could very conveniently be organiz=
ed
under collective ownership and control now, and each can be attacked
independently of the others. There is first the need of public educational
machinery, and by education I mean not simply elementary education, but the
equally vital need for great colleges not only to teach and study technical
arts and useful sciences, but also to enlarge learning and sustain
philosophical and literary work. A civilized community is impossible without
great public libraries, public museums, public art schools, without public =
honour
and support for contemporary thought and literature, and all these things t=
he
constructive Socialist may forward at a hundred points.
Then next there is
the need and opportunity of organizing the whole community in relation to
health, the collective development of hospitals, medical aid, public
sanitation, child welfare, into one great loyal and efficient public servic=
e.
This, too, may be pushed forward either as part of the general Socialist
movement or independently as a thing in itself by those who may find the wh=
ole Socialist
proposition unacceptable or inconvenient.
A third system of
interests upon which practical work may be done at the present time lies in=
the
complex interdependent developments of transit and housing, questions that =
lock
up inextricably with the problem of re-planning our local government areas.
Here, too, the whole world is beginning to realize more and more clearly th=
at
private enterprise is wasteful and socially disastrous, that collective con=
trol,
collective management, and so on to collective enterprise and ownership of
building-land, houses, railways, tramways and omnibuses, give the only way =
of
escape from an endless drifting entanglement and congestion of our mobile
modern population.
The fourth depart=
ment
of economic activity in which collectivism is developing, and in which the
constructive Socialist will find enormous scope for work, is in connection =
with
the more generalized forms of public trading, and especially with the
production, handling and supply of food and minerals. When the lagging
enterprise of agriculture needs to be supplemented by endowed educational
machinery, agricultural colleges and the like; when the feeble intellectual=
initiative
of the private adventure miner and manufacturer necessitates a London
"Charlottenburg," it must be manifest that State initiative has
altogether out-distanced the possibilities of private effort, and that the =
next
step to the public authority instructing men how to farm, prepare food, run
dairies, manage mines and distribute minerals, is to cut out the pedagogic
middleman and undertake the work itself. The State education of the expert =
for
private consumption (such as we see at the Royal School of Mines) is surely=
too
ridiculous a sacrifice of the community to private property to continue at
that. The further inevitable line of advance is the transfer from private t=
o public
hands by purchase, by competing organizations or what not, of all those gre=
at
services, just as rapidly as the increasing capacity and experience of the
public authority permits.
This briefly is t=
he
work and method of Constructive Socialism to-day. Under one or other head it
can utilize almost every sort of capacity and every type of opportunity. It
refuses no one who will serve it. It is no narrow doctrinaire cult. It does=
not
seek the best of an argument, but the best of a world. Its worst enemies are
those foolish and litigious advocates who antagonize and estrange every
development of human Good Will that does not pay tribute to their vanity in
open acquiescence. Its most loyal servants, its most effectual helpers on t=
he
side of art, invention and public organization and political reconstruction,
may be men who will never adopt the Socialist name.
CHAPTER XIV - ARGUMENTS AD HOMINEM<=
/a>
§ 1.
Before I conclude
this compact exposition of modern Socialism, it is reasonable that the read=
er
should ask for some little help in figuring to himself this new world at wh=
ich
we Socialists aim.
"I see the
justice of much of the Socialist position," he will say, "and the
soundness of many of your generalizations. But it still seems to remain--ge=
neralizations;
and I feel the need of getting it into my mind as something concrete and re=
al.
What will the world be like when its state is really a Socialist one? That'=
s my
difficulty."
The full answer to
that would be another book. I myself have tried to render my own personal d=
ream
in a book called A Modern Utopia,[26] but that has not been so widely read =
as I
could have wished, it does not appeal strongly enough, perhaps, to the
practical every-day side of life, and here I may do my best to give very br=
iefly
some intimation of a few of the differences that would strike a contemporar=
y if
he or she could be transferred to the new order we are trying to evolve.
[26] Chapman & Hall.
It would be a wor=
ld
and a life in no fundamental respect different from the world of to-day, ma=
de
up of the same creatures as ourselves, as limited in capacity if not in
outlook, as hasty, as quick to take offence, as egotistical essentially, as
hungry for attention, as easily discouraged--they would indeed be better
educated and better trained, less goaded and less exasperated, with ampler
opportunities for their finer impulses and smaller scope for rage and secre=
cy,
but they would still be human. At bottom it would still be a struggle for i=
ndividual
ends, albeit ennobled individual ends; for self-gratification and
self-realization against external difficulty and internal weakness.
Self-gratification would be sought more keenly in self-development and
self-realization in service, but that is a change of tone and not of nature=
. We
shall still be individuals. You might, indeed, were you suddenly flung into=
it,
fail to note altogether for a long time the widest of the differences betwe=
en
the Socialist State and our present one--the absence of that worrying urgen=
cy
to earn, that sense of constant economic insecurity, which afflicts all but=
the
very careless or the very prosperous to-day. Painful things being absent are
forgotten. On the same principle certain common objects of our daily life y=
ou
might not miss at all. There would be no slums, no hundreds of miles of
insanitary, ignoble homes, no ugly health-destroying cheap factories. If you
were not in the habit of walking among slums and factories you would scarce=
ly
notice that. Din and stress would be enormously gone. But you would remark
simply a change in the atmosphere about you and in your own contentment tha=
t would
be as difficult to analyze as the calm of a Sunday morning in sunshine in a
pleasant country.
Let me put my
conception of the Socialist world to a number of typical readers, as it wer=
e,
so that they may see clearly just what difference in circumstances there wo=
uld
be for them if we Socialists could have our way now. Let me suppose them as=
far
as possible exactly what they are now save for these differences.
Then first let us
take a sample case and suppose yourself to be an elementary teacher. So far=
as
your work went you would be very much as you are to-day; you would have a f=
iner
and more beautiful school-room perhaps, better supplied with apparatus and
diagrams; you would have cleaner and healthier, that is to say brighter and
more responsive children, and you would have smaller and more manageable
classes. Schools will be very important things in the Socialist State, and =
you will
find outside your class-room a much ampler building with open corridors, a
library, a bath, refectory for the children's midday meal, and gymnasium, a=
nd
beyond the playground a garden. You will be an enlisted member of a public
service, free under reasonable conditions to resign, liable under extreme
circumstances to dismissal for misconduct, but entitled until you do so to a
minimum salary, a maintenance allowance, that is, and to employment. You wi=
ll
have had a general education from the State up to the age of sixteen or sev=
enteen,
and then three or four years of sound technical training, so that you will =
know
your work from top to bottom. You will have applied for your present positi=
on
in the service, whatever it is, and have been accepted, much as you apply a=
nd
are accepted for positions now, by the school managers, and you will have d=
one
so because it attracted you and they will have accepted you because your qu=
alifications
seemed adequate to them. You will draw a salary attached to the position, o=
ver
and above that minimum maintenance salary to which I have already alluded. =
You
will be working just as keenly as you are now, and better because of the be=
tter
training you have had, and because of shorter hours and more invigorating c=
onditions,
and you will be working for much the same ends, that is to say for promotio=
n to
a larger salary and wider opportunities and for the interest and sake of the
work. In your leisure you may be studying, writing, or doing some work of
supererogation for the school or the State--because under Socialist conditi=
ons
it cannot be too clearly understood that all the reasons the contemporary T=
rade
Unionist finds against extra work and unpaid work will have disappeared! You
will not in a Socialist State make life harder for others by working keenly=
and
doing much if you are so disposed. You will be free to give yourself genero=
usly
to your work. You will have no anxiety about sickness or old age, the State,
the universal Friendly Society, will hold you secure against that; but if y=
ou
like to provide extra luxury and dignity for your declining years, if you t=
hink
you will be amused to collect prints or books, or travel then, or run a rose
garden or grow chrysanthemums, the State will be quite ready for you to pay=
it
an insurance premium in order that you may receive in due course an extra
annuity to serve that end you contemplate.
You will probably
live as a tenant in a house which may either stand alone or be part of a
terrace or collegiate building, but instead of having a private landlord,
exacting of rent and reluctant of repairs, your house landlord will very
probably be, and your ground landlord will certainly be, the municipality, =
the
great Birmingham or London or Hampshire or Glasgow or such-like municipalit=
y;
and your house will be built solidly and prettily instead of being jerry-bu=
ilt
and mean-looking, and it will have bathroom, electric light, electrically e=
quipped
kitchen and so forth, as every modern civilized house might have and should
have now. If your taste runs to a little close garden of your own, you will
probably find plenty of houses with one; if that is not so, and you want it
badly, you will get other people of like tastes to petition the municipalit=
y to
provide some, and if that will not do, you will put yourself up as a candid=
ate
for the parish or municipal council to bring this about. You will pay very =
much
the sort of rent you pay now, but you will not pay it to a private landlord=
to spend
as he likes at Monte Carlo or upon foreign missions or in financing
"Moderate" bill-posting or what not, but to the municipality, and=
you
will pay no rates at all. The rent will do under Socialism what the rates do
now. You cannot grasp too clearly that Socialism will abolish rates absolut=
ely.
Rates for public purposes are necessary to-day because the landowners of the
world evade the public obligations that should, in common sense, go with the
rent.
Light, heating, w=
ater
and so on will either be covered by the rent or charged for separately, and
they will be supplied just as near cost-price as possible. I don't think you
will buy coals, because I think that in a few years' time it will be possib=
le
to heat every house adequately by electricity; but if I am wrong in that, t=
hen
you will buy your coals just as you do now, except that you will have an ho=
nest
coal merchant, the Public Coal Service, a merchant not greedy for profit nor
short in the weight, calculating and foreseeing your needs, not that it may
profit by them but in order to serve them, storing coal against a demand an=
d so
never raising the price in winter.
I am assuming you=
are
going to be a house occupier, but if you are a single man, you will probably
live in pleasant apartments in an hotel or college and dine in a club, and
perhaps keep no more than a couple of rooms, one for sleep and one for study
and privacy of your own. But if you are a married man, then I must enlarge a
little further upon your domestic details, because you will probably want a
"home of your own."...
§ 2.
Now, just how a
married couple lives in the Socialist State will depend very much, as indee=
d it
does now, on the individual relations and individual taste and proclivities=
of
the two people most concerned. Many couples are childless now, and indispos=
ed
for home and children, and such people will also be found in the Socialist
State, and in their case the wife will probably have an occupation and be a=
teacher,
a medical practitioner, a government clerk or official, an artist, a millin=
er,
and earn her own living. In which case they will share apartments, perhaps,=
and
dine in a club and go about together very much as a childless couple of
journalists or artists or theatrical people do in London to-day. But of cou=
rse
if either of them chooses to idle more or less and live on the earnings of =
the
other, that will be a matter quite between themselves. No one will ask who =
pays
their rent and their bills; that will be for their own private arrangement.=
But if they are n=
ot
childless people, but have children, things will be on a rather different
footing. Then they will probably have a home all to themselves, and that wi=
ll
be the wife's chief affair; only incidentally will she attend to any other
occupation. You will remember that the State is to be a sort of universal
Friendly Society supplying good medical advice and so forth, and so soon as=
a
woman is likely to become a mother, her medical adviser, man or woman as th=
e case
may be, will report this to the proper officials and her special income as a
prospective mother in the State will begin. Then, when her child is born, t=
here
will begin an allowance for its support, and these payments will continue
monthly or quarterly, and will be larger or smaller according first to the
well-being of the child, and secondly to the need the State may have for
children--so long as the children are in their mother's care. All this money
for maternity will be the wife's independent income, and normally she will =
be
the house ruler--just as she is now in most well-contrived households. Her =
personality
will make the home atmosphere; that is the woman's gift and privilege, and =
she
will be able to do it with a free hand. I suppose that for the husband's co=
st
in the household the present custom of cultivated people of independent mea=
ns
will continue, and he will pay over to his wife his share of the household =
expenses....
After the revenue=
in
the domestic budget under Socialism one must consider the expenditure. I ha=
ve
already given an idea how the rent and rates, lighting and water are to be
dealt with under Socialist conditions. For the rest, the housewife will be
dealing on very similar lines to those she goes upon at present. She will b=
uy
what she wants and pay cash for it. The milkman will come in the morning an=
d leave
his "book" at the end of the week, but instead of coming from Mr.
Watertap Jones' or the Twenty-per-cent. Dairy Company, he will come from the
Municipal Dairy; he will have no interest in giving short measure, and all =
the
science in the State will be behind him in keeping the milk clean and pure.=
If
he is unpunctual or trying in any way, the lady will complain just as she d=
oes
now, but to his official superiors instead of his employer; and if that does
not do, she and her aggrieved neighbours (all voters, you will understand) =
will
put the thing to their representative in the parish or municipal council. T=
hen
she will buy her meat and grocery and so on, not in one of a number of
inefficient little shops with badly assorted goods under unknown brands as =
she
does now if she lives in a minor neighbourhood, but in a branch of a big,
well-organized business like Lipton's or Whiteley's or Harrod's. She may ha=
ve
to go to it on a municipal electric car, for which she will probably pay a =
fare
just as she does now, unless, perhaps, her house rent includes a season tic=
ket.
The store will not belong to Mr. Lipton or Mr. Whiteley or Mr. Harrod, but =
to
the public--that will be the chief difference--and if she does not like her
service she will be able to criticize and remedy it, just as one can now
criticize and remedy any inefficiency in one's local post-office. If she do=
es
not like the brands of goods supplied she will be able to insist upon other=
s.
There will be brands, too, different from the household names of to-day in =
the
goods she will buy. The county arms of Devon will be on the butter paper,
Hereford and Kent will guarantee her cider, Hampshire and Wiltshire answer =
for her
bacon--just as now already Australia brands her wines and New Zealand prote=
cts
her from deception (and insures clean, decent slaughtering) in the matter of
Canterbury lamb. I rather like to think of the red dagger of London on the
wholesome bottled ales of her great (municipalized) breweries, and Maidston=
e or
Rochester, let us say, boasting a special reputation for jam or pickles. Go=
od
honest food all of it will be, made by honest unsweated women and men, with=
the
pride of broad vales and uplands, counties, principalities and great cities=
behind
it. Each county and municipality will be competing freely against its fello=
ws,
not in price but quality, the cheeses of Cheshire against the cheeses of Fr=
ance
and Switzerland, the beer of Munich against the Kentish brew; bread from the
bakeries of London and Paris, biscuits from Reading town, chocolates from
Switzerland and Bourneville, side by side with butter from the meadows of
Denmark and Russia.
Then, when the
provisions have been bought, she will go perhaps to the other departments of
the great store and buy or order the fine linen and cotton of the Manchester
men, the delicate woollens of the Bradford city looms, the silks of London =
or
Mercia, Northampton or American boots, and so forth, just as she does now in
any of the great stores. But, as I say, all these goods will be honest good=
s,
made to wear as well as look well, and the shopman will have no
"premiums" to tempt him to force rubbish upon her instead of wort=
hy
makes by specious "introduction."
But suppose she w=
ants
a hat or a dress made. Then, probably, for all that the world is under
Socialism she will have to go to private enterprise; a matter of taste and
individuality such as dress cannot be managed in a wholesale way. She will
probably find in the same building as the big department store, a number of
little establishments, of Madame This, of Mrs. That, some perhaps with wind=
ows
displaying a costume or so or a hat or so, and here she will choose her
particular artiste and contrive the thing with her. I am inclined to think =
the
dressmaker or milliner will charge a fee according to her skill and reputat=
ion
for designing and cutting and so on, and that the customer will pay the sto=
re separately
for material and the municipal workshop for the making under the artiste's =
direction.
I don't think, that is, that the milliner or dressmaker will make a trading
profit, but only an artiste's fee.
And if the lady w=
ants
to buy books, music, artistic bric-a-brac, or what not, she will find the b=
ig
store displaying and selling all these things on commission for the municip=
al
or private producers all over the world....
So much for the
financial and economic position of an ordinary woman in a Socialist State. =
But
management and economies are but the basal substance of a woman's life. She
will be free not merely financially; the systematic development of the soci=
al
organisation and of the mechanism of life will be constantly releasing her =
more
and more from the irksome duties and drudgeries that have consumed so much =
of
the energies of her sex in the past. She will be a citizen, and free as a m=
an
to read for herself, think for herself and seek expression. Under the law, =
in
politics and all the affairs of life she will be the equal of a man. No one
will control her movements or limit her actions or stand over her to make
decisions for her. All these things are implicit in the fundamental
generalization of Socialism, which denies property in human beings.
§ 3.
Perhaps now the
reader will be able to figure a little better the common texture of the lif=
e of
a teacher or a housewife under Socialism. And incidentally I have glanced at
the position a clever milliner or dressmaker would probably have under the =
altered
conditions. The great mass of the employés in the distributing trade=
would
obviously be living a sort of clarified, dignified version of their present
existence, freed from their worst anxieties, the terror of the
"swap," the hopeless approach of old age, and from the sweated fo=
od
and accommodation of the living-in system. Under Socialism the "living=
-in"
system would be incredible. Their conditions of life would approximate to t=
hose
of the teacher. Like him they would be enrolled a part of a great public
service, and like him entitled to a minimum wage, and over and above that t=
hey
would draw salaries commensurate with the positions their energy and ability
had won. The prosperous merchant of to-day would find himself somewhere hig=
h in
the hierarchy of the distributing service. If, for example, you are a tea
merchant or a provision broker, then probably if you like that calling, you=
would
be handling the same kind of goods, not for profit but efficiency,
"shipping into the Midlands" from Liverpool, let us say, much as =
you
do now. You would be keener on quality and less keen on deals; that is all.=
You
would not be trying to "skin" a business rival, but very probably=
you
would be just as keen to beat the London distributers and distinguish yours=
elf
in that way. And you would get a pretty good salary; modern Socialism does =
not
propose to maintain any dead-level to the detriment of able men. Modern
Socialism has cleared itself of that jealous hatred of prosperity that was =
once
a part of class-war Socialism. You would be, you see, far more than you are
now, one of the pillars of your town's prosperity--and the Town Hall would =
be a
place worth sitting in....
So far as the rank
and file of the distributing service is concerned the chief differences wou=
ld
be a better education, security for a minimum living, an assured old age,
shorter hours, more private freedom and more opportunity. Since the whole
business would be public and the customer would be one's indirect master
through the polling booth, promotion would be far more by merit than it is =
now
in private businesses, where irrelevant personal considerations are often o=
verpowering,
and it would be open to any one to apply for a transfer to some fresh posit=
ion
if he or she found insufficient scope in the old one. The staff of the stor=
es
will certainly "live out," and their homes and way of living will=
be
closely parallel to that of the two people I have sketched in §§ 1
and 2.
In the various
municipal and State Transit Services, the condition of affairs would be even
closer to a broadened and liberalized version of things as they are. The
conductors and drivers will no doubt wear uniforms for convenience of
recognition, but a uniform will carry with it no association with the idea =
of a
livery as it does at the present time. Mostly this service will be run by y=
oung
men, and each one, like the private of the democratic French Army, will feel
that he has a marshal's batôn in his knapsack. He will have had a good
education; he will have short hours of duty and leisure for self-improvemen=
t or
other pursuits, and if he remains a conductor or driver all his life he will
have only his own unpretending qualities to thank for that. He will probably
remain a conductor if he likes to remain a conductor, and go elsewhere if he
does not. He is not obliged to take that batôn out and bother with it=
if
he has quiet tastes.
The great organiz=
ed
industries, mining, cotton, iron, building and the like, would differ chief=
ly
in the permanence of employment and the systematic evasion of the social
hardship caused now-a-days by new inventions and economies in method. There
will exist throughout the world an organized economic survey, which will
continually prepare and revise estimates of the need of iron, coal, cloth a=
nd
so forth in the coming months; the blind speculative production of our own
times is due merely to the dark ignorance in which we work in these matters=
, and
with such a survey, employment will lose much of the cruel intermittence it=
now
displays. The men in these great productive services, quite equally with
teachers and railwaymen, will be permanently employed. They will be no more
taken on and turned off by the day or week than we should take on or turn o=
ff
an extra policeman, or depend for our defence upon soldiers casually engaged
upon the battlefield at sixpence an hour. And if by adopting some ingenious=
device
we dispense suddenly with the labour of hundreds of men, the Socialist State
will send them, not into the casual wards and colonies as our State does, to
become a social burthen there, but into the technical schools to train for =
some
fresh use of their energies. Taken all round, of course, these men, even the
least enterprising or able, will be better off than they are now, with a fu=
ller
share of the product of their industry. Many will no doubt remain as they a=
re, rather
through want of ambition than want of push, because under Socialism life wi=
ll
be tolerable for a poor man. A man who chooses to do commonplace work and s=
pend
his leisure upon chess or billiards, or in gossip or eccentric studies, or
amusing but ineffectual art, will remain a poor man indeed, but not be made=
a
wretched one. Sheer toil of a mechanical sort there is little need of in the
world now, it could be speedily dispensed with at a thousand points were hu=
man patience
not cheaper than good machinery, but there will still remain ten thousand
undistinguished sorts of work for unambitious men....
If you are a farm=
er
or any sort of horticulturist, a fruit or flower grower, let us say, or a
seedsman, you will probably find yourself still farming under Socialism--th=
at
is to say, renting land and getting what you can out of it. Your rent will =
be
fixed just as it is to-day by what people will give. But your landlord will=
be
the Municipality or the County, and the rent you pay will largely come back=
to
you in repairs, in the guiding reports and advice of the Agricultural
Department, in improved roads, in subventions to a good electric car servic=
e to
take your produce to market; in aids and education for your children. You w=
ill
probably have a greater fixity of tenure and a clearer ownership in
improvements than you have to-day. I am inclined to think that your dairying
and milking and so forth will be done for you wholesale in big public dairi=
es
and mills because of the economy of that; you will send up the crude produce
and sell it, perhaps, to the county association to brand and distribute. It=
is
probable you will sell your crops standing, and the public authority will
organize the harvesting and bring out an army of workers from the towns to
gather your fruit, hops and corn. You will need, therefore, only a small
permanent staff of labourers, and these are much more likely to be partners
with you in the enterprise than wage workers needing to be watched and driv=
en.
In your leisure y=
ou
will shoot, perhaps, or hunt, if your tastes incline that way--it is quite
likely that scattered among the farms of the future countryside will be the
cottages and homes of all sorts of people with open-air tastes who will sha=
re
their sports with you. One need not dread the disappearance of sport with t=
he
disappearance of the great house.... In the dead winter-time you will proba=
bly
like to run into the nearest big town with your wife and family, stay in an=
hotel
for a few weeks to talk to people in your clubs, see what plays there are in
the municipal theatres and so forth. And you will no doubt travel also in y=
our
holidays. All the world will know something of the pleasures and freedom of
travel, of wandering and the enjoyment of unfamiliar atmospheres, of mounta=
ins
and deserts and remote cities and deep forests, and the customs of alien
peoples.
§ 4.
A medical man or
woman, or a dentist or any such skilled professional, like the secondary
school-master, will cease to be a private adventurer under Socialism, conce=
rned
chiefly with the taking of a showy house and the use of a showy conveyance;=
he
or she will become part of one of the greatest of all the public services in
the coming time, the service of public health. Either he--I use this pronoun
and imply its feminine--will be on the staff of one of the main hospitals (=
which
will not be charities, but amply endowed public institutions), or he will b=
e a
part of a district staff, working in conjunction with a nursing organizatio=
n, a
cottage hospital, an isolation hospital and so forth, or he will be an advi=
sing
specialist, or mainly engaged in research or teaching and training a new
generation in the profession.
He must not judge=
his
life and position quite by the lives and position of publicly endowed
investigators and medical officers of health to-day. At present, because of=
the
jealousy of the private owner who has, as he says, to "find the
funds," almost all public employment is badly paid relatively to priva=
tely
earned incomes. The same thing is true of all scientific investigators and =
of
most public officials. The state of things to which Socialism points is a w=
orld
that will necessarily be harmonious with these constructive conceptions and
free from these jealousies. Whitehall and South Kensington have much to fear
from the wanton columns of a vulgarized capitalistic press and from the gre=
edy
intrigues of syndicated capital, but nothing from a sane constructive
Socialism. To the public official, therefore, of the present time, the
Socialist has merely to say that he will probably be better paid, relativel=
y,
than he is now, and in the matter of his house rents and domestic marketing,
vide supra....
But now, suppose =
you
are an artist--and I use the word to cover all sorts of art, literary, dram=
atic
and musical, as well as painting, sculpture, design and architecture--you w=
ant
before all things freedom for personal expression, and you probably have an
idea that this is the last thing you will get in the Socialist State. But, =
indeed,
you will get far more than you do now. You will begin as a student, no doub=
t,
in your local Municipal Art Schools, and there you will win prizes and
scholarships and get some glorious years of youth and work in Italy or Pari=
s,
or Germany or London, or Boston or New York, or wherever the great teachers=
and
workers of your art gather thickest; and then you will compete, perhaps, for
some public work, and have something printed or published or reproduced and
sold for you by your school or city; or get a loan from your home municipal=
ity
for material--if your material costs money--and set to work making that into
some saleable beautiful thing. If you are at all distinguished in quality, =
you
will have a competition among public authorities from the beginning, to act=
as
sponsors and dealers for your work; benevolent dealers they will be, and
content with a commission. And if you make things that make many people
interested and happy, you may by that fortunate gift of yours, grow to be as
rich and magnificent a person as any one in the Socialist State. But if you=
do
not please people at all, either the connoisseurs of the municipal art
collection or private associations of art patrons or the popular buyer, wel=
l,
then your lot will be no harder than the lot of any unsuccessful artist now;
you will have to do something else for a time and win leisure to try again.=
Theatrical
productions will be run on a sort of improvement upon contemporary methods,=
but
there will be no cornering of talent possible, no wild advertisement of
favoured stars upon strictly commercial lines, no Theatrical Trust. The
theatres will be municipal buildings, every theatre-going voter will be kee=
n to
see them comfortable and fine; they will, perhaps, be run in some cases by =
a public
repertoire company and in another by a lessee, and this latter may be finan=
ced
by his own private savings or by subscribers or partners, or by a loan from=
the
public bank as the case may be. This latter method of exploitation by a les=
see
will probably also work best in the public Music Halls, but it is quite equ=
ally
possible that these may be controlled by managers under partly elected and
partly appointed public committees. In some cases the theatrical lessee mig=
ht be
a kind of stage society organized for the production of particular types of
play. The spectators will pay for admission, of course, as they do now, but=
to
the municipal box offices; and I suppose the lessee or the author and artis=
ts
will divide up the surplus after the rent of the theatre has been deducted =
for
the municipal treasury. In every town of any importance there will be many
theatres, music halls and the like, perhaps under competing committees. In =
all
these matters, as every intelligent person understands, one has to maintain=
variety
of method, a choice of avenues, freedom from autocracies; and since the
Socialist community will contain a great number of intelligent persons with
leisure and opportunity for artistic appreciation, there is little chance of
this important principle being forgotten, much less than there is in this w=
orld
where a group of dealers can often make an absolute corner in this artistic
market or that. You will not, under Socialism, see Sarah Bernhardt playing =
in a
tent as she had to do in America, because all the theatres have been closed
against her through some mean dispute with a Trust about the sharing of
profits....
And if it is not =
too
sudden a transition, it seems most convenient in a Socialist State to leave
religious worship entirely to the care of private people; to let them subsc=
ribe
among themselves, subject, of course, to a reasonable statute of mortmain, =
to
lease land, and build and endow and maintain churches and chapels, altars a=
nd
holy places and meeting-houses, priests and devout ceremonies. This will be=
the
more easily done since the heavy social burthens that oppress religious bod=
ies
at the present time will be altogether lifted from them; they will have no =
poor
to support, no schools, no hospitals, no nursing sisters, the advance of
civilization will have taken over these duties of education and humanity th=
at
Christianity first taught us to realize. So, too, there seems no objection =
and
no obstacle in Socialism to religious houses, to nunneries, monasteries and=
the
like, so far as these institutions are compatible with personal freedom and=
the
public health, but of course factory laws and building laws will run through
all these places, and the common laws and limitations of contract override
their vows, if their devotees repent. So that you see Socialism will touch
nothing living of religion, and if you are a religious minister, you will be
very much as you are at the present time, but with lightened parochial duti=
es.
If you are an earnest woman and want to nurse the sick and comfort the
afflicted, you will need only, in addition to your religious profession, to
qualify as a nurse or medical practitioner. There will still be ample need =
of
you. Socialism will not make an end of human trouble, either of the body or=
of
the soul, albeit it will put these things into such comfort and safety as it
may.
§ 5.
And now let me
address a section to those particular social types whose method of living s=
eems
most threatened by the development of an organized civilization, who find it
impossible to imagine lives at all like their own in the Socialist State...=
.
But first it may =
be
well to remind them again of something I have already done my best to make
clear, that the modern Socialist contemplates no swift change of conditions
from those under which we live, to Socialism. There will be no wonderful Mo=
nday
morning when the old order will give place to the new. Year by year the gre=
at
change has to be brought about, now by this socialization of a service, now=
by
an alteration in the incidence of taxation, now by a new device of public
trading, now by an extension of education. This problem at the utmost is a
problem of adaptation, and for most of those who would have no standing und=
er
the revised conceptions of social intercourse, it is no more than to ask
whether it is wise they should prepare their sons or daughters to follow in
their footsteps or consent to regard their callings as a terminating functi=
on.
So far as many
professions and callings go, this matter may be dismissed in a few words. U=
nder
Socialism, while the particular trade or profession might not exist, there
would probably be ample scope in the public machine for the socially more
profitable employment of the same energies. A family solicitor, such as we =
know
now, would have a poor time in a Socialist State, but the same qualities of
watchful discretion would be needed at a hundred new angles and friction su=
rfaces
of the State organization. In the same way the private shopkeeper, as I have
already explained, would be replaced by the department managers and buyers =
of
the public stores, the rent collector, the estate bailiff--one might make l=
ong
lists of social types who would undergo a parallel transformation.
But suppose now y=
ou
are a servant, I mean a well-trained, expert, prosperous servant; would the
world have no equivalent of you under the new order? I think probably it wo=
uld.
With a difference, there will be room for a vast body of servants in the
Socialist State. But I think there will be very few servants to private peo=
ple,
and that the "menial" conception of a servant will have vanished =
in
an entirely educated community. The domestic work of the ordinary home, one=
may
prophesy confidently, will be very much reduced in the near future whether =
we
move toward Socialism or no; all the dirt of coal, all the disagreeableness
attendant upon lamps and candles, most of the heavy work of cooking will be
obviated by electric lighting and heating, and much of the bedroom service
dispensed with through the construction of properly equipped
bath-dressing-rooms. In addition, it is highly probable that there will be a
considerable extension of the club idea; ordinary people will dine more fre=
ely
in public places, and conveniences for their doing so will increase. The
single-handed servant will have disappeared, and if you are one of that cla=
ss
you must console yourself by thinking that under Socialism you would have b=
een
educated up to seventeen or eighteen and then equipped for some more
interesting occupation. But there will remain much need of occasional help =
of a
more skilled sort, in cleaning out the house thoroughly every now and then,
probably with the help of mechanisms, in recovering and repairing furniture,
and in all this sort of "helping" which will be done as between o=
ne
social equal and another, many people who are now, through lack of opportun=
ity
and education, servants, will no doubt be employed. But where the better ty=
pe
of service will be found will probably be in the clubs and associated homes,
where pleasant-mannered, highly-paid, skilful people will see to the ease a=
nd
comfort of a considerable clientèle without either offence or servil=
ity.
There still remains, no doubt, a number of valets, footmen, maids and so on,
who under Socialism would not be servants at all, but something far better,
more interesting and more productive socially.
But this writing =
of
servants brings me now to another possibility, and that is that perhaps you
are, dear reader, one of that small number of fortunate people, rich and we=
ll
placed in the world, who even under existing conditions seem to possess all
that life can offer a human being. You live beautifully in a great London
house, waited upon by companies of servants, you have country seats with pa=
rks
about them and fine gardens, you can travel luxuriously to any part of the =
civilized
world and live sumptuously there. All things are done for you, all ways are
made smooth for you. A skilled maid or valet saves you even the petty care =
of
your person; skilled physicians, wonderful specialists intervene at any thr=
eat
of illness or discomfort; you keep ten years younger in appearance than your
poorer contemporaries and twice as splendid. And above all you have an imme=
nse
sense of downward perspectives, of being special and apart and above the co=
mmon
herd of mankind.
Now frankly Socia=
lism
will be incompatible with this patrician style. You must contemplate the en=
d of
all that. You may still be healthy, refined, free, beautifully clothed and
housed; but you will not have either the space or the service or the sense =
of
superiority you enjoy now, under Socialism. You would have to take your pla=
ce
among the multitude again. Only a moiety of your property will remain to yo=
ur sort
of person if any revolution is achieved. The rents upon which you live, the
investments that yield the income that makes the employment of that army of
butlers and footmen, estate workers and underlings possible, that buys your
dresses, your jewels, your motorcars, your splendid furnishings and equipme=
nts,
will for the most part be public property, yielding revenue to some nationa=
l or
municipal treasury. You will have to give up much of that. There is no way =
out
of it, your way to Socialism is through "the needle's eye." From =
your
rare class and from your class alone does Socialism require a real material=
sacrifice.
You must indeed give up much coarse pride. There is no help for it, you must
face that if you face Socialism at all. You must come down to a simpler and=
, in
many material aspects, less distinguished way of living.
This is so clearly
evident that to any one who believes self-seeking is the ruling motive, the
only possible motive in mankind, it seems incredible that your class ever w=
ill
do anything than oppose to the last the advancement of Socialism. You will
fight for what you have, and the Have-nots will fight to take it away.
Therefore it is that the Socialists of the Social Democratic Federation pre=
ach
a class war; to my mind a lurid, violent and distasteful prospect. We shall
have to get out of the miseries and disorder of to-day, they think, if not =
by way
of chateau-burning and tumbrils, at least by a mitigated equivalent of that.
But I am not of that opinion. I have a lurking belief that you are not
altogether eaten up by the claims of your own magnificence. While there are=
no
doubt a number of people in your class who would fight like rats in a corner
against, let us say, the feeding of poor people's starving children or the
recovery of the land by the State to which it once belonged, I believe ther=
e is
enough of nobility in your class as a whole to considerably damp their resi=
stance.
Because you have silver mirrors and silver hairbrushes, it does not follow =
that
you have not a conscience. I am no believer in the theory that to be a
sans-culotte is to be morally impeccable, or that a man loses his soul beca=
use
he possesses thirty pairs of trousers beautifully folded by a valet. I cher=
ish
the belief that your very refinement will turn--I have seen it in one or two
fine minds visibly turning--against the social conditions that made it
possible. All this space, all this splendour has its traceable connection w=
ith the
insufficiencies and miseries from which you are so remote. Once that
realization comes to you the world changes. In certain lights, correlated w=
ith
that, your magnificence can look, you will discover--forgive the word!--a
little vulgar....
Once you have seen
that you will continue to see it. The nouveau riche of the new Plutocratic =
type
comes thrusting among you, demonstrating that sometimes quite obtrusively. =
You
begin by feeling sorry for his servants and then apologetic to your own. You
cannot "go it" as the rich Americans and the rich South Africans,=
or
prosperous book-makers or rich music-hall proprietors, "go it," t=
heir
silver and ivory and diamonds throw light on your own. And among other thin=
gs
you discover you are not nearly so dependent on the numerous men in livery,=
the
spaces and enrichments, for your pride and comfort, as these upstart people=
.
I trust also to t=
he
appeal of the intervening spaces. You cannot so entirely close your world in
from the greater world without that, in transit at least, the other aspects=
do
not intrude. Every time you leave Charing Cross for the Continent, for exam=
ple,
there are all those horrible slums on either side of the line. These things
are, you know, a part of your system, part of you; they are the reverse of =
that
splendid fabric and no separate thing, the wide rich tapestry of your lives
comes through on the other side, stitch for stitch in stunted bodies, in
children's deaths, in privation and anger. Your grandmothers did not realize
that. You do. You know. In that recognition and a certain nobility I find in
you, I put my hope, much more than in any dreadful memories of 1789 and tho=
se
vindictive pikes. Your class is a strangely mixed assembly of new and old, =
of
base and fine. But through it all, in Great Britain and Western Europe gene=
rally,
soaks a tradition truly aristocratic, a tradition that transcends property;=
you
are aware, and at times uneasily aware, of duty and a sort of honour. You
cannot bilk cabmen nor cheat at cards; there is something in your making
forbids that as strongly as an instinct. But what if it is made clear to you
(and it is being made clear to you) that the wealth you have is, all
unwittingly on your part, the outcome of a colossal--if unpremeditated--soc=
ial
bilking?
Moreover, though Socialism does ask you to abandon much space and service, it offers you cer= tain austere yet not altogether inadequate compensations. If you will cease to h= ave that admirable house in Mayfair and the park in Kent and the moorlands and = the Welsh castle, yet you will have another ownership of a finer kind to replace those things. For all London will be yours, a city to serve indeed, and a s= ense of fellowship that is, if you could but realize it, better than respect. The common people will not be common under Socialism. That is a very important thing for you to remember. But better than those thoughts is this, that you will own yourself too, more than you do now. All that state, all that prominence of yours--do you never feel how it stands between you and life?<= o:p>
So I appeal from =
your
wealth to your nobility, to help us to impoverish your class a little
relatively and make all the world infinitely richer by that impoverishment.=
And
I am sure that to some of you I shall not appeal in vain....
§ 6.
And lastly, perha=
ps
you are chiefly a patriot and you are concerned for the flag and country wi=
th
which your emotions have interwoven. You find that the Socialist talks
constantly of internationalism and the World State, and that presents itsel=
f to
your imagination as a very vague and colourless substitute for a warm and
living reality of England or "these States" or the Empire. Well, =
your
patriotism will have suffered a change, but I do not think it need starve u=
nder
Socialist conditions. It may be that war will have ceased, but the comparis=
on
and competition and pride of communities will not have ceased. Philadelphia=
and
Chicago, Boston and New York are at peace, in all probability for ever at
peace, so far as guns and slaughter go, but each perpetually criticizes, go=
ads
and tries to outshine the other. And the civic pride and rivalry of to-day =
will
be nothing to that pride and rivalry when every man's business is the city =
and
the city's honour and well-being is his own. You will have, therefore, first
this civic patriotism, your ancient pride in your city, a city which will be
like the city of the ancient Athenian's, or the mediæval Italian's, t=
he
centre of a system of territories and the property and chief interest of its
citizens. I, for instance, should love and serve, even as I love to-day, my
London and my Cinque Ports, these Home Counties about London, the great lap=
of
the Thames valley and the Weald and Downland, my own country in which all my
life has been spent; for you the city may be Ulster or Northumbria, or Wale=
s or
East or West Belgium, or Finland or Burgundy, or Berne or Berlin, or Veneti=
a,
Pekin, Calcutta, Queensland or San Francisco. And keeping the immediate pea=
ce
between these vigorous giant municipal states and holding them together the=
re
will still be in many cases the old national or Imperial government and the=
old
flag, a means of joint action between associated and kindred municipalities
with a common language and a common history and a common temper and race. T=
he
nation and the national government will be the custodian of the national li=
terature
and the common law, the controller and perhaps the vehicle of intermunicipal
and international trade, and an intermediary between its municipal governme=
nts
and that great Congress to which all things are making, that permanent
international Congress which will be necessary to insure the peace of the
world.
That, at least, i=
s my
own dream of the order that may emerge from the confusion of distrusts and
tentatives and dangerous absurdities, those reactions of fear and old
traditional attitudes and racial misconceptions which one speaks of as
international relations to-day. For I do not believe that war is a necessary
condition to human existence and progress, that it is anything more than a
confusion we inherit from the less organized phases of social development. I
think but a little advancement in general intelligence will make it an impo=
ssible
thing.
But suppose after=
all
that I am wrong in my estimate in this matter, and that war will still be
possible in a Socialist or partly Socialist world; suppose that the Sociali=
st
State in which I am imagining you to live is threatened by some military po=
wer.
Then I don't think the military power that threatens it need threaten very
long. Because consider, here will be a State organized for collective actio=
n as
never a State has been organized before, a State in which every man and wom=
an
will be a willing and conscious citizen saturated with the spirit of servic=
e,
in which scientific research will be at a maximum of vigour and efficiency.
What individualist or autocratic militarism will stand a chance against it?=
It
goes quite without saying from the essential principles of Socialism that if
war is necessary then every citizen will, as a matter of course, take his p=
art
in that war. It is mere want of intellectual grasp that has made a few work=
ing-class
Socialists in England and France oppose military service. Universal military
service, given the need for it, is innate in the Socialist idea, just as it=
is
blankly antagonistic to the "private individual" ideas of
Eighteenth-Century Liberalism. It is innate in the Socialist idea, but equa=
lly
innate in that is the conception of establishing and maintaining for ever a
universal peace.
CHAPTER XV - THE ADVANCEM=
ENT
OF SOCIALISM
§ 1.
And here my brief
exposition of the ideals of Modern Socialism may fitly end.
I have done my be=
st
to set out soberly and plainly this great idea of deliberately making a real
civilization by the control and subordination of the instinct of property, =
and
the systematic development of a state of consciousness out of the achieveme=
nts
and squalor, out of the fine forces and wasted opportunities of to-day. I m=
ay
have an unconscious bias perhaps, but so far as I have been able I have been
just and frank, concealing nothing of the doubts and difficulties of Social=
ism,
nothing of the divergencies of opinion among its supporters, nothing of the
generous demands it makes upon the social conscience, the Good Will in man.=
Its
supporters are divergent upon a hundred points, but upon its fundamental ge=
neralizations
they are all absolutely agreed, and some day the whole world will be agreed.
Their common purport is the resumption by the community of all property tha=
t is
not justly and obviously personal, and the substitution of the spirit of
service for the spirit of gain in all human affairs.
It must be clear =
to
the reader who has followed my explanations continuously, that the present
advancement of Socialism must lie now along three several lines.
FIRST, and most import=
ant,
is the primary intellectual process, the
elaboration, criticism, discussion, enrichment and enlargement o=
f the
project of Socialism. This includes all sorts of sociolog=
ical
and economic research, the critical literature of
Socialism, and every possible way--the drama, poetry, painting,
music--of expressing and refining its spirit, its attit=
udes
and conceptions. It includes, too, all sorts of experime=
nts in
living and association. In its widest sense it includes=
all
science, literature and invention.
SECONDLY, comes the
propaganda; the publication, distribution, repetition, discu=
ssion
and explanation of this growing body of ideas, until this
conception of a real civilized State as being in the maki=
ng,
becomes the common intellectual property of all intelligent
people in the world; until the laws and social injustices=
that
now seem, to the ordinary man, as much parts of life as =
the
east wind and influenza, will seem irrational, unnat=
ural
and absurd. This educational task is at the present time =
the
main work that the mass of Socialists have before them.=
Most
other possibilities wait upon that enlargement of the
general circle of ideas. It is a work that every one can help
forward in some measure, by talk and discussion, by the
distribution of literature, by writing and speaking in publi=
c, by
subscribing to propagandist organizations.
And THIRDLY, there is =
the
actual changing of practical things in the direction =
of the
coming Socialized State, the actual socialization, bi=
t by
bit and more and more completely, of the land, of the mean=
s of
production, of education and child welfare, of insur=
ance
and the food supply, the realization, in fact, of that gre=
at
design which the intellectual process of Socialism is
continually making more beautiful, attractive and worthy. Now this =
third
group of activities is necessarily various and diver=
gent,
and at every point the conscious and confessed Sociali=
st
will find himself co-operating with partial or
unintentional Socialists, with statesmen and officials, with
opportunist philanthropists, with trade unionists, with
religious bodies and religious teachers, with educationists, wi=
th
scientific and medical specialists, with every sort of
public-spirited person. He should never lose an opportunity of
explaining to such people how necessarily they are Socialists, b=
ut he
should never hesitate to work with them because they refu=
se the
label. For in the house of Socialism as in the house o=
f God,
there are many mansions.
These are the thr=
ee
main channels for Socialist effort, thought, propaganda and practical social
and political effort, and between them they afford opportunity for almost e=
very
type of intelligent human being. One may bring leisure, labour, gifts, mone=
y,
reputation, influence to the service of Socialism; there is ample use for t=
hem all.
There is work to be done for this idea, from taking tickets at a doorway and
lending a drawing-room for a meeting, to facing death, impoverishment and
sorrow for its sake.
§ 2.
Socialism is a mo=
ral
and intellectual process, let me in conclusion reiterate that. Only seconda=
rily
and incidentally does it sway the world of politics. It is not a political
movement; it may engender political movements, but it can never become a
political movement; any political body, any organization whatever, that pro=
fesses
to stand for Socialism, makes an altogether too presumptuous claim. The who=
le
is greater than the part, the will than the instrument. There can be no off=
icial
nor pontifical Socialism; the theory lives and grows. It springs out of the
common sanity of mankind. Constructive Socialism shapes into a great system=
of
developments to be forwarded, points to a great number of systems of activi=
ty
amidst which its adherents may choose their field for work. Parties and
societies may come or go, parties and organizations and names may be used a=
nd
abandoned; constructive Socialism lives and remains.
There is a consta=
ntly
recurring necessity to insist on the difference between two things, the lar=
ger
and the lesser, the greater being the Socialist movement, the lesser the
various organizations that come and go. There is this necessity because the=
re
is a sort of natural antagonism between the thinker and writer who stand by=
the
scheme and seek to develop and expound it, and the politician who attempts =
to realize
it. They are allies, but allies who often pull against each other, whom a
little heat and thoughtlessness may precipitate into a wasteful conflict. T=
he
former is, perhaps, too apt to resent the expenditure of force in those
conflicts of cliques and personal ambition that inevitably arise among men
comparatively untrained for politics, those squabbles and intrigues,
reservations and insincerities that precede the birth of a tradition of
discipline; the latter is equally prone to think literature too broad-minded
for daily life, and to associate all those aspects of the Socialist project=
which
do not immediately win votes, with fads, kid gloves, "gentlemanliness,=
"
rose-water and such-like contemptible things. These squabbles of the engine=
er
and the navigating officer must not be allowed to confuse the mind of the
student of Socialism. They are quarrels of the mess-room, quarrels on board=
the
ship and within limits, they have nothing to do with the general direction =
of Socialism.
Like all indisciplines they hinder but they do not contradict the movement.
Socialism, the politicians declare, can only be realized through politics.
Socialism, I would answer, can never be narrowed down to politics. Your par=
ties
and groups may serve Socialism, but they can never be Socialism. Scientific
progress, medical organization, the advancement of educational method, arti=
stic
production and literature are all aspects of Socialism, they are all intere=
sts
and developments that lie apart from anything one may call--except by sheer
violence to language--politics.
And since Sociali=
sm
is an intellectual as well as a moral thing, it will never tolerate in its
adherents the abnegation of individual thought and intention. It demands
devotion to an idea, not devotion to a leader. No addicted follower of
so-and-so or of so-and-so can be a good Socialist any more than he can be a
good scientific investigator. So far Socialism has produced no great leader=
s at
all. Lassalle alone of all its prominent names was of that romantic type of
personality which men follow with enthusiasm. The others, Owen, Saint Simon,
and Fourier, Proudhon, Marx, and Engels, Bebel, Webb, J. S. Mill,
Jaurès, contributed to a process they never seized hold upon, never =
made
their own, they gave enrichment and enlargement and the movement passed on;=
passes
on gathering as it goes. Kingsley, Morris, Ruskin--none are too great to se=
rve
this idea, and none so great they may control it or stand alone for it. So =
it
will continue. Socialism under a great leader, or as a powerfully organized
party would be the end of Socialism. No doubt it might also be its partial
triumph; but the reality of the movement would need to take to itself anoth=
er
name; to call itself "constructive civilization" or some such
synonym, in order to continue its undying work. Socialism no doubt will ins=
pire
great leaders in the future, and supply great parties with ideas; in itself=
it
will still be greater than all such things.
§ 3.
But here, perhaps,
before the finish, since the business of this book is explanation, it may be
well to define a little the relation of Socialism to the political party th=
at
is most closely identified with it in the popular mind. This is the Labour
Party. There can be no doubt of the practical association of aim and intere=
st
of the various Labour parties throughout modern civilized communities with =
the Socialist
movement. The Social democrats of Germany are the Labour Party of that coun=
try,
and wherever the old conception of Socialism prevails, those "class
war" ideas of the Marxist that have been superseded in English Sociali=
sm
for nearly a quarter of a century, there essentially the Socialist movement
will take the form of a revolutionary attack upon the owning and governing
sections of the community. But in Great Britain and America the Labour move=
ment
has never as a whole been revolutionary or insurrectionary in spirit, and in
these countries Socialism has been affected from its very beginnings by
constructive ideas. It has never starkly antagonized Labour on the one hand,
and the other necessary elements in a civilized State on the other; it has
never--I speak of the movement as a whole and not of individual
utterances--contemplated a community made up wholly of "Labour" a=
nd
emotionally democratic, such as the Marxist teaching suggests. The present
labouring classes stand to gain enormously in education, dignity, leisure,
efficiency and opportunity by the development of a Socialist State, and jus=
t in
so far as they become intelligent will they become Socialist; but we all, a=
ll
of us of Good Will, we and our children, of nearly every section of the com=
munity
stand also to gain and have also our interest in this development. Great as=
the
Labour movement is, the Socialist movement remains something greater. The o=
ne
is the movement of a class, the other a movement of the best elements in ev=
ery
class.
None the less it
remains true that under existing political conditions it is to the Labour P=
arty
that the Socialist must look for the mass and emotion and driving force of
political Socialism. Among the wage workers of the modern civilized communi=
ty
Socialists are to be counted now by the hundred thousand, and in those clas=
ses
alone does an intelligent self-interest march clearly and continuously in t=
he direction
of constructive civilization. In the other classes the Socialists are dispe=
rsed
and miscellaneous in training and spirit, hampered by personal and social
associations, presenting an enormous variety of aspects and incapable, it w=
ould
seem, of co-operation except in relation to the main Socialist body, the La=
bour
mass. Through that, and in relation and service to that, they must, it woul=
d seem,
spend their political activities (I am writing now only of political
activities) if they are not to be spent very largely to waste. The two other
traditional parties in British politics are no doubt undergoing remarkable
changes and internal disruptions, and the constructive spirit of the time i=
s at
work within them; but it does not seem that either is likely to develop
anything nearly so definitely a Socialist programme as the Labour Party. The
old Conservative Party, in spite of its fine aristocratic traditions, tends
more and more to become the party of the adventurous Plutocracy, of the
aggressive nouveau riche, inclines more and more towards the inviting finan=
cial
possibilities of modern "Imperialism" and "Tariff Reform.&qu=
ot;
The old Liberal Party strains between these two antagonists and its own war=
ring
and conflicting traditions of Whiggery and Radicalism. There can be no deny=
ing
the great quantity of "Good Will" and constructive intention that
finds a place in its very miscellaneous ranks, but the strong strain of
obstinate and irreconcilable individualism is equally indisputable.
But the official
Liberal attitude is one thing, and a very unsubstantial and transitory thin=
g,
and the great mass of Good Will and broad thinking in the ranks of Liberali=
sm
and the middle class quite another. Socialists are to be found not only in
every class, but in every party. There can be no "Socialist" part=
y as
such. That is the misleading suggestion of irresponsible and destructive
adventurers. It is impossible to estimate what forces of political synthesis
may be at work at the present time, or what ruptures and coalitions may not=
occur
in the course of a few years. These things belong to the drama of politics.
They do not affect the fact that the chief Interest in the community on the
side of Socialism is Labour; through intelligent Labour it is that Socialism
becomes a political force and possibility, and it is to the Labour Party th=
at
the Socialist who wishes to engage in active political work may best give h=
is
means and time and energy and ability.
I write
"political work," and once more I would repeat that it is to the
field of electioneering and parliamentary politics under present conditions
that this section refers. The ultimate purpose of Socialism can rely upon no
class because it aims to reconstitute all classes. In a Socialist State the=
re
will be no class doomed to mere "labour," no class privileged to =
rule
and decide. For every child there will be fair opportunity and education and
scope to the limit of its possibilities. To the best there will be given
difficulty and responsibility, honour and particular rewards, but to all
security and reasonable work and a tolerable life. The interests and class =
traditions
upon which our party distinctions of to-day rely must necessarily undergo
progressive modification with every step we take towards the realization of=
the
Socialist ideal.
§ 4.
So this general a=
ccount
of Socialism concludes. I have tried to put it as what it is, as the imperf=
ect
and still growing development of the social idea, of the collective Good Wi=
ll
in man. I have tried to indicate its relation to politics, to religion, to =
art
and literature, to the widest problems of life. Its broad generalizations a=
re
simple and I believe acceptable to all clear-thinking minds. And in a way t=
hey
do greatly simplify life. Once they have been understood they render imposs=
ible
a thousand confusions and errors of thought and practice. They are in the
completest sense of the word, illumination.
But Socialism is =
no
panacea, no magic "Open Sesame" to the millennium. Socialism ligh=
ts
up certain once hopeless evils in human affairs and shows the path by which
escape is possible, but it leaves that path rugged and difficult. Socialism=
is
hope, but it is not assurance. Throughout this book I have tried to keep th=
at
before the reader.
Directly one acce=
pts
those great generalizations one passes on to a jungle of incurably intricate
problems, through which man has to make his way or fail, the riddles and
inconsistencies of human character, the puzzles of collective action, the p=
ower
and decay of traditions, the perpetually recurring tasks and problems of
education. To have become a Socialist is to have learnt something, to have =
made
an intellectual and a moral step, to have discovered a general purpose in l=
ife
and a new meaning in duty and brotherhood. But to have become a Socialist is
not, as many suppose, to have become generally wise. Rather in realizing the
nature of the task that could be done, one realizes also one's insufficienc=
ies,
one's want of knowledge, one's need of force and training. Here and in this
manner, says Socialism, a palace and safety and great happiness may be made=
for
mankind. But it seems to me the Socialist as he turns his hand and way of
living towards that common end knows little of the nature of his task if he=
does
so with any but a lively sense of his individual weakness and the need of
charity for all that he achieves.
In that spirit, a=
nd
with no presumption of finality, this little book of explanations is given =
to
the world.
THE END