SOME DIFFICULTIES CONSIDERED.
Having now, in a concrete rather than an abstract form, stated the
objects and purposes of our scheme, it may be well to deal, though
somewhat briefly, with an objection which may arise in the thought of
the reader: “Your scheme may be very attractive, but it is but one of
a great number, many of which have been tried and have met with but
little success. How do you distinguish it from those? How, in the face
of such a record of failure, do you expect to secure that large measure
of public support which is necessary ere such a scheme can be put into
operation?”
The question is a very natural one, and demands an answer. My reply
is: It is quite true that the pathway of experiment towards a better
state of society is strewn with failures. But so is the pathway of
experiment to any result that is worth achieving. Success is, for the
most part, built on failure. As Mrs. Humphrey Ward remarks in “Robert
Elsmere”: “All great changes are preceded by numbers of sporadic, and,
as the bystander thinks, intermittent efforts.” A successful invention
or discovery is usually a slow growth, to which new elements are
added, and from which old elements are removed, first in the thought
of the inventor, and subsequently in an outward form, until at last
precisely the right elements and no others are brought together.
Indeed, it may be truly said that if you find a series of experiments
continued through many years by various workers, there will eventually
be produced the result for which so many have been industriously
searching. Long-continued effort, in spite of failure and defeat, is
the fore-runner of complete success. He who wishes to achieve success
may turn past defeat into future victory by observing one condition. He
must profit by past experiences, and aim at retaining all the strong
points without the weaknesses of former efforts.
To deal at all exhaustively here with the history of social experiments
would be beyond the scope of this book; but a few leading features may
be noticed with a view of meeting the objection with which this chapter
opens.
Probably the chief cause of failure in former social experiments has
been a misconception of the principal element in the problem--human
nature itself. The degree of strain which average human nature will
bear in an altruistic direction has not been duly considered by
those who have essayed the task of suggesting new forms of social
organisation. A kindred mistake has arisen from regarding one
principle of action to the exclusion of others. Take Communism, for
instance. Communism is a most excellent principle, and all of us are
Communists in some degree, even those who would shudder at being told
so. For we all believe in communistic roads, communistic parks, and
communistic libraries. But though Communism is an excellent principle,
Individualism is no less excellent. A great orchestra which enraptures
us with its delightful music is composed of men and women who are
accustomed not only to play together, but to practise separately,
and to delight themselves and their friends by their own, it may be
comparatively feeble, efforts. Nay, more: isolated and individual
thought and action are as essential, if the best results of combination
are to be secured, as combination and co-operation are essential, if
the best results of isolated effort are to be gained. It is by isolated
thought that new combinations are worked out; it is through the
lessons learned in associated effort that the best individual work is
accomplished; and that society will prove the most healthy and vigorous
where the freest and fullest opportunities are afforded alike for
individual and for combined effort.
Now, do not the whole series of communistic experiments owe their
failure largely to this--that they have not recognised this duality of
principle, but have carried one principle, excellent enough in itself,
altogether too far? They have assumed that because common property is
good, all property should be common; that because associated effort can
produce marvels, individual effort is to be regarded as dangerous, or
at least futile, some extremists even seeking to abolish altogether the
idea of the family or home. No reader will confuse the experiment here
advocated with any experiment in absolute Communism.
Nor is the scheme to be regarded as a socialistic experiment.
Socialists, who may be regarded as Communists of a more moderate
type, advocate common property in land and in all the instruments of
production, distribution, and exchange--railways, machinery, factories,
docks, banks, and the like; but they would preserve the principle of
private ownership in all such things as have passed in the form of
wages to the servants of the community, with the proviso, however,
that these wages shall not be employed in organised creative effort,
involving the employment of more than one person; for all forms of
employment with a view to remuneration should, as the Socialists
contend, be under the direction of some recognised department of the
Government, which is to claim a rigid monopoly. But it is very doubtful
whether this principle of the Socialist, in which there is a certain
measure of recognition of the individual side of man’s nature as well
as of his social side, represents a basis on which an experiment
can fairly proceed with the hope of permanent success. Two chief
difficulties appear to present themselves. First, the self-seeking
side of man--his too frequent desire to produce, with a view to
possessing for his own personal use and enjoyment; and, secondly, his
love of independence and of initiative, his personal ambition, and his
consequent unwillingness to put himself under the guidance of others
for the whole of his working day, with little opportunity of striking
out some independent line of action, or of taking a leading part in the
creation of new forms of enterprise.
Now, even if we pass over the first difficulty--that of human
self-seeking--even if we assume that we have a body of men and women
who have realised the truth that concerted social effort will achieve
far better results in enjoyable commodities for each member of the
community than can possibly be achieved by ordinary competitive
methods--each struggling for himself--we have still the other
difficulty, arising out of the higher and not the lower nature of
the men and women who are to be organised--their love of independence
and of initiative. Men love combined effort, but they love individual
effort, too, and they will not be content with such few opportunities
for personal effort as they would be allowed to make in a rigid
socialistic community. Men do not object to being organised under
competent leadership, but some also want to be leaders, and to have a
share in the work of organising; they like to lead as well as to be
led. Besides, one can easily imagine men filled with a desire to serve
the community in some way which the community as a whole did not at
the moment appreciate the advantage of, and who would be precluded by
the very constitution of the socialistic state from carrying their
proposals into effect.
Now, it is at this very point that a most interesting experiment at
Topolobampo has broken down. The experiment, which was initiated by Mr.
A. K. Owen, an American civil engineer, was started on a considerable
tract of land obtained under concession from the Mexican Government.
One principle adopted by Mr. Owen was that “all employment must be
through the Department for the Diversity of Home Industries. One
member cannot directly employ another member, and only members can be
employed through the settlement.”[21] In other words, if A. and B. were
dissatisfied with the management, whether owing to doubts as to its
competency or honesty, they could not arrange to work with each other,
even though their sole desire might be the common good; but they must
leave the settlement. And this is what they accordingly did in very
considerable numbers.
It is at this point that a great distinction between the Topolobampo
experiment and the scheme advocated in this work is evident. In
Topolobampo the organisation claimed a monopoly of all productive
work, and each member must work under the direction of those who
controlled that monopoly, or must leave the organisation. In Garden
City no such monopoly is claimed, and any dissatisfaction with the
public administration of the affairs of the town would no more
necessarily lead to a widespread split in Garden City than in any other
municipality. At the outset, at least, by far the larger part of the
work done will be by individuals or combinations of individuals quite
other than municipal servants, just as in any other municipality, at
present existing, the sphere of municipal work is still very small as
compared with the work performed by other groups.
Other sources of failure in some social experiments are the
considerable expense incurred by migrants before they reach the scene
of their future labours, the great distance from any large market,
and the difficulty of previously obtaining any real knowledge of the
conditions of life and labour there prevailing. The one advantage
gained--cheap land--seems to be altogether insufficient to compensate
for these and other disadvantages.
We now come to what is perhaps the chief difference between the
scheme advocated in this work and most other schemes of a like nature
which have been hitherto advocated or put into actual practice. That
difference is this: While others have sought to weld into one large
organisation individuals who have not yet been combined into smaller
groups, or who must leave those smaller groups on their joining the
larger organisation, my proposal appeals not only to individuals but
to co-operators, manufacturers, philanthropic societies, and others
experienced in organisation, and with organisations under their
control, to come and place themselves under conditions involving no
new restraints but rather securing wider freedom. And, further, a
striking feature of the present scheme is that the very considerable
number of persons already engaged on the estate will not be displaced
(except those on the town site, and these gradually), but these will
themselves form a valuable nucleus, paying in rents, from the very
inception of the enterprise, a sum which will go very far towards the
interest on the money with which the estate is purchased--rents which
they will be more willing to pay to a landlord who will treat them
with perfect equity, and who will bring to their doors consumers for
their produce. The work of organisation is, therefore, in a very large
measure accomplished. The army is now in existence; it has but to be
mobilised; it is with no undisciplined mob that we have to deal. Or the
comparison between this experiment and those which have preceded it is
like that between two machines--one of which has to be created out of
various ores which have first to be gathered together and then cast
into various shapes, while for the other all the parts are ready to
hand and have but to be fitted together.
FOOTNOTE:
[21] “Integral Co-operation at Work,” A. K. Owen (U.S. Book Co., 150
Worth St., N.Y.).