EQUALITY OF OPPORTUNITY
Having now dealt with two of those three ideas or conceptions which,
though not necessarily connected with the specific doctrines of
socialism, owe much of their present diffusion to the activity of
socialistic preachers--that is to say, the idea, purely statistical,
that labour, as contrasted with the directive ability of it, actually
produces much more than it gets, and the further idea that the many
could ameliorate their own position by appropriating the interest now
received by the few; having dealt with these two ideas, it remains for
us to consider the third--namely, that which is generally suggested by
the formula Equality of Opportunity, or, more particularly (for this is
what concerns us here), equality of opportunity in the domain of
economic production.
We must start with recollecting that if the wealth of a country depends
mainly, as we have here seen that it does, on the efforts of those of
its citizens whose industrial talent is the greatest, the more
effectively all such talent is provided with an opportunity of exerting
itself the greater will the wealth and prosperity of that country be. In
other words, if potential talent is to be actualised, opportunity is as
needful for its exercise as is the stimulus of a proportionate reward.
That economic opportunity ought, therefore, to be equalised, so far as
possible, is, as an abstract principle, too obvious to need
demonstration. But abstract principles are useless till we apply them to
a concrete world; and when we apply our abstract doctrine of opportunity
to the complex facts of society and human nature, a principle so simple
in theory will undergo as many modifications as a film of level water
will if we spill it over an uneven surface.
The first fact which will confront us, when we come down from theory to
facts, is one which could not be more forcibly emphasised than it has
been by a socialistic writer,[25] whose utterances were quoted in one of
our previous chapters. This is the fact that, in respect of their powers
of production, just as of most others, human beings are in the highest
degree unequal. They are unequal in intellect and imagination. More
especially they are unequal in energy, alertness, executive capacity,
initiative and in what we may describe generally as practical driving
force. Such being the case, then, if it could actually be brought about
that every individual at a given period of his life should start with
economic opportunities identical with those of his contemporaries, each
generation would be like horses chosen at haphazard, and started at the
same instant to struggle over the same course in the direction of a
common winning-post. And what would be the result? A few individuals
would be out of sight in a moment; the mass at various distances would
be struggling far behind them, and a large residuum would have been
blown before it had advanced a furlong. Thus, by making men's
adventitious opportunities equal, we should no more equalise the result
for the sake of which the opportunities were demanded than we should
give every cab-horse in London a chance of winning the Derby by allowing
it on Derby Day to go plodding over the course at Epsom. On the
contrary, by inducing all to contemplate the same kind of success, we
should be multiplying the sense of failure and dooming the majority to a
gratuitous discontent with positions in which they might have taken a
pride had they not learned to look beyond them.
And now, from this fact, to which we shall come back presently, let us
turn to the question of how, and in what respects, equality of
opportunity is in practical life attainable.
The most obvious manner in which an approach to such equality can be
made is by an equalisation of opportunities for education in early life,
or, in other words, by a similar course of schooling, a similar access
to books, and similar leisure for studying them. But even here, at this
preliminary stage, we shall find that the equality of opportunity is to
a large extent illusory. Let us suppose that there are two boys, equal
in general intelligence, and unequal only in their powers of mental
concentration, who start their study of German side by side in the same
class-room. One boy, in the course of a year or so, will be able to read
German books almost as easily as books in his own language, while the
other will hardly be able to guess the drift of a sentence without
laborious reference to his hated grammar and dictionary. Now, when once
a situation such as this has arisen, the opportunities of the two boys
have ceased to be equal any longer. The one has placed himself at an
indefinite advantage over the other, which is quite distinct from the
superiority originally inherent in himself. Among the educational
opportunities which reformers desire to equalise, one of the chief is
that of access to adequate libraries; and it is, they say, in this
respect more perhaps than any other that the rich man has at present an
unfair advantage over the poor. It is virtually this precise advantage
that will now be in possession of the boy who has thus far outstripped
his classmate. In his mastery of German he has a key to a vast
literature--a key which the other has not. He is now like a rich man
with an illimitable library of his own, while the other by comparison is
like a poor man who can get at no books at all. Thus if opportunity, in
its most fundamental form, were equalised for all boys, no matter how
completely, the equality would be only momentary. It would begin to
disappear by the end of the first few months, not because the boys would
still, as they did at starting, be bringing to their tasks intrinsically
unequal faculties, but because some of them would have already
monopolised the aid of an adventitious knowledge by which the practical
efficiency of their natural faculties would be multiplied.
But education is merely a preliminary to the actual business of life.
Let us pass on to the case of our equally educated youths when they
enter on the practical business of making their own fortunes. What kind
of equal opportunity can be possibly provided for them now?
Since socialists are the reformers who, in dealing with objects aimed
at, are least apt to be daunted by practical difficulties, let us see
how equality of opportunity in business life is conceived of and
described by them. The general contention of socialists in this respect
is, says one of their best-known American spokesmen,[26] "that the fact
that capital is now in the hands of private persons gives them an unfair
advantage over those who own nothing," for capital consists of the
implements of advantageous production; and socialists, he says, would
secure an equality of industrial opportunity for all by "vesting the
ownership of the means of production in the state"; the result of which
procedure would, he goes on, be this: "that every one would have his own
canoe, and it would be up to each to do his own paddling."
Now, purists in thought and argument might make it a subject of
complaint, perhaps, that the writer, as soon as he reaches a vital part
of his argument, should lapse into the imagery of an old music-hall
song. But such an objection would be very much misplaced, for the ideas
entertained by socialists as to this particular point closely resemble
those which make music-hall songs popular. They consist of familiar
images which are accepted without being analysed; and the image of man
seated in an industrial canoe of his own, and paddling it just as he
pleases without reference to anybody else, very admirably represents the
lot which socialists promise to everybody, and which dwells as a
possibility in the imagination of even their serious thinkers. But let
us take this dream in connection with facts of the modern world, which
these men, in much of their reasoning, themselves recognise as
unalterable, and we shall see it give place to realities of a very
different aspect.
To judge from our author's language, one would suppose that modern
capital was made up entirely of separate little implements like
sewing-machines, and that every one would, if the state were the sole
capitalist, receive on application a machine of the same grade, which he
might take away with him, and use or break in a corner. Now, if modern
capital were really of this nature, the state no doubt might conceivably
do something like what the writer suggests, in the way of dealing out
similar industrial opportunities to everybody. But, as he himself is
perfectly well aware, the distinctive feature of capital in the modern
world is one which renders any such course impossible. Modern capital,
as a whole, in so far as it consists of implements, consists not of
implements which can be used by each user separately. It consists of
enormous mechanisms, with the works and structures pertaining to them,
which severally require to be used by thousands of men at once, and
which no one of the number can use without reference to the operations
of the others. If the state were to acquire the ownership of all the
steel-mills at Pittsburg, how could it do more than is done by their
present owners, to confer on each of the employés any kind of position
analogous to that of a man "who has his own canoe"? The state could just
as easily perform the literal feat of cutting up the _Lusitania_ into a
hundred thousand dinghys, in each of which somebody would enjoy the
equal opportunity of paddling a passenger from Sandy Hook to
Southampton.
But we will not tie our author too closely to the terms of his own
metaphor. The work from which I have just quoted is a booklet[27] in
which he devoted himself to the task of refuting in detail the
arguments urged by myself in the course of my American speeches. We
will, therefore, turn to his criticism of what, in one of my speeches, I
said about the state post-office, and we shall there get further light
with regard to his real meaning. I asked how any sorter or
letter-carrier employed in the post-office by the state was any more his
own master, or had any more opportunities of freedom, than a messenger
or other person employed by a private firm. Our author's answer is this:
"That the public can determine what the wages of a postman shall
be--that is, they can, if they so choose (by their votes), double the
wages now prevailing." Therefore, our author proceeds, "the postal
employé, in a manner, may be considered as a man employing himself."
Now, first let me observe that, as was shown in our seventh chapter,
wages under socialism, just as under the present system, could be no
more than a share of the total product of the community; and the claims
advanced to a share of this by any one group of workers would be
consequently limited by the claims of all the others. The question,
therefore, of whether the postmen's wages should be doubled at any time,
or whether they might not have to be halved, would not depend only on
votes, but, also and primarily, on the extent of the funds available;
and in so far as it depended on votes at all, the votes would not be
those of the postmen. They would be the votes of the general public,
and any special demand on the part of one body of workers would be
neutralised by similar demands on the part of all the others. Further,
if these "employers of themselves" could not determine their own wages,
still less would they determine the details of the work required of
them. A postman, like a private messenger, is bound to do certain
things, not one of which he prescribes personally to himself. At stated
hours he must daily be present at an office, receive a bundle of
letters, and then set out to deliver them at private doors, in
accordance with orders which he finds written on the envelopes. Such is
the case at present, and socialism would do nothing to modify it. If our
author thinks that a man, under these conditions, is his own employer,
our author must be easily satisfied, and we will not quarrel with his
opinion. It will be enough to point out that the moment he descends to
details his promise that socialism would equalise economic opportunity
for all reduces itself to the contention that the ordinary labourer or
worker would, if the state employed him, have a better chance of
promotion and increased wages than he has to-day, when employed by a
private firm, and (we may add, though our author does not here say so)
that some sort of useful work would be devised by the state for
everybody.
Now, although every item of this contention, and especially the last, is
disputable, let us suppose, for argument's sake, that it is, on the
whole, well founded. Even so, we have not touched the real crux of the
question. We have dealt only with the case of the ordinary worker, who
fulfils the ordinary functions which must always be those of nine men
out of every ten, let society be constituted in what way we will. It
remains for us to consider the case of those who are fitted, or believe
themselves to be fitted, for work of a wider kind, and who aspire to
gain, by performing this, an indefinitely ampler remuneration. This
ambitious and exceptionally active class is the class for which the
promise of equal opportunities possesses its main significance, and in
its relation to which it mainly requires to be examined. Indeed, the
writer from whom we are quoting recognises this himself; for he gives
his special attention to the economic position of those who, in greater
or less degree, are endowed with what he calls "genius"; and in order to
illustrate how socialism would deal with these, he cites two cases from
the annals of electrical engineering, in which opportunities, not
forthcoming otherwise, were given by the state to inventors of realising
successful inventions.
Now, what our author and others who reason like him forget, is that the
opportunities with which we are here concerned differ in one
all-important particular from those which concern us in the case either
of education or of ordinary employment. If one boy uses his educational
opportunities ill, he does nothing to prejudice the opportunities of
others who use them well. Should a sorter of letters, who, if he had
been sharp and trustworthy, might have risen to the highest and
best-paid post in his department, throw his opportunities away by
inattention or otherwise, the loss resulting is confined to the man
himself. The opportunities open to his fellows remain what they were
before. But when we come to industrial activity of those higher and
rarer kinds, on which the sustained and progressive welfare of the
entire community depends, such as invention, or any form of far-reaching
and original enterprise, the kind of opportunity which a man requires is
not an opportunity of exerting his own faculties in isolation, like a
sorter who is specially expert in deciphering illegible addresses. It is
an opportunity of directing the efforts of a large number of other men.
Apart from the case of craftsmanship and artistic production, all the
higher industrial efforts are reducible to a control of others, and can
be made only by men who have the means of controlling them. Since this
is one of the principal truths that have been elucidated in the present
volume, it is sufficient to reassert it here, without further comment.
If, therefore, a man is to be given the opportunity of embodying and
trying an invention in a really practical form, it will be necessary to
put at his disposal, let us disguise the fact as we may, the services of
a number of other men who will work in accordance with his orders. This,
as we have seen already, is what is done by the ordinary investor
whenever he lends capital to an inventor. He supplies him with the food
by which the requisite subordinates must be fed; and the state, were
the state the capitalist, would do virtually the same thing. It could
give him his opportunity in no other way.
Further, if the invention in question turns out to be successful--here
is another point which has already been explained and emphasised--the
wage-capital which has been consumed by the labourers is replaced by
some productive implement, which is more than the equivalent of the
labour force spent in constructing it. If, on the other hand, the
invention turns out to be a failure, the wage-capital is wasted, and, so
far as the general welfare is concerned, the state might just as well
have thrown the whole of it into the sea. Since, then, the opportunities
which the state would have at its disposal, would consist at any moment
of a given amount of capital, and since any portion of this which was
used unsuccessfully would be lost, the number of opportunities which the
state could allocate to individuals would be limited, and each
opportunity which was wasted by one man would diminish the number that
could be placed at the disposal of others.
Now, any one who knows anything of human nature and actual life knows
this--that the number of men who firmly and passionately believe in the
value of their own inventions, or other industrial projects, is far in
excess of those whose ideas and projects have actually any value
whatsoever. When the _Great Eastern_, the largest ship of its time, had
been built on the Thames by the celebrated engineer Brunel, its
launching was attended with unforeseen and what seemed to be insuperable
difficulties. Mr. Brunel's descendants have, I believe, still in their
possession, a collection of drawings, sent him by a variety of
inventors, and representing all sorts of devices by which the launching
might be accomplished. All were, as the draughtsmanship was enough to
show, the work of men of high technical training; but the practical
suggestions embodied in one and all of them could not have been more
grotesque had they emanated from a home for madmen. To have given an
equality of opportunity to all this tribe of inventors of putting their
devices to the test would have probably cost more than the building of
the ship itself, and the ship at the end would have been stranded in the
dock still. This curious case is representative, and is sufficiently
illustrative of the fact that opportunity of this costly kind could be
conceded to a few only of those who would demand, and believe themselves
to deserve it; and the state, as the trustee of the public, would have,
unless it were prepared to ruin the nation, to be incomparably more
cautious than any private investor.[28]
Of the general doctrine, then, that the opportunities of all should be
equal, we may repeat that, as an abstract proposition, it is one which
could be contested by nobody; but we have seen that, when applied to
societies of unequal men, and to the various tasks of life, its original
simplicity is lost, and it does not become even intelligible until we
divest it of a large part of its implications. Economic or industrial
opportunity is, we have seen, of three kinds: firstly, educational
opportunity; secondly, the opportunity of performing and receiving the
full equivalent of an ordinary task or service, such as that of a
postman, the value of which depends on its conformity to a prescribed
pattern or schedule; and thirdly, opportunity of directing the work of
others, thereby initiating new enterprises or realising new
inventions--a kind of opportunity requiring the control of capital,
which capital, whether provided by the state or otherwise, would be lost
to the community unless it were used efficiently.
With regard to educational opportunity--it has been seen that it is
possible to equalise this, approximately if not entirely, at a given
time in the early lives of all, but that it would be possible to
maintain the equality for a short time only.
With regard to opportunities of earning a livelihood subsequently by
performing one or other of those ordinary and innumerable tasks which
must always fall to the lot of four men out of every five, we may say
that an equalisation of opportunities of this kind is the admitted
object of every reformer and statesman who believes that the prosperity
of a country is synonymous with the welfare of its inhabitants. In
achieving this object there are, however, two difficulties--one being
the difficulty, occasional and often frequent in any complex society, of
devising work which has any practical value, and replaces its own cost,
for all those who are able and willing to perform it; the other being
the difficulty which arises from the existence of persons who are
incapacitated, by some species of vice, from performing, or from
performing adequately, any useful work whatever. We must here content
ourselves with observing that the official directors of industry, who
would constitute the state under socialism, would be no more competent
to solve the first than are the private employers of to-day, while there
is nothing in the scheme of society put forward by socialists, which
even purports to supply any solution of the second, other than a more
drastic application of the methods applied to-day.
Thirdly, with regard to equality of opportunity for those whose main
ambition is not to be provided with some task-work performable by their
own hand, but to achieve some position which will enable them to
prescribe tasks to others, and thus do justice to their real or supposed
talents by the construction of great machines, or the organisation of
great enterprises--in other words, with regard to those persons whose
ambition is to obtain what are called the prizes of life, and who think
themselves treated unjustly if they find themselves unable to gain
them--we have seen that to provide equal opportunities for all or even
for most of these, is in the very nature of things impossible. The
fundamental reason of this, let me say once more, is the fact that the
number of men possessing sufficient talent to conceive ambitious schemes
of one kind or another far exceeds the number of those whose talents are
capable of producing any useful results; and to give to this majority
opportunities of testing their projects by experiment would be merely to
deplete the resources of the entire nation for the sake of demonstrating
to one particular class that abortive talents are worse than no talents
at all.
Here we are in the presence of a fact far wider than this special
manifestation of it. In the animal and the vegetable world, no less than
in the human, the successes of nature are the siftings of its partial
failures; and in order to secure such services as are really productive
it must always be necessary to squander opportunities to a certain
extent in the testing of talents which ultimately turn out to be barren.
But cases of this kind may, at all events, be reduced to a minimum; and
the reduction of their number is possible, because they are largely an
artificial product. In order to understand how this is, we must go back
again to the question of equality of opportunity in education, and
consider it under an aspect which has not yet engaged our attention.
We started with supposing the establishment of a system of education
which would offer to all the same books and teachers, and also--for this
was part of our assumption--equal leisure to profit by them; and we
noted how soon opportunities would cease to be equal on account of the
different uses which would be made of them by different students. What
must now be noted is that as matters have been conducted hitherto,
attempts to make educational opportunities equal do tend to produce an
equality of a certain kind. Though they have no tendency to equalise
powers of achievement, they tend to produce an artificial equality of
expectation. In order to elucidate the nature of this fact, and its
significance, I cannot do better than quote a passage from Ruskin,
admirable for its trenchant felicity, which, since it occurs in a book
much admired by socialists, may be commended to their special
attention.[29] Economic demand, Ruskin says, is the expression of
economic desires; but the constitution of human nature is such that
these desires are divisible into two distinct kinds--desires for the
commodities which men "need," and desires for commodities which they
"wish for." The former arise from those appetites and appetencies in
respect of which all are equal. They are virtually a fixed quantity, and
the economic commodities requisite for their healthy satisfaction
constitute a minimum which is virtually the same for all men. The
latter, instead of being fixed, are capable of indefinite variation, and
in these--the desires for what men "wish for" but do not "need"--we have
the origin "of three-fourths of the demands existing in the world."
"These demands are," he proceeds, "romantic. They are founded on
visions, idealisms, hopes, and affections, and the regulation of the
purse is, in its essence, regulation of the imagination and the heart."
With the demands which originate in men's equal needs we are not
concerned here. It is impossible to modify them appreciably either by
education or otherwise; but the desires or wishes which Ruskin so
happily calls "romantic" vary in intensity and character to an almost
indefinite degree, not only in different individuals, but also in the
same individuals when submitted to different circumstances. Those of
them, indeed, which are most generally felt are often, to speak
strictly, not so much desires as fancies; and while the image of their
fulfilment may please or amuse the imagination, their non-fulfilment
produces no sense of want. So long as they are merely fancies, they
raise no practical question. They raise a practical question only when
their insistence is such that their non-fulfilment produces an active
sense of privation; and whether in the case of any given individual
they reach or do not reach this pitch of intensity depends upon two
things. One of these is the individual's congenital temperament, his
talents, his strength of will, and the vividness or vagueness of his
imagination. Education, understood in its more general sense, is the
other. Now, men varying as they do in respect of their congenital
characters, the strength of their romantic wishes bears naturally some
proportion to their own capacities for attempting to satisfy these
wishes for themselves. Few men, for example, have naturally a strong
wish for conditions which will enable them to exercise exceptional
power, unless they are conscious of possessing exceptional powers to
exercise. Hence, though this consciousness is in many cases deceptive,
the struggle of men for power is confined within narrow limits, and the
disappointments which embitter those who fail to attain it are naturally
confined within narrow limits also. So long as matters stand thus, the
majority of men are unaffected. But wishes which are naturally confined
to exceptional men, who are more or less capable of realising them, are
susceptible by education of indefinite extension to others who are not
so qualified; and in the case of these last, the results which they
produce are different. They multiply the number of those who demand
preferential opportunities, in order that they may enter on a struggle
in which they must ultimately fail.
They multiply the number of those, to a still greater extent, who demand
that positions or possessions shall be somehow provided for them by
society, without reference to any struggle on their own part at all. The
artificial diffusion of "wish" among these two distinguishable classes
is thus accomplished by education in somewhat different ways; but the
_modus operandi_ is in one respect the same in both. It consists of an
artificial enlarging, in the case of all individuals alike, of the ideas
entertained by them of their natural social rights; and an active
craving is thus generalised for possessions and modes of life, which
nine men out of ten would otherwise have never wasted a thought upon,
and which not one out of ten can possibly make his own. How easily this
idea of rights is susceptible of enlargement by teaching, and how
efficient it is in creating a desire where none would have existed
otherwise, is vividly illustrated by those not infrequent cases in which
men, who for half their lives have considered themselves fortunate in
the possession of moderate affluence, have suddenly been led to suppose
themselves the heirs of peerages or great estates, and have died insane
or bankrupt in consequence of their vain endeavours to secure rank or
property which, had it not been for a purely adventitious idea, would
have affected their hopes and wishes no more than the moon did. It is
precisely in this manner that much of the education of to-day operates
in consequence of current attempts to equalise it[30]; and since
education is the cause of the evils here in question, it is in some
reform of education that we must hope to find a cure. What the general
nature of this reform would be can be indicated in a few words. It would
not involve a reversal, it would involve a modification only, of the
principle now in vogue, and can, indeed, best be expressed by means of
the same formula, if we do but add to it a single qualifying word--that
is to say, the word "relative" prefixed to the word "equality," when we
speak of equality of opportunity as the end at which we ought to aim.
Let me explain my meaning.
The logical end of all action is happiness; and happiness, so far as it
depends on economic conditions at all, is an equation between desire and
attainment. The capacities of men being unequal, and the objects of
desire which they could, under the most favourable circumstances, make
their own, being unequal likewise, the ideal object of education, as a
means to happiness, is twofold. It is, on the one hand, so to develop
each man's congenital faculties as to raise them to their maximum power
of providing him with what he desires; and on the other hand to limit
his desires, by a due regulation of his expectations, to such objects
as his faculties, when thus developed, render approximately if not
completely attainable. Thus, relatively to the individual, the ideal
object of education is in all cases the same; but since individuals are
not equal to one another, education, if it is to perform an equal
service for each, must be in its absolute character to an indefinite
extent various; just as a tailor, if he is to give to all his customers
equal opportunities of being well dressed, will not offer them coats of
the same size and pattern. He will offer them coats which are equal only
in this--namely, their equally successful adaptation to the figures of
their respective wearers.
Of course, so to graduate any actual course of education that in the
case of each individual it is the best which it is possible to conceive
for him--that it should at once enable him to make the most of his
powers, and "regulate," as Ruskin says, "his imagination and his hopes"
in accordance with them, would require a clairvoyance and prevision not
given to man; but the end here specified--namely, an equality of
opportunity which is relative--is the only kind of equality which is
even theoretically possible; and it is one, moreover, to which a
constant approximation can be made. The absolute equality which is
contemplated by socialists, and by others who are more or less vaguely
influenced by socialistic sentiment, is, on the contrary, an ideal which
either could not be realised at all, or which, in proportion as it was
realised, would be ruinous to the nation which provided it, and would
bring nothing but disappointment to those who were most importunate in
demanding it. The only conceivable means, indeed, by which it could be
extended beyond the first few years of life, would be by a constant
process of handicapping--that is to say, by applying to education the
same policy that trade-unions apply to ordinary labour. If one
bricklayer has laid more bricks than his fellows, he virtually has to
wait until the others have caught him up. Similarly, if equality of
opportunity, other than an equality that is relative, were to be
maintained in the sphere of education, a clever boy who had learned to
speak German in a year would have to be coerced into idleness until
every dunce among his classmates could speak it as well as he; and a
similar process would be repeated in after-life. This policy, as has
been pointed out already, is, even if wasteful, not ruinous in the
sphere of ordinary labour--a fact which shows how wide the difference is
between the ordinary faculties, as applied to industry, and the
exceptional; but no one in his senses, not even the most ardent apostle
of equality, would dream of recommending its application to efforts of a
higher kind, and demand that the clever boys should periodically be made
to wait for the stupid, or that the best doctor in the presence of a
great pestilence should not be allowed to cure more patients than the
worst one.
If, then, it is, as it must be, the ideal aim of social arrangements
generally to enable each to raise his capacities to their practical
maximum, and adjust his desires and his expectations to the practical
possibilities of attainment, "relative equality of opportunity," firstly
in education and secondly in practical life, is a formula which
accurately expresses the means by which this end is to be secured; but
the absolute equality which is contemplated by socialists and others is
an ideal which, the moment we attempted to translate it into terms of
the actual, would begin to fall to pieces, defeating its own purpose;
and there is nothing in socialism, were socialism otherwise practicable,
any more than there is the existing system, which would obviate this
result.
Indeed, it may be observed further that, though the idea of equality of
opportunity in general is not inconsistent with a socialistic scheme of
society, as socialists of the more thoughtful kind have now come to
conceive of it, it belongs distinctively to the domain of the fiercest
individual competition. For in so far as socialism differs from ordinary
individualism, it differs from it in this--that, instead of encouraging
each man to do his utmost because what he gets will be proportionate to
what he does, it aims at establishing a greater equality in what men get
by making this independent of whether they do much or little; in which
case the main concern of the individual would be the certainty of
getting what he wanted, not the opportunity of producing it.
The three ideas or conceptions, then, which have engaged our attention
in this and the three preceding chapters--namely, the idea that labour
does, as a statistical fact, produce far more in values than it at
present gets back in wages; the idea that the mass of the population
could permanently augment its resources by confiscating all dividends as
fast as they became due, and the idea that it is possible to provide for
unequal men, for more than a moment of their lives, equal opportunities
of experimenting with their real or imaginary powers, are ideas, indeed,
which have all the vices characteristic of socialistic thought; but the
first and the third have no necessary connection with socialism, and the
second is not peculiar to it. We will now return to it as a system of
exclusive and distinctive doctrines, and sum up, in general terms, the
conclusions to which our examination of it is calculated to lead
far-seeing and practical men, and more especially active politicians.
FOOTNOTES:
[25] The Christian Socialist author of _The Gospel for To-day_. See
chapter on Christian Socialism.
[26] Mr. Wilshire, in his volume of criticism on my American speeches.
[27] _Socialism: the Mallock-Wilshire Argument._ By Gaylord Wilshire.
New York, 1907.
[28] While this work was in the press, one of the English Labour
members, Mr. Curran, at a public meeting, gave his views, as a
socialist, about this very question--equality of industrial
opportunity--and as an example of such opportunity already in existence,
he mentioned the cash-credit system, which prevails in banks in
Scotland. He seemed unaware that such advances of capital made in this
system are made to picked men only. These men, moreover, have the
strongest stimulus to effect in the face that they will keep all their
profits. If a socialistic state gave cash-credits to everybody, it would
confiscate all the profits if the workers were successful, and have no
remedy against them if they failed.
[29] _Unto This Last._
[30] See note to previous chapter, referring to the recent _Red
Catechism_ for socialist Sunday schools, in which children are taught,
as the primary article of faith, that the wage-earners produce
everything, that the productivity of all is practically equal, and that
all are entitled to expect precisely the same kind of life.