While it is doubtless true that no one can live in the world without
in some degree modifying his environment, it is also true that the
influence of a single person is seldom appreciable or his opinion upon
Social questions of sufficient importance to excite curiosity, but I
confess that when I listen to an address intended to be thoughtful, I
enjoy it more or at any rate endure it better, if I have some knowledge
of the mental attitude of the speaker toward his general subject.
Thinking that possibly those who hear me this evening may have the same
feeling, I begin by saying that I earnestly favor a just distribution of
comfort. I suppose that if I should analyze the mental processes leading
to that wish, I should find toward the bottom a conviction that if each
had his due I should be better off. The objection to the Socialistic
program is that it would prevent a just distribution of comfort.
Some years ago in a book of which I was guilty, I wrote the following:
"There is implied in all Socialistic writing the doctrine that organized
man can override, and as applied to himself, repeal the fundamental law
of Nature, that no species can endure except by the production of more
individuals than can be supported, of whom the weakest must die, with
the corollary of misery before death. Competitive Society tends to the
death of the weakest, Socialistic Society would tend to the preservation
of the weak. There can be no question of the grandeur of this
conception. To no man is given nobler aspirations than to him who
conceives of a just distribution of comfort in an existence not idle,
but without struggle. It would be a Nirvana glorious only in the absence
of sorrow, but still perhaps a happy ending for our race. It may, after
all, be our destiny. Nor can any right-minded man forbear his tribute to
the good which Socialistic agitation has done. No man can tell how much
misery it has prevented, or how much it will prevent. So, also, while we
may regret the emotionalism which renders even so keen an intellect as
that of Karl Marx an unsafe guide, we must, when we read his description
of conditions for which he sought remedy, confess that he had been
less a man had he been less emotional. The man whom daily contact with
remediable misery will not render incompetent to always write logically,
I would not wish to know. But it is the mission of such men to arouse
action and not to finally determine its scope. The advocate may not be
the judge. My animus is that I heartily desire most if not all the ends
proposed by abstract Socialism, which I understand to be a perfectly
just distribution of comfort. If, therefore, I am a critic of Socialism,
I am a friendly critic, my objections to its progress resting mainly on
a conviction that it would not remove, but would intensify, the evils
which it is intended to mitigate." That is quite sufficient in regard to
the personal equation.
There appear to be, unfortunately, as many sects of Socialists as of
Christians, and if "Capital" were a more clearly written book I should
be of the opinion that it would be as much better for Socialists if all
other books on Socialism were destroyed as it would be for Christians
and Jews if all books on Theology were destroyed, except the Bible.
By Socialism I mean what some Socialist writers call "Scientific
Socialism." "Marxism," it might be called. "Humanism," I think Marx
would have preferred to call it, and I believe did call it, for he dealt
with abstract doctrine applicable to men and not to nations, and his
propaganda was the "International." Incidentally, as we pass on, we may
notice in this connection the dilemma of American Socialists which
they do not seem to realize. State Socialism has no logical place in
a Socialistic program, for it merely substitutes the more deadly
competition of nations for that of the individual, or even "trust"
competition now existing, while Humanism, or Marxism, tends to a uniform
condition of humanity which the American proletariat would fight tooth
and nail because they would rightly believe that for them it would at
present be a leveling down instead of leveling up.
Karl Marx was, of course, not the inventor of Socialism, nor was he, so
far as I know, the originator of any of its fundamental doctrines,--the
doctrine, for example, that all value is derived from Labor was part
of mediaeval clericism,--but be first reduced it to coherent form and
published it as a complete and definite system, and upon the issues,
substantially as he formulated and left them, must Socialism stand or
fall.
I must assume the members of the Ruskin Club to be familiar with the
Marxian fundamental propositions, which I do not state because I
shall confine my attack to the three derived propositions about which
discussion mainly centers. We certainly do not want an exercise in
serious dialectics after dinner, but I will say in passing that I do
not think that any of his fundamental propositions are true, or that his
theory of value has a single sound leg to stand on, and as for what he
calls "surplus value," I doubt whether there be such a thing. At any
rate he has not proved it, nor can it be proved, without taking into
consideration the enormous number of industrial failures, as well as the
more limited number of industrial successes--and there are no data for
that purpose. I may also mention as what seems to me a fatal flaw
in Socialistic philosophy, its concentration upon the conditions of
Industrial Society, without adequate conception of a provision for
the requirements of agriculture. Industrialism and commercialism are
doubtless conveniences essential to our present civilization; but if
every factory and all commerce were blotted from the earth the world
would go right along, and when the necessary millions had perished
in the adjustment, those remaining would be as happy as ever. Mankind
adjusts itself to new environments very readily. We here in cities
talking wisely on these things are wholly unnecessary. The farmer
is essential, because without him we should starve. Nobody else
is essential. We must not get the big-head. Economical farming on
Socialistic methods is impossible, and any successful system of Social
betterment must be based on the requirements of economical farming.
Finally, to conclude this preliminary reconnaissance, the attitude of
Socialism to religion is wholly unjustifiable. I am profoundly convinced
that the groveling heathen, who in sincerity bows down to a "bloomin'
idol made of mud," as Kipling puts it, has in him the propagation of a
nobler and happier posterity than the most cultured cosmopolitan who
is destitute of reverence. The Church and the Synagogue are the only
existing institutions of modern Society which are engaged in the work of
upbuilding and strengthening that rugged personal character which is the
only sure foundation of any worthy civilization.
I do not discuss the fundamental Marxian propositions for two reasons.
In the first place, it would be laborious beyond measure for me, and
dreary beyond measure for you. For example, the bottom stone in the
foundation of the sub-basement of the Marxian edifice is the proposition
that the equation