SOCIALIST VIEWS ON LAW AND JUSTICE
Most Socialists have a very strong objection to the existing laws.
"Law is only a masked form of brute force."[874] "The laws to-day are
defences of the foolish rich against the ignorant and hungry poor. The
laws to-day, like the laws of the past, make more criminals than they
punish. The laws keep the people ignorant and poor, and the rich idle
and vicious."[875] "The laws were made by ignorant and dishonest men;
they are administered by men ignorant and selfish; they are dishonest
laws, good for neither rich nor poor; evil in their conception, evil
in their enforcement, evil in their results."[876]
Most Englishmen are proud of the English judges because of their
learning, high character, and integrity. To many Socialists the judges
are the most contemptible and mercenary of men. The philosopher of
British Socialism informs us: "It is an undoubted truth that no judge
can be strictly an honest man. The judge must necessarily be a man of
inferior moral calibre. A judge, by the fact of his being a judge,
proclaims himself a creature on a lower moral level than us ordinary
mortals, and this without any assumption of moral superiority above
the average on our part. He deliberately pledges himself, that is, to
be false to himself. He may any day have to pass sentence on one whom
he believes to be innocent. He lays himself under the obligation of
administering a law which he may know to be bad on any occasion when
called upon, merely because it is a law. He makes this surrender of
humanity and honour for what? For filthy lucre and tawdry notoriety.
Now, I ask, can we conceive a more abjectly contemptible character
than that which acts thus?"[877]
The cause of the hatred with which the British Socialists contemplate
the law and the judges is obvious:
They're blocking up the highway; yes, they think to keep us back
By piling barriers of law and falsehood on the track;
We'll break the barriers down, and burn them into cinders black,
As we go marching to liberty.[878]
Come every honest lad and lass!
Too long we've been kept under
By rusty chains of fraud and fear--
We'll snap them all asunder!
That robbers' paction styled the Law
To frighten honest folk, sirs,
We'll set ablaze and fumigate
The country with the smoke, sirs.[879]
When Jack Cade, whom the Socialists praise as a social reformer,
marched at the head of the insurrectionists into London, one of his
first acts was to burn the stored-up documents of the law, an act
which Shakespeare immortalised in his "Henry VI." in the following
words:
"Cade: Is not this a lamentable thing, that of the skin of an innocent
lamb should be made parchment? that parchment, being scribbled o'er,
should undo a man?... Away, burn all the records of the realm: my
mouth shall be the parliament of England.
"John (_aside_): Then we are like to have biting statutes, unless his
teeth be pulled out.
"Cade: And henceforward all things shall be in common."[880]
Socialism will abolish the law: "The great act of confiscation will be
the seal of the new era; then, and not till then, will the knell of
Civilisation, with its rights of property and its class-society, be
sounded; then, and not till then, will justice--the justice not of
Civilisation but of Socialism--become the corner-stone of the social
arch."[881] Therefore one of the first acts of Socialist government
will be "the abrogation of 'civil law,' especially that largest
department of it which is concerned with the enforcement of contract
and me recovery of debt."[882]
Socialists never tire of denouncing the barbarity of the existing law.
According to their religious views given in Chapter XXVI. (see p.
360), man is an irresponsible being. He does not know the difference
between right and wrong, between good and evil. Therefore it is
according to their opinion unjust and cruel to punish criminals. "The
Christian regards the hooligan, the thief, the wanton, and the
drunkard as men and women who have done wrong. But the humanist
regards them as men and women who have been wronged."[883] "Human law,
like divine law, is based upon the false idea that men know what is
right and what is wrong, and have power to choose the right."[884]
"Man becomes that which he is by the action of forces outside
himself."[885] "All human actions are ruled by heredity and
environment. Man is not responsible for his heredity and environment.
Therefore all blame and all punishment are unjust. Blame and
punishment, besides being unjust, are ineffectual."[886]
"To the Socialist, for every crime committed the State, or the society
in which it is committed, is as much or more responsible than the
individual."[887] "A society that employs the gallows and the 'cat'
pretty much deserves all it gets at the hands of criminals. If the
criminal, when he gets the chance of doing so with impunity, commits
the crime for which the gallows or the lash is reserved, society has
only itself to thank."[888]
From the foregoing considerations it logically follows that "a
Socialist administration would treat delinquents with the utmost
leniency consistent with the existence of society."[889] "A man of
average sense ought to be able to protect himself against fraud. Theft
only requires the restitution of the stolen property plus an addition,
such as the Roman law provided. The ideal condition of a community is
that the remorse following the commission of a crime should be an
adequate preventive of its commission"[890]--By its attitude towards
crime, Socialism should secure for itself the enthusiastic support of
the criminal classes. By abrogating the enforcement of contract and
the recovery of debt, it should secure for itself the equally
enthusiastic support of all fraudulent debtors. Conspirators and
revolutionaries since the time of Catiline have opened the gaols and
have relied on criminal desperadoes for the realisation of their
ambitions. It is worth noting that most Anarchists also recommend the
abolition of law and the law courts.[891]
Until the ideal Socialist commonwealth has been firmly established,
and "until the economic change has worked itself out in ethical
change, it is clear that a criminal law must exist. The only question
is whether its basis shall be a mass of anomalous statutes and
precedents or a logical system."[892] Bax decides that the logical
system and the Code Napoleon is to be introduced after the Socialist
revolution.[893] The fact that the people do not know the French laws
apparently does not matter.
Many Socialists complain that British laws, and American laws too, are
not collected and codified. Hence the citizen does not, and cannot,
know the law. "What is called 'the law' is something that no lawyer
can learn in a lifetime, both on account of the bulk of the Reports,
and because he never can be absolutely certain what is good and what
is bad law. The profession chooses rather than ascertains the
law."[894] Owing to lack of a code of laws, the law is uncertain and
exceedingly costly. Hence the poor man can obtain justice only with
difficulty, if at all. Besides, "The fear of litigation is a weapon
society places in the hands of the rich man to coerce the poor man,
irrespective of the merits of the case, by dangling ruin before
him."[895] There is much justification for these complaints.
We have seen in former Chapters that Socialism teaches that property
is theft and that rich men are criminals. In the present Chapter we
have learned that criminals are men wronged by society. The Socialist
conception of law and justice should recommend itself to all
criminals, and all criminals should be Socialists.
FOOTNOTES:
[874] Bax, _Outlooks from the New Standpoint_, p. 107.
[875] Blatchford, _Not Guilty_, p. 258.
[876] _Ibid._ p. 259.
[877] Bax, _Religion of Socialism_, p. 108.
[878] _Independent Labour Party Song Book_, p. 17.
[879] _Social-Democratic Federation Song Book_, p. 19.
[880] _King Henry VI._, Part II. Act IV. Scenes 2 and 7.
[881] Bax, _The Ethics of Socialism_, pp. 82, 83.
[882] _Ibid._ pp. 85, 86.
[883] Blatchford, _God and My Neighbour_, p. 100.
[884] Blatchford, _Not Guilty_, p. 19.
[885] _Ibid._ p. 23.
[886] Blatchford, _Not Guilty_, p. 251.
[887] Bax, _Outlooks from the New Standpoint_, p. 146.
[888] _Ibid._ p. 105.
[889] Bax, _Ethics of Socialism_, p. 59.
[890] Bax, _Outlooks from the New Standpoint_, p. 104.
[891] See Stirner, _Der Einzige und sein Eigentum_; Bakounine, _Dieu
et l'Etat_; Kropotkine, _Paroles d'un Revolte_, &c.
[892] Bax, _The Ethics of Socialism_, p. 88.
[893] _Ibid._ p. 89.
[894] Gronlund, _Co-operative Commonwealth_, p. 138.
[895] Bax, _Religion of Socialism_, p. 147.