IS SOCIALISM POSSIBLE?--A GLANCE INTO THE SOCIALIST STATE OF THE
FUTURE
The realisation of Socialism, the creation of a Socialistic
commonwealth in which private property does not exist, seems
impossible. Socialists entirely leave out of their calculations two
elementary factors:
NATURE, AND HUMAN NATURE
A State devoid of private property is an unthinkable proposition.
Private property is not a fortuitous creation, but a natural growth.
It is founded not merely upon law, but upon immemorial custom which
owes its rise to a fundamental human instinct, an instinct which has
been a characteristic of the human race in all countries, and which is
as old as humanity itself. The instinct of acquisition, of
accumulation, and of property is common to all men from Central Africa
to the poles. It is equally strongly developed in the most civilised
nations and among savages.
However, supposing that the instinct of acquisition, of accumulation,
and of property, which is found not only among all races of mankind
but even among the higher animals, could be overcome, would human
nature allow of the creation of a co-operative commonwealth based on
voluntary co-operation, not on compulsion? Could the brotherhood of
man be made a reality, and would men co-operate without strife in that
mutual friendship and good-fellowship which one finds but rarely,
even among those who are connected by the closest ties of affection
and blood relationship, unless self-interest acts as the determining
factor? Did not Plato found his ideal commonwealth upon perfectly wise
and virtuous men? "Does not Socialist society presuppose extraordinary
human beings, real angels, as regards unselfishness and gentleness,
joy of work and intelligence? Is not the Social Revolution, with the
present brutal and egoistical race of men, bound to become the signal
for desolating struggles for the booty or for general idleness in
which it would go to ruin?"[1203]
"Who is more ready to tilt against society than the average Socialist?
And if the individuals in it are so deeply imbued with a double dose
of original sin as not to be able to handle any part of distribution
and exchange, it follows that you cannot trust the individual."[1204]
"In a social State you must consider two things--man and his
surroundings. You often forget man, because you think it easier to
alter his surroundings. The real question is: Can you produce men fit
for the new social State?"[1205]
"Socialism postulates an intelligent democracy."[1206] "The
proletariat will require high intelligence, strong discipline, perfect
organisation of its great masses. We may expect that it will only
succeed when it will have developed these qualities in the highest
degree."[1207] "Socialists demand a higher morality than any now to be
found."[1208] "It is incumbent upon Socialism to recognise the
existence of an intellectual motive, and it must place that motive
above the economic, because without it the economic struggle would be
devoid of any constructive value; it would be a mere tug-of-war; it
would never bring us to Socialism. It would lead to a scramble for the
spoils and mutual throat-cutting."[1209] "If 'each for all and all for
each' be nothing more than a text for a banner or a motto for a wall;
if its truth has not captured the hearts and minds of men and women in
that new society, we shall be an official-ridden people with our eye
on the best posts in the State for ourselves or our sons; and we shall
be as pitiable in our spiritual deformity as we are in our economic
bondage."[1210] "Socialism demands more than that we should merely
import Socialistic institutions into our midst. It insists on a moral
regeneration of society of the most complete and searching kind in
order to make a lasting foundation for the political and social
changes we many of us long to see."[1211] "Convey it in what spirit we
may, an appeal to class interest is an appeal to personal interest.
Socialist propaganda carried on as a class war suggests none of those
ideals of moral citizenship with which Socialist literature abounds,
'each for all and all for each,' 'service to the community is the sole
right of property' and so on. It is an appeal to individualism" [which
seems to be a euphemism for envy and cupidity], "and results in
getting men to accept Socialist formulae without becoming
Socialists."[1212]
Unfortunately there is nothing ideal and elevating in the Socialist
teachings, as the previous chapters show. Socialism appeals to all the
passions and to all the vices, such as hatred, jealousy, envy,
cupidity. It encourages, or at least excuses, wastefulness,
improvidence, profligacy, and drunkenness. Its aim is plunder.
The voluntary co-operation of all for the benefit of all presupposes
the existence of wise, virtuous, and unselfish citizens. Do the
people in England, or in any other country, possess these high
qualities, or are these qualities likely to be created by the
teachings of the Socialists? A distinguished Socialist despairingly
exclaimed: "That spirit which animated the apostles, prophets,
martyrs, is alive in Japan to-day. Is it alive in us as a nation? If
not, if we have replaced it to any extent by some selfish opposite, by
any such diabolically careless sentiment as 'after me the deluge,'
then we as a nation have lost our soul, sold it for mere individual
prosperity, sold it in some poor cases for not even that, for mere
liquid refreshment, and we are on the down grade."[1213] Another
Socialist wrote: "We are all of us great-great-grandchildren of the
beasts. We carry the bestial attributes in our blood, some more, some
less. Who amongst us is so pure and exalted that he has never been
conscious of the bestial taint?"[1214] "Descendants of barbarians and
beasts, we have not yet conquered the greed and folly of our bestial
and barbarous inheritance. Our nature is an unweeded garden. Our
hereditary soil is rank."[1215]
The Socialists themselves acknowledge that Socialism presupposes a
nation composed of ideal individuals, industrious, gentle, mutually
helpful, unselfish, forbearing, and wise. They also acknowledge that
men are the descendants of barbarians and beasts. Do Socialist
agitators really believe that they can convert the descendants of
barbarians and beasts into ideal beings by constantly preaching to
them the gospel of hatred, envy, selfishness, self-indulgence, and
plunder, and by even encouraging them to continue poisoning themselves
and their descendants by over-indulgence in alcoholic drink?[1216]
Surely "the defective natures of citizens will show themselves in the
bad acting of whatever social structure they are arranged into. There
is no political alchemy by which you can get golden conduct out of
leaden instincts."[1217]
It is clear to most thinking Socialists that human nature, as at
present constituted, will make the realisation of Socialism
impossible. How do Socialists, then, propose to meet the difficulty?
Very simply. By bold assertions and prophecies. That which all
religions and all philosophers have been unable to accomplish during
3,000 years, Socialists will effect as by the touch of a magician's
wand. "Socialism will change human nature. The opportunity makes the
man. Socialism will take away the desire for accumulating riches.
Under such conditions the possession of riches will be a superfluous
burden which no sane man will wish to bear."[1218] "As soon as high
purpose, intense human attachments, are the springs of action and
resolve, discipline will come into our movement to crush out base
selfishness, vanity, and personal ambition,"[1219] This is very nice,
but how are "high purpose" and "intense human attachment" to be made
the "springs of action"? Unfortunately the writer keeps the secret to
himself.
The philosopher of British Socialism states: "Socialism only calls for
enlightened selfishness. But the fact that this selfishness is
enlightened and recognises that it can serve itself by serving the
common interest will completely change its character, so that it will
cease to be the narrow selfishness of to-day, which so often defeats
its own ends. Selfishness passing through the refining fire of
economic change ceases to be selfishness and becomes Socialism."[1220]
If selfishness ceases to be selfishness and becomes Socialism, then it
changes merely its name, and Socialism and selfishness are identical,
which is quite correct. Other Socialist leaders prophesy: "May we not
assume that under these conditions a new type of mankind will evolve
which will surpass the highest type which culture has produced up till
now? An overman, if you please, not as an exception, but as the
rule."[1221]
"Selfishness will become public spirit."[1222] "The desire to serve
the common life, to advance its welfare, will be the highest ambition
of the individual."[1223] "Just as the nightingale sings in the
evening shades, or the lark trills in the summer sky, so man in
natural surroundings" [does Socialism create "natural" surroundings or
unnatural ones?] "will seek to gratify his higher nature. Socialism
will create a condition of things favourable to the development of the
higher type of individuality."[1224] "This is the religious aspect of
labour. It is dignified, ennobling. That is the divine ideal, the
aspect concerning labour which God intended should be realised. Just
think of it! The ordinary working man as divinely taught and inspired
as the prophets and seers of old, and having the capacity to
understand the sublimest truths and the profoundest philosophy
concerning human life and the eternal destinies."[1225]
The statements given above, with their superlatives, their laboured
philosophy, their lyrics, hysterics, and prophecies, are singularly
unconvincing. The manner in which the simple question, "How do you
propose to fit actual human nature into your scheme?" is answered by
the Socialists, proves that they find that question unanswerable.
History teaches us that revolutions based on plunder, euphemistically
called confiscation, expropriation, or socialisation, have indeed
altered human nature, but they have altered it for the worse. All
revolutions have hitherto caused a fearful depravation of manners and
led to the most hideous crimes--and will a Socialistic revolution
prove an exception? Why should it be an exception? Are its teachings
such as make it seem likely that a Socialistic revolution will prove
an exception? An attempt to establish the Socialist Commonwealth would
undoubtedly lead, not to a revolution, but to a series of revolutions,
to Anarchism and to civil war. The tragedy of the great French
Revolution might be acted over again.
Now let us look into some practical questions which the Socialist
State of the future will have to settle. Let us, for instance,
inquire:
HOW WILL LABOUR BE REMUNERATED?
Many Socialists think that different workers should get different
wages: "The citizens shall be consciously public functionaries, and
their labours shall be rewarded according to results."[1226]
"Socialism does not propose that everyone shall have an equal share of
the product of collective labour."[1227] How, then, is the amount of
the unequal wages to be calculated? Some Socialists, following Marx,
propose to determine wages by means of labour-time. "Ascertain the
time taken to produce two commodities and we know their relative
exchange value. And this quality tallies with market valuations. So
far as creating value is concerned, then, one man creates as much
value as another, and on the basis of equal labour-time equal value,
Socialists rest their argument of social equality."[1228] "The working
time which the making of an article requires is the only scale by
which its social value can be measured. Ten minutes of social work in
one branch are exchangeable for ten minutes of social work in another.
It will be easy to calculate how much social working time each single
product requires."[1229] A hunter hunts all day and shoots a deer. A
fisher fishes all day and catches a sprat. Will the hunter exchange
his deer for the sprat, on the principle of equal labour-time? Will
highly skilled workers be satisfied to receive the same wages as the
most unskilled labourers? Will equal labour-time pay for all not lead
to universal dawdling, shrinkage in production, and consequent
starvation? Would workers not strive to get the maximum pay for the
minimum work? To prevent dawdling, could it be ascertained how long it
should take to repair a machine, paint a picture, amputate a leg,
plough an acre?
It is manifestly impossible to pay men of varying capacity and
productive power equal labour-time wages. Therefore many Socialists,
especially the Fabians, maintain: "The principle of inequality of
payment must be recognised. It is a necessary consequence of
inequality of ability."[1230] "Every man should receive from the
Commonwealth a fair equivalent in payments or services for the
payments or services which the Commonwealth receives from him. It is
not possible to say exactly how much each citizen has contributed to
the wealth of the State, and absolute economic justice is therefore
impossible."[1231] The question now arises how is the "fair equivalent
for services rendered" to be determined? Many Socialists teach the
doctrine that "the labourer is entitled to the entire product of his
labour."[1232] Should the labourer be given an equivalent to the
product of his labour _minus_ various necessary expenditures? Could
the value of the labour of an individual be calculated at all in the
complicated processes of modern industry? What is the value produced
by a day's labour of a ploughman, a railway porter, a postman, a
book-keeper, a policeman, a machine-minder? Mr. Bax very sensibly
argues: "What does each man produce of himself as an individual? Show
me how much cotton any given factory operative has produced in the
course of a year? I don't mean the amount of wages the capitalist has
given him for the exploitation of his labour power during that
period--but the actual product of his labour in the manufactured
article. You could not do so, because his labour, like all modern
labour, is associated; and the work of the individual producer is
completely and indissolubly merged in that of the group (factory,
mill) to which he belongs, which is again inseparable from that of the
machinery employed in the process and from that of other
groups."[1233]
It is impossible to calculate the exact value of service to the
community by work in a factory or a field as soon as the wages system
based on demand and supply has ceased to exist. Besides, differential
pay will be impossible, because none will be satisfied with the pay
received, except those who receive the highest pay. Therefore the same
Fabian Society which in other writings, such as those quoted in the
foregoing, advocates unequal payment, concludes: "Inequality of pay
would be odious; the impossibility of estimating the separate value of
each man's labour with any really valid result, the friction which
would arise, the jealousies which would be provoked, the inevitable
discontent, favouritism, and jobbery that would prevail: all these
things will drive the Communal Council into the right path--equal
remuneration of all workers."[1234] The Fabians, like so many other
Socialists, cannot apparently quite make up their mind whether to
plunge into the Scylla of equal pay or into the Charybdis of unequal
pay. Therefore they plunge alternately into the one or the other.
Many Socialists are in favour of equal pay: "The credits granted to
the citizens will be equal in all cases, without reference to skill,
intelligence, or the nature of the service performed."[1235] "The
labours of the bus driver or the mangler will be appraised just as
highly as those of the Prime Minister, with this difference perchance,
that if it can be clearly shown by statistics that buscraft uses up
the life energy of a man more rapidly than statecraft, four hours of
busmanship shall count, say, as five of statesmanship."[1236] Equal
wages should logically be followed by equal treatment for all. "An
anti-Socialist will say, 'How will you sail a ship in a Socialist
condition?' How? Why, with a captain and mates and sailing-master and
engineer (if it be a steamer) and A.B.s and stokers, and so on, and so
on. Only there will be no first and second and third class among the
passengers, the sailors and stokers will be as well fed and lodged as
the captain or passengers, and the captain and the stoker will have
the same pay."[1237]
So confused are the minds even of the leading Socialists with regard
to the important question of the remuneration of labour that Mr.
William Morris, one of the founders of British Socialism, in a poem
first recommends individualistic Socialism and pay according to
results:
_For that which the worker winneth shall then be his indeed_,
Nor shall half be reaped for nothing by him that sowed no seed.
Two lines later in the same poem he recommends Communism and equal pay
for all, regardless of the work done:
_Then all Mine and Thine shall be Ours_, and no more
shall any man crave
For riches that serve for nothing but to fetter a
friend for a slave.[1238]
The above extracts show that confusion reigns in the Socialist camp
regarding the settlement of the Wage Question.
Wage-earners are not philanthropists. Highly skilled men will not be
content with wages equal to those of unskilled labour, not even in the
name of Liberty, Equality, and Fraternity. In the absence of a free
demand and supply, which automatically graduates wages in accordance
with the social value of the work done, its attractiveness or
unattractiveness, &c., it cannot scientifically, though it can perhaps
autocratically, be determined how wages should be graduated. When it
comes to the fixing of differential wages in the Socialist State of
the future, quarrels will immediately arise, which will lead to strife
and rebellion, for all workers will use arguments such as the
following ones recently put forward by Mr. Smillie, President of the
Lanarkshire Miners' County Union. In reply to the reproach that
miners, by unduly high wages, increased the cost of coal to the poor,
Mr. Smillie answered: "Miners are being blamed in some quarters for
the high price of coal. Their wages at present range from _6s. 6d._ to
_8s._ per day, or from _30s._ to _2l. 5s._ per week when broken time
is taken into consideration. Will anyone grudge an income of this kind
to a worker whose labour is of a most uncomfortable and exhausting
nature, and who takes his life in his hand from the moment he steps
into the cage until he reaches the surface again? The miner recognises
that high-priced coal means pinching and suffering in the homes of the
poor, and he has real sympathy for this class, but he argues that the
true value of coal must include a reasonable sustenance for those who
risk their lives in its production."[1239] If miners claim higher
wages than other workers because their work is uncomfortable and
dangerous, railway workers, sailors, and many others will raise the
same claims; fishers and butchers will claim higher wages because
their work is disgusting; factory workers because their work is
sedentary and monotonous; waiters because it is menial; postmen
because they have to walk; drivers because they have to sit still;
washerwomen because they have to stand; farm labourers because they
have to work in the cold; bakers because they have to work in the
heat, &c. All workers would of course demand the maximum pay, and who
could adjudicate on all the rival claims? The Wages Question seems
likely to prove insoluble.
HOW WILL LABOUR BE ORGANISED AND DIRECTED?
We are told: "Labour will be organised on principles of perfect
freedom. Everyone decides for himself in which branch he desires to be
employed. If a superfluity of workmen occur in one branch and a
deficiency in another, it will be the duty of the executive to arrange
matters and readjust the inequality."[1240] In accordance with the
variations in demand and supply and the rise and decay of industries,
the introduction of labour-saving machinery, &c., labour requires
continual redistribution. That redistribution is at present
automatically effected largely through the rise and fall of wages. A
rise in the wages of industries which require more labour, and a
decline in the wages of industries which require less labour, cause
labour to turn from shrinking to growing industries. When wages are no
longer fixed with reference to commercial demand and supply, how will
the periodical and necessary redistribution of labour be effected?
Some Socialist leaders think: "As the workers, of course, will not be
drafted into the different branches of production under military
compulsion, irrespective of their wishes, it may well turn out that
some will have a superfluity of labour, while others will suffer from
scarcity. The necessary equilibrium could then be restored by reducing
the wages in those industries where the applicants are too many and by
raising them in those where the applicants are too few, till each
branch has just the number of workers which it requires. It could be
restored also by other means; for instance, by the shortening of the
hours of labour in those industries that are short of workers. With
all that, however, the general rate of wages throughout the working
class will be influenced no longer by supply and demand, but by the
quantity of available products. A general fall of wages in consequence
of over-production will be impossible."[1241] In other words, the
beautiful schemes of remuneration independent of the laws of supply
and demand discussed in the foregoing would immediately break down. In
order to redistribute labour, workers would either have to be
compelled by direct force to work in those trades which required
additional labour, or their wages or hours of work would arbitrarily
be altered in order to effect the necessary changes by economic
pressure--that is, by reducing their food. In other words, commercial
demand and supply would break down the Utopian regulations of the
Socialist Commonwealth as soon as they had been framed.
While some Socialists wish to distribute and redistribute labour by
arbitrarily changing wages and hours of labour, some of the more
logical and scientific Socialist leaders are frankly in favour of
compulsory labour: "We already see official salaries regulated, not
according to the state of the labour market, but by consideration of
the cost of living. This principle we seek to extend to the whole
industrial world. Instead of converting every man into an independent
producer, working when he likes and as he likes, we aim at enrolling
every able-bodied person directly in the service of the community for
such duties and under such kind of organisation, local or national, as
may be suitable to his capacity and social function. If a man wants
freedom to work or not to work, just as he likes, he had better
emigrate to Robinson Crusoe's island or else become a millionaire. To
suppose that the industrial affairs of a complicated industrial State
can be run without strict subordination and discipline, without
obedience to orders, and without definite allowances for maintenance,
is to dream, not of Socialism but of Anarchism."[1242] "Everyone
should have a legal right to an opportunity of earning his living in
the society in which he has been born; but no one should or could have
the right to ask that he shall be employed at the particular job which
suits his peculiar taste and temperament. Each of us must be prepared
to do the work which society wants doing, or take the consequences of
refusal."[1243] And what consequences would refusal to do the allotted
work at the allotted pay entail? Either dismissal, which would mean
starvation--for the State, as the sole employer, would control all
employment and all the food--or bodily chastisement, or imprisonment.
There could be no strike on the part of dissatisfied workers, for the
State--that is, the officials--holding all the wealth, would be able
to starve them out in a week.
Socialists admit: "Mankind is as lazy as it dares to be."[1244] "In
the average man there is a strong tendency to mere idleness and
aimlessness which, but for the compulsions and temptations of
existing circumstances, might run to great lengths. The trouble is
that, while the average man is willing to work occasionally where his
choice is free, he considers his lot a hard one if necessity compels
him to continue regularly at a given task. He is willing to work at
almost anything save that at which he is asked to work. It is a common
thing to hear even good workmen profess a dislike to their
trade."[1245]
How will shirking and idling be prevented in the Socialist
Commonwealth when men are no longer compelled by economic necessity
and free competition to do their best?
The leading American exponent of Socialism prophesies that workers
will work no longer in order to live in comfort, but that they will
henceforth see in work a semi-religious duty, which they perform owing
to their strong sense of beneficence: "In the New Commonwealth the
butcher will be conscious and satisfied that 'the essential thing is
not that he shall have a living, but that meat shall be supplied.' The
work of the citizen will be the willing performance of social office.
He will be a worker whose best efforts, best ardour, and highest aims
will be drawn out by his sense of the beneficence of his work, even
though it be such a coarse routine of manual labour as machinery
should soon remove altogether from human hands. He will be habituated
to regard his wages, not as a _quid pro quo_, but as the provision
made by society to enable him to carry out his labour."[1246] Will the
"sense of beneficence" induce men who are not satisfied with the
condition and remuneration of labour to transport milk and other
provisions during the night so that the townspeople may have them
early in the morning? Will men be induced by their sense of duty to
clean the sewers? To ask these questions is to answer them. Bebel
puts the question, "What becomes of the difference between the
industrious and the idle, the intelligent and the stupid?" and
answers, "There will be no such difference, because that which we
associate with these conceptions will have ceased to exist."[1247] "If
there is one vice more certain than another to be unpopular in a
Socialist community, it is laziness. The man who shirked would find
his mates making his position intolerable even before he suffered the
doom of expulsion."[1248] Arguments such as the above should really
not be placed before grown-up people. They are only fit for the
nursery.
The tendency towards lazing and idling, the desire to make money
without exertion, is strongly developed in Great Britain. "The essence
of gambling is the craving to obtain something from others without
giving an equivalent."[1249] Perhaps in no country is betting and
gambling in every form so much in evidence as it is in Great Britain.
Betting on the turf, missing-word competitions, limerick competitions,
&c., draw every year many millions of pounds from the pockets of
millions of British workers. How then can the natural tendency of men
to loaf and idle and to live rather by their wits than by their work,
which is strong in all men, be overcome in the Socialist State of the
future? The fundamental book of the Fabian Society, the most
scientific Socialist body in Great Britain, tells us: "A very small
share of the profits arising from associated labour acts as a
tremendous stimulus to each individual producer,"[1250] and it
suggests, as do many Socialist writers, that the workers will do their
best because they know that the more they produce the greater will be
their individual share in the general production. Great Britain has
12,000,000 workers. Therefore a worker will make as his own share an
extra sovereign if by extra exertion he succeeds in producing an
extra _12,000,000l._ worth of goods, a feat the accomplishment of
which will require several thousand years. That is a "tremendous
stimulus" to the individual producer! Can any argument be more foolish
than the foregoing one?
An influential Socialist writer tells us: "The credits granted to the
citizens will be equal in all cases, without reference to skill,
intelligence, or the nature of the service performed; but no credits
will be given to the able-bodied shirkers, who will thus be starved
into doing their share of the world's work without other
compulsion."[1251] Other Socialist writers have put forth similar
views. This is a cheerful outlook for the free citizens of the free
Socialist Commonwealth. The workers will become "wage-slaves" in the
fullest sense of the term. They will have to submit to forced labour,
arbitrary wages, and arbitrary hours of labour, and those who do not
produce as much as the official overseers require--and they may have a
private grudge against some unfortunate worker who does his best--will
be starved until they work harder. The lot of savages ruled by the
knout, the kourbash, and the sjambok will be preferable to the lot of
men ruled by starvation in the free Socialist Commonwealth of the
future. The former have at least some liberty, while the latter will
be kept by officials, who will distribute food and force them to work
by rewards of food alternated by starvation, like performing dogs and
apes.
To carry on the business of the country the Socialist Government would
have to drop the principle of perfect freedom and to rely on coercion,
and it would be justified in doing so. If, as Mr. Blatchford has
repeatedly told us, "man has no right to himself because he did not
make himself," if man belongs not to himself and his family, but to
"society," it logically follows that society may compel him to work,
apportioning to him his task and his pay, without reference to his
wishes. Society being represented by its officials, elected or
appointed, these officials would absolutely dispose of the people.
Great Britain would be ruled like a gigantic convict prison.
The spirit in which even moderate Socialists already contemplate the
freedom of the individual may be seen from an address on Sweated
Labour which Mr. Ramsay Macdonald, M.P., delivered in Glasgow in
autumn 1907. He said: "There was no use tinkering with the problem.
Personally, he was not in favour of home work at all. To eliminate it
might seem a cold-blooded way of dealing with sweating, but it was the
only way that would give definite and final results. He would,
however, proceed carefully and scientifically. Home work had got
extremes, but one section was much riper for treatment than the other,
and he would begin with the worst. The first difficulty was to find
out the sweated workers. It was certain that a great percentage
escaped detection by sanitary inspectors. Now his proposal was that,
instead of the sanitary inspectors hunting for the home worker, the
home worker should hunt for the inspector; and this he sought to
accomplish under the Bill introduced last session, by making it
necessary for the home worker to take out a licence and by making it
obligatory on the employer to keep an absolutely complete list of his
workers. The factory inspector must have right of access, and a
certificate must be obtained from him for a separate licence. The
casual home-worker would be discouraged." In other words, factory
inspectors should apparently be authorised to break without a search
warrant into private houses. They should certainly be empowered to
prosecute a working man if he defended the privacy of his house by
refusing the inspector admittance. That measure would abolish the
sanctity of the home. The "Right to Work," which the Socialists so
loudly champion, would be taken from the home-worker, and one cannot
help asking: Is that high-handed measure devised for the benefit of
the sweated or for that of the highly paid workers, represented by Mr.
Macdonald, who wish to abolish the competition of underpaid
home-workers? Sweated labour can be abolished and must be abolished,
and it can be abolished, as I may show in another book, without
destroying the home. If Mr. Macdonald should have his way, the
Socialist principle, "Property is robbery," will have to be
supplemented with the principle "Liberty is tyranny."
The unchecked absolutism of a Socialist State will hardly be palatable
to Socialist workers who have been told that Socialism means freedom,
and these see the only solution in the establishment of Anarchism:
"The damnable idea of being marshalled and drilled or numbered and
docketed like any other merchandise in a state of glorified capitalism
is not the Socialist's ideal, but its antithesis, no matter what the
capitalists and their protagonists, the pseudo-Socialists, choose to
name it. We don't want to be driven to the gate of the municipal or
other factory to hustle and elbow our fellows out of the way so that
we may catch the official's eye in the mad and sordid scramble for
mere belly food, for a mere animal subsistence. With the advent of
Socialism, the whole of the capitalist State and its superstructure
will collapse, with its cant of living wages, its Brotherhoods of Man,
and the rest of its nauseous humbug."[1252] "If the worker continues
to be paid in wages, he necessarily will remain the slave or the
subordinate of the one to whom he is forced to sell his labour force;
be the buyer a private individual or the State--it would still be an
odious tyranny."[1253] "Socialism will entail compulsory service on
all able-bodied members of the community, or rather the State. For
that is what we shall have; the State with its hosts of
functionaries, its big pots and its little pots, and its never-ending
officialism and petty tyrannies. Organisation must either be
compulsory or free. If compulsory, you have the military spirit with
all its attendant evils; if free, you have the Anarchist spirit with
all the advantages that arise when the fetters that hinder individual
initiative and development are removed."[1254]
The foregoing should suffice to show that the Socialist State could
organise work only by relying on forced labour and by creating the
most unbearable despotism which the world has seen, or by "organising"
the chaos of Anarchism, and it is difficult to say which of the two
would be the more hideous solution.
HOW WILL THE SOCIALIST STATE BE GOVERNED?
Socialists tell us rather vaguely: "Socialism means the elevation of
the struggle for existence from the material to the intellectual
plane. Socialism will raise the struggle for existence into a sphere
where competition shall be emulation, where the treasures are
boundless and eternal, and where the abundant wealth of one does not
cause the poverty of another."[1255] "State employment, when the State
itself is only an organised democracy and class distinctions cease,
means not slavery, but freedom."[1256] "Freedom and equality will then
be no longer empty and cheap phrases, but will have a meaning; when
all men are really free and equal, they will honour and advance one
another."[1257] "In Socialistic administrations there are no
employers, no superiors, no oppression; all are equals and enjoy equal
rights."[1258] "Under Socialism all the work of the nation would be
managed by the nation."[1259] "Under Socialism the State, as we have
known the State in the past, will have disappeared; for under
Socialism there will be no classes, but all the people will form one
class, and the Government and organisation will be democratic, each
individual having an equal voice in directing the affairs of the
common life."[1260] "The State will no longer be the bureaucratic
State of to-day, but a democratic State assisted directly by the whole
people."[1261] "All adult members of the commune, without distinction
of sex, take part in the necessary elections, and determine to what
persons the conduct of affairs shall be entrusted. There is no such
thing as a hierarchical system."[1262] "Appointments will be made from
below. In the Post Office Department, for example, the letter carriers
will elect their immediate superiors; these, we will say, the
post-masters; and these, in their turn, the Post-Master
General."[1263]
In other and plainer words, the Socialist State would, according to
the authorities quoted, be ruled by the same system by which it is
ruled at present, although elections might be more numerous, and
although the suffrage might be given a wider basis. Now if the system
of government remains the same as it is at present, is there any
reason for anticipating better results than those obtained at present?
Will the elected administrators no longer place personal and party
interests above national ones? And will not the infinitely greater
range of administrative functions make it more difficult to exercise
control and to allocate responsibilities, and thus make
irresponsibility, favouritism, dishonesty, and the evasion of
punishment more easy and more frequent? Is a larger number of voters
likely to pick out abler administrators than a small one? Does not the
elective system, according to the Socialists themselves, cause the
scum to rise to the top, and result in the election of plausible
windbags?[1264] Are the people's votes never won by any other means
than the testimony of results? Will there no longer be the fascination
of eloquence, the attraction of boundless promises, the glamour of
prejudice, the tie of party, the pressure put by an Association upon
its members? If amateurs show now little ability in administering a
few comparatively simple things, is it likely that results will be
better when they have to administer everything? Will not amateur
government prove an absolute failure?
Most thinking Socialists clearly foresee that the Socialist State of
the future could not possibly be administered by amateurs; that it
would have to be administered by experts, by permanent officials; that
Socialism would mean the death-knell of elected governors, and
therefore of democracy, as may be seen in Chapter XV. of this book.
The philosopher of British Socialism tells us: "Socialism aims at the
supersession of democracy, as of every other form of government. The
will of the majority of an ideal democracy, a social democracy, must,
as regards its special expressions, be subordinate to the general
moral canon of a Socialist Commonwealth. That in affairs of
management, of tactics, of administration, or in decisions requiring
special knowledge, authority, in its nature dictatorial, is necessary,
all must admit. There must be a controlling, an authoritative voice in
direction; so much must be clear, one would think, to all practical or
reasonable persons when once stated. The real point to determine is
the nature and limits of that amount of dictatorial power which, we
must admit, is essential in any organised community of which we can at
present conceive. _Social Democracy_, while it means all _for_ the
people, does not mean the impossible absurdity that everything should
be directly regulated _by_ the people, _i.e._ by a direct popular
vote."[1265] These views seem irrefutable, and it follows that not
only for economic reasons, but for political reasons as well, the
establishment of the Socialist State will lead to the establishment of
a "dictatorial authority."
If Socialism be introduced, the fall of democracy and the
establishment of absolutism cannot possibly be avoided. Democratic
States are ruled by public opinion. The voice of an individual does
not carry very far. Therefore public opinion can be formed only by
means of an independent Press. An independent Press is the strongest,
one might almost say the only, guarantee of national liberty. As long
as there are numerous independent papers owned by private people,
papers which represent all shades of opinion, everyone who has
something to say can always freely express his opinion in one set of
papers or the other. A striking speech is read the next day by the
whole nation; a striking injustice to a single individual, or a
Government blunder, may be taken up by the whole nation. The
disappearance of private property will necessarily mean the
disappearance of the free Press, and therefore of public opinion. All
newspapers would be owned, edited, and printed by the Government, and
is any Government likely to assist a hostile opposition by printing
its views, and to assist in bringing about a revolution, probably
accompanied by bloodshed and its own destruction? Such a thing has
never been. Such a thing will never be. People might be dissatisfied
and be ill-treated by the Socialist Government; they might be starved
to death or shot by the thousand; there might be risings and
rebellions and civil war in some parts of the country; the fleet might
be defeated and the colonies lost--yet not a word need appear in the
Socialist Government Press.
Some Socialists are childish enough to argue: "Though the printing
press will be a collective institution, it will be available to all.
Anyone, whatever unpopular opinions he may entertain, however hostile
to the administrators he may be, will be entitled to have anything
decent printed, provided he is ready to pay for the work done, or to
guarantee, or induce his friends to guarantee, that the cost will be
defrayed."[1266] "It would always be open to individuals or to groups
of individuals to publish anything they pleased on covering the cost
of publication. With the comparative affluence which would be enjoyed
by each member of the community, anyone who really cared to reach the
public ear would be able to do so by diminishing his expenditure in
other directions."[1267]
The Government would certainly neither print, nor circulate through
its post-office and newsagents, matter which it would consider to be
dangerous to its existence or seditious. The assertion that a private
individual in the Socialist Commonwealth might at his own expense
circulate his views throughout the country--there would be no more
millionaires but only wage-earners--is like asserting that a
bricklayer might with his savings pay off the British National Debt.
Lacking an independent public opinion, elections could be managed by
the officials through the official Press in their own interest;
elections would become a sham, and would no doubt soon fall into
disuse. The official class would become a caste of hereditary rulers
governing millions of serfs.
The foregoing makes it clear that in political as in economic matters
the Socialist State must fall a prey to the most complete absolutism
which the world has known, an absolutism which probably, through a
series of revolutions and civil wars, would at last end in anarchy. At
present a dissatisfied worker can change his employer, he can get
justice in the Law Courts, and in extreme cases he can put his
grievances before the nation. In the Socialist State there would be
only one authority--the all-controlling and all-powerful State, or
rather an all-controlling and all-powerful bureaucracy. The nation
would be composed of two classes: permanent officials possessing
absolute power, and ordinary citizens possessing neither power nor
right; overseers and workers; slave-drivers and slaves; and the only
way of escaping the tyranny of the State--for absolute and unchecked
power has always led, and will always lead, to tyranny--would be by
committing suicide. As in Rome under the rule of Nero and Caligula,
suicide would be the only way to liberty.
A leading Socialist wrote with unconscious humour: "The Utopist needs
no knowledge of facts. Indeed such a knowledge is a hindrance. For him
the laws of social evolution do not exist. He is a law unto himself;
and his men are not the wayward, spasmodic, irregular organisms of
daily life, but automata obeying the strings he pulls. In a word, he
creates, he does not construct. He makes alike his materials and the
laws within which they work, adapting them all to an ideal end. In
describing a new Jerusalem the only limits to its perfection are the
limits of the writer's imagination.... Humanity will rise to heights
undreamed of now; and the most exquisite Utopias, as sung by the poet
and idealist, shall to our children seem but dim and broken lights
compared with their perfect day. All that we need are Courage,
Prudence, and Faith. Faith above all."[1268] Every reader of this book
will no doubt heartily agree with the latter remark. Socialists are
wise to appeal rather to blind faith than to plain common-sense.
The philosopher of British Socialism tells us: "Socialism is the great
modern protest against _un_reality, against the delusive shams which
now masquerade as verities."[1269] Another Socialist leader asserts:
"Socialism is a scientific scheme of national government entirely
wise, just, and practical."[1270] A third leader affirms: "Socialism
is neither more nor less than the science of Sociology."[1271] The
"Socialist Catechism" asks: "How may Socialists reply to the taunt
that their scheme is impracticable? By quoting the opinion of John
Stuart Mill that the difficulties of Socialism are greatly overrated;
and they should declare that, so far from being an impracticable
Utopian scheme, it is the necessary and inevitable result of the
historical evolution of society."[1272]
Socialism stands condemned, not so much by the criticism of its
opponents as by the doctrines and proposals of its leaders, and these
are the men who aspire to rule the universe and who claim: "We mean
the establishment of a political power in place of the present
class-State, which shall have for its conscious and definite aim the
common ownership and control of the _whole_ of the world's industry,
exchange, &c."[1273]
I think the readers of the foregoing pages will be inclined to believe
that Socialism is methodised insanity.
FOOTNOTES:
[1203] Kautsky, _Social Revolution_, p. 41.
[1204] Socialism, _For and Against_, p. 7.
[1205] Clemenceau, in Jaures' _Practical Socialism_, p. 11.
[1206] Snowden, _The Individual under Socialism_, p. 12.
[1207] Kautsky, _The Social Revolution_, p. 42.
[1208] Blatchford, _Real Socialism_, p. 5.
[1209] Macdonald, _Socialism and Society_, p. 126.
[1210] Ethel Snowden, _The Woman Socialist_, p. 7.
[1211] Ford, _Woman and Socialism_, p. 2.
[1212] Macdonald, _Socialism and Society_, pp. 122, 123.
[1213] Sir Oliver Lodge, _Public Service_ v. _Private Expenditure_, p.
11.
[1214] Blatchford, _Not Guilty_, p. 37.
[1215] _Ibid._ p. 251.
[1216] See _ante_, Chapter XXIII.
[1217] Herbert Spencer, _The Man versus the State_, p. 43.
[1218] Snowden, _The Individual under Socialism_, p. 9.
[1219] Ben Tillett, _Trades Unionism and Socialism_, p. 14.
[1220] Bax and Quelch, _A New Catechism_, p. 30.
[1221] Kautsky, _The Social Revolution_, p. 43.
[1222] Joynes, _The Socialist Catechism_, p. 14.
[1223] Snowden, _The Individual under Socialism_, p. 11.
[1224] _Ibid._ p. 18.
[1225] Ward, _Religion and Labour_, pp. 7, 8.
[1226] Gronlund, _Co-operative Commonwealth_, p. 77.
[1227] Kautsky, _The Social Republic_, p. 32.
[1228] Hazell, _Summary Marx's Capital_, p. 6.
[1229] Bebel, _Woman in the Past, Present, and the Future_, p. 193.
[1230] Sir Oliver Lodge, _Public Service versus Private Expenditure_,
p. 10.
[1231] _New Age_, November 21, 1907.
[1232] See _ante_, p. 61 ff.
[1233] Bax, _Outlooks from the New Standpoint_, p. 81.
[1234] _Fabian Essays in Socialism_, pp. 163, 164.
[1235] Leatham, _Socialism and Character_, p. 91.
[1236] Davidson, _The Old Order and the New_, p. 170.
[1237] Morris, _Communism_, pp. 14, 15.
[1238] _Independent Labour Party Song Book_, p. 40.
[1239] _Forward_, October 12, 1907.
[1240] Bebel, _Woman in the Past, Present, and Future_, pp. 183, 184.
[1241] Kautsky, _The Social Revolution_, pp. 16, 17.
[1242] Sidney Webb, _Socialism True and False_, pp. 17, 18.
[1243] _Socialism and Labour Policy_, p. 7.
[1244] _The Economics of Direct Employment_, p. 6.
[1245] Leatham, _Socialism and Character_, pp. 102, 103.
[1246] Gronlund, _Co-operative Commonwealth_, p. 169.
[1247] Bebel, _Woman_, p. 194.
[1248] _Fabian Essays in Socialism_, p. 167.
[1249] Ward, _The Ideal City_, p. 7.
[1250] _Fabian Essays in Socialism_, p. 167.
[1251] Leatham, _Socialism and Character_, p. 91.
[1252] _Socialist_, December 1907.
[1253] Kropotkin, _Anarchism, its Philosophy and Ideal_, p. 15.
[1254] _Freedom_, October 1907.
[1255] Snowden, _The Individual under Socialism_, p. 1.
[1256] Hyndman, _Socialism and Slavery_, p. 10.
[1257] Sorge, _Socialism and the Worker_, p. 14.
[1258] Bebel, _Woman_, p. 199.
[1259] Blatchford, _Real Socialism_, p. 14.
[1260] Snowden, _The Individual under Socialism_, p. 12.
[1261] Jaures, _Practical Socialism_, p. 6.
[1262] Bebel, _Woman_, p. 181.
[1263] Gronlund, _Co-operative Commonwealth_, p. 126.
[1264] Thompson, _Hail Referendum_, pp. 3, 4.
[1265] Bax, _Essays in Socialism_, pp. 75, 76.
[1266] Gronlund, _Co-operative Commonwealth_, p. 135.
[1267] _Fabian Essays in Socialism_, p. 159.
[1268] _Fabian Essays in Socialism_, pp. 149, 169.
[1269] Bax, _Religion of Socialism_, p. ix.
[1270] Blatchford, _Merrie England_, p. 100.
[1271] Hyndman, _Socialism and Slavery_, Preface.
[1272] Joynes, _The Socialist Catechism_.
[1273] Bax and Quelch, _A New Catechism_, p. 9.