THE ADVANCEMENT OF SOCIALISM
§ 1.
And here my brief exposition of the ideals of Modern Socialism may
fitly end.
I have done my best to set out soberly and plainly this great idea of
deliberately making a real civilization by the control and
subordination of the instinct of property, and the systematic
development of a state of consciousness out of the achievements and
squalor, out of the fine forces and wasted opportunities of to-day. I
may have an unconscious bias perhaps, but so far as I have been able I
have been just and frank, concealing nothing of the doubts and
difficulties of Socialism, nothing of the divergencies of opinion
among its supporters, nothing of the generous demands it makes upon
the social conscience, the Good Will in man. Its supporters are
divergent upon a hundred points, but upon its fundamental
generalizations they are all absolutely agreed, and some day the whole
world will be agreed. Their common purport is the resumption by the
community of all property that is not justly and obviously personal,
and the substitution of the spirit of service for the spirit of gain
in all human affairs.
It must be clear to the reader who has followed my explanations
continuously, that the present advancement of Socialism must lie now
along three several lines.
FIRST, and most important, is the primary intellectual
process, the elaboration, criticism, discussion, enrichment
and enlargement of the project of Socialism. This includes all
sorts of sociological and economic research, the critical
literature of Socialism, and every possible way--the drama,
poetry, painting, music--of expressing and refining its
spirit, its attitudes and conceptions. It includes, too, all
sorts of experiments in living and association. In its widest
sense it includes all science, literature and invention.
SECONDLY, comes the propaganda; the publication, distribution,
repetition, discussion and explanation of this growing body of
ideas, until this conception of a real civilized State as
being in the making, becomes the common intellectual property
of all intelligent people in the world; until the laws and
social injustices that now seem, to the ordinary man, as much
parts of life as the east wind and influenza, will seem
irrational, unnatural and absurd. This educational task is at
the present time the main work that the mass of Socialists
have before them. Most other possibilities wait upon that
enlargement of the general circle of ideas. It is a work that
every one can help forward in some measure, by talk and
discussion, by the distribution of literature, by writing and
speaking in public, by subscribing to propagandist
organizations.
And THIRDLY, there is the actual changing of practical things
in the direction of the coming Socialized State, the actual
socialization, bit by bit and more and more completely, of the
land, of the means of production, of education and child
welfare, of insurance and the food supply, the realization, in
fact, of that great design which the intellectual process of
Socialism is continually making more beautiful, attractive and
worthy. Now this third group of activities is necessarily
various and divergent, and at every point the conscious and
confessed Socialist will find himself co-operating with
partial or unintentional Socialists, with statesmen and
officials, with opportunist philanthropists, with trade
unionists, with religious bodies and religious teachers, with
educationists, with scientific and medical specialists, with
every sort of public-spirited person. He should never lose an
opportunity of explaining to such people how necessarily they
are Socialists, but he should never hesitate to work with them
because they refuse the label. For in the house of Socialism
as in the house of God, there are many mansions.
These are the three main channels for Socialist effort, thought,
propaganda and practical social and political effort, and between them
they afford opportunity for almost every type of intelligent human
being. One may bring leisure, labour, gifts, money, reputation,
influence to the service of Socialism; there is ample use for them
all. There is work to be done for this idea, from taking tickets at a
doorway and lending a drawing-room for a meeting, to facing death,
impoverishment and sorrow for its sake.
§ 2.
Socialism is a moral and intellectual process, let me in conclusion
reiterate that. Only secondarily and incidentally does it sway the
world of politics. It is not a political movement; it may engender
political movements, but it can never become a political movement; any
political body, any organization whatever, that professes to stand for
Socialism, makes an altogether too presumptuous claim. The whole is
greater than the part, the will than the instrument. There can be no
official nor pontifical Socialism; the theory lives and grows. It
springs out of the common sanity of mankind. Constructive Socialism
shapes into a great system of developments to be forwarded, points to
a great number of systems of activity amidst which its adherents may
choose their field for work. Parties and societies may come or go,
parties and organizations and names may be used and abandoned;
constructive Socialism lives and remains.
There is a constantly recurring necessity to insist on the difference
between two things, the larger and the lesser, the greater being the
Socialist movement, the lesser the various organizations that come and
go. There is this necessity because there is a sort of natural
antagonism between the thinker and writer who stand by the scheme and
seek to develop and expound it, and the politician who attempts to
realize it. They are allies, but allies who often pull against each
other, whom a little heat and thoughtlessness may precipitate into a
wasteful conflict. The former is, perhaps, too apt to resent the
expenditure of force in those conflicts of cliques and personal
ambition that inevitably arise among men comparatively untrained for
politics, those squabbles and intrigues, reservations and
insincerities that precede the birth of a tradition of discipline; the
latter is equally prone to think literature too broad-minded for daily
life, and to associate all those aspects of the Socialist project
which do not immediately win votes, with fads, kid gloves,
"gentlemanliness," rose-water and such-like contemptible things. These
squabbles of the engineer and the navigating officer must not be
allowed to confuse the mind of the student of Socialism. They are
quarrels of the mess-room, quarrels on board the ship and within
limits, they have nothing to do with the general direction of
Socialism. Like all indisciplines they hinder but they do not
contradict the movement. Socialism, the politicians declare, can only
be realized through politics. Socialism, I would answer, can never be
narrowed down to politics. Your parties and groups may serve
Socialism, but they can never be Socialism. Scientific progress,
medical organization, the advancement of educational method, artistic
production and literature are all aspects of Socialism, they are all
interests and developments that lie apart from anything one may
call--except by sheer violence to language--politics.
And since Socialism is an intellectual as well as a moral thing, it
will never tolerate in its adherents the abnegation of individual
thought and intention. It demands devotion to an idea, not devotion to
a leader. No addicted follower of so-and-so or of so-and-so can be a
good Socialist any more than he can be a good scientific investigator.
So far Socialism has produced no great leaders at all. Lassalle alone
of all its prominent names was of that romantic type of personality
which men follow with enthusiasm. The others, Owen, Saint Simon, and
Fourier, Proudhon, Marx, and Engels, Bebel, Webb, J. S. Mill, Jaurès,
contributed to a process they never seized hold upon, never made their
own, they gave enrichment and enlargement and the movement passed on;
passes on gathering as it goes. Kingsley, Morris, Ruskin--none are too
great to serve this idea, and none so great they may control it or
stand alone for it. So it will continue. Socialism under a great
leader, or as a powerfully organized party would be the end of
Socialism. No doubt it might also be its partial triumph; but the
reality of the movement would need to take to itself another name; to
call itself "constructive civilization" or some such synonym, in order
to continue its undying work. Socialism no doubt will inspire great
leaders in the future, and supply great parties with ideas; in itself
it will still be greater than all such things.
§ 3.
But here, perhaps, before the finish, since the business of this book
is explanation, it may be well to define a little the relation of
Socialism to the political party that is most closely identified with
it in the popular mind. This is the Labour Party. There can be no
doubt of the practical association of aim and interest of the various
Labour parties throughout modern civilized communities with the
Socialist movement. The Social democrats of Germany are the Labour
Party of that country, and wherever the old conception of Socialism
prevails, those "class war" ideas of the Marxist that have been
superseded in English Socialism for nearly a quarter of a century,
there essentially the Socialist movement will take the form of a
revolutionary attack upon the owning and governing sections of the
community. But in Great Britain and America the Labour movement has
never as a whole been revolutionary or insurrectionary in spirit, and
in these countries Socialism has been affected from its very
beginnings by constructive ideas. It has never starkly antagonized
Labour on the one hand, and the other necessary elements in a
civilized State on the other; it has never--I speak of the movement as
a whole and not of individual utterances--contemplated a community
made up wholly of "Labour" and emotionally democratic, such as the
Marxist teaching suggests. The present labouring classes stand to gain
enormously in education, dignity, leisure, efficiency and opportunity
by the development of a Socialist State, and just in so far as they
become intelligent will they become Socialist; but we all, all of us
of Good Will, we and our children, of nearly every section of the
community stand also to gain and have also our interest in this
development. Great as the Labour movement is, the Socialist movement
remains something greater. The one is the movement of a class, the
other a movement of the best elements in every class.
None the less it remains true that under existing political conditions
it is to the Labour Party that the Socialist must look for the mass
and emotion and driving force of political Socialism. Among the wage
workers of the modern civilized community Socialists are to be counted
now by the hundred thousand, and in those classes alone does an
intelligent self-interest march clearly and continuously in the
direction of constructive civilization. In the other classes the
Socialists are dispersed and miscellaneous in training and spirit,
hampered by personal and social associations, presenting an enormous
variety of aspects and incapable, it would seem, of co-operation
except in relation to the main Socialist body, the Labour mass.
Through that, and in relation and service to that, they must, it would
seem, spend their political activities (I am writing now only of
political activities) if they are not to be spent very largely to
waste. The two other traditional parties in British politics are no
doubt undergoing remarkable changes and internal disruptions, and the
constructive spirit of the time is at work within them; but it does
not seem that either is likely to develop anything nearly so
definitely a Socialist programme as the Labour Party. The old
Conservative Party, in spite of its fine aristocratic traditions,
tends more and more to become the party of the adventurous Plutocracy,
of the aggressive _nouveau riche_, inclines more and more towards the
inviting financial possibilities of modern "Imperialism" and "Tariff
Reform." The old Liberal Party strains between these two antagonists
and its own warring and conflicting traditions of Whiggery and
Radicalism. There can be no denying the great quantity of "Good Will"
and constructive intention that finds a place in its very
miscellaneous ranks, but the strong strain of obstinate and
irreconcilable individualism is equally indisputable.
But the official Liberal attitude is one thing, and a very
unsubstantial and transitory thing, and the great mass of Good Will
and broad thinking in the ranks of Liberalism and the middle class
quite another. Socialists are to be found not only in every class, but
in every party. There can be no "Socialist" party as such. That is the
misleading suggestion of irresponsible and destructive adventurers. It
is impossible to estimate what forces of political synthesis may be at
work at the present time, or what ruptures and coalitions may not
occur in the course of a few years. These things belong to the drama
of politics. They do not affect the fact that the chief Interest in
the community on the side of Socialism is Labour; through intelligent
Labour it is that Socialism becomes a political force and possibility,
and it is to the Labour Party that the Socialist who wishes to engage
in active political work may best give his means and time and energy
and ability.
I write "political work," and once more I would repeat that it is to
the field of electioneering and parliamentary politics under present
conditions that this section refers. The ultimate purpose of Socialism
can rely upon no class because it aims to reconstitute all classes. In
a Socialist State there will be no class doomed to mere "labour," no
class privileged to rule and decide. For every child there will be
fair opportunity and education and scope to the limit of its
possibilities. To the best there will be given difficulty and
responsibility, honour and particular rewards, but to all security and
reasonable work and a tolerable life. The interests and class
traditions upon which our party distinctions of to-day rely must
necessarily undergo progressive modification with every step we take
towards the realization of the Socialist ideal.
§ 4.
So this general account of Socialism concludes. I have tried to put it
as what it is, as the imperfect and still growing development of the
social idea, of the collective Good Will in man. I have tried to
indicate its relation to politics, to religion, to art and literature,
to the widest problems of life. Its broad generalizations are simple
and I believe acceptable to all clear-thinking minds. And in a way
they do greatly simplify life. Once they have been understood they
render impossible a thousand confusions and errors of thought and
practice. They are in the completest sense of the word, illumination.
But Socialism is no panacea, no magic "Open Sesame" to the millennium.
Socialism lights up certain once hopeless evils in human affairs and
shows the path by which escape is possible, but it leaves that path
rugged and difficult. Socialism is hope, but it is not assurance.
Throughout this book I have tried to keep that before the reader.
Directly one accepts those great generalizations one passes on to a
jungle of incurably intricate problems, through which man has to make
his way or fail, the riddles and inconsistencies of human character,
the puzzles of collective action, the power and decay of traditions,
the perpetually recurring tasks and problems of education. To have
become a Socialist is to have learnt something, to have made an
intellectual and a moral step, to have discovered a general purpose in
life and a new meaning in duty and brotherhood. But to have become a
Socialist is not, as many suppose, to have become generally wise.
Rather in realizing the nature of the task that could be done, one
realizes also one's insufficiencies, one's want of knowledge, one's
need of force and training. Here and in this manner, says Socialism, a
palace and safety and great happiness may be made for mankind. But it
seems to me the Socialist as he turns his hand and way of living
towards that common end knows little of the nature of his task if he
does so with any but a lively sense of his individual weakness and the
need of charity for all that he achieves.
In that spirit, and with no presumption of finality, this little book
of explanations is given to the world.
THE END
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