The trend of political thought and action in all civilized countries
toward absolute Socialism is so conspicuous a phenomenon that it not
only impresses that rare and execrated intelligence, the impartial
observer, “the looker-on at the game,” but is seen with greater or
less distinctness by the innumerable company of players. A political
faith is a kind of mental disability; the patient dimly discerns some
of the more salient of the “opposing facts,” but those grateful to
his disorder loom large indeed. The proposition that the established
order of things is in peril, has, therefore, both a stammering and a
stentorian assent and needs no proof. Whether that is for better or for
worse is not to be answered in an epigram, nor in a paragraph, but from
the viewpoint of the looker-on with no more than an observer’s interest
in the matter, little is seen to encourage the optimist—little even of
the little that he requires.
Down to date the world never has had good government. For forms of
government fools have contested from the dawn of history, but no form
has given good and wise administration. Government is like medicine;
those who administer it are, as a rule, wiser than those to whom it is
administered, though not much. In point of conscience there is little
to choose between them.
There are two forms of real government; absolute Monarchy and absolute
Democracy; all others are bastard forms attesting the failure of these,
and themselves doomed to fail. The cause of failure lies in the
essential folly and badness of human nature. From a stupid and selfish
people there is no certainty of getting a wise and conscientious
sovereign. Even when that miracle has been wrought, good government has
not resulted, for the sovereign, however absolute in theory, however
good and wise in fact, is compelled to work through shallow and selfish
officials. Democracy suffers the same disability, with the added
disadvantage of a sovereign that is never wise and never just.
As to limited Monarchies and constitutional Democracies, they
are similarly and equally futile. Divided authority is divided
responsibility. Restraint of the power to do evil is restraint of
the power to do good. Under the “one-man power” (a name, by the way,
that our good forefathers singularly chose to give to the rule of the
British ministry and parliament) it is at least known who is to blame
for sins of administration, and to whom is due the credit for what is
creditable. The autocrat can not hide behind his own back.
In all the various and vain experiments in government the one cause
of failure is eternally manifest; the general moral and intellectual
delinquency that makes government necessary—the folly and depravity of
human nature.
Do the socialists think that they can alter that?—do they believe that
after all these centuries of thought and experiment in government in
all possible conditions, it has remained for them to devise a system
powerful to chain or persuasive to charm the hitherto indomitable and
vigilant selfishness to which, despite its ghastly perversions, the
race owes its continued existence? Do they believe that under Socialism
the laws will execute themselves without human agency; that less than
to-day the state will require a vast and complex administration, with
the same and greater temptations and opportunities to ambition and
cupidity?
Under any conceivable system the cleverest, most enterprising and least
scrupulous men will be at the head of affairs, and they will not be
there “for their health.” You cannot keep them down, and you cannot
keep the others up. If the socialist thinks that can be done, he must
hold in hope a better kind of ballot than the kind that works him
present woe, or a brand-new infallibility for its casting.