The conclusion of the whole matter is that Socialism, in its "ultimate aim," is only a dream. To millions of weary toilers it is as alluring as
"One of those passing rainbow dreams";
but to others it is a spectre of the night—"black, fearful, comfortless and horrible." The convinced Socialist may concede, for the sake of argument, perhaps, that the ultimate goal of his creed is a dream; still he pleads that the dream of to-day is the fact of to-morrow. But dreams are unsubstantial things, and a wise man has said: "Ground not upon dreams, you know they are ever contrary!"
There has never existed a true Socialist State, a Collective Commonwealth; and, judging the future by the past, and giving due consideration to natural law and to human nature, it is safe to say that there never will be one. This does not mean that there will not be attempts made to bring about the thing called Socialism, for "Utopia" still exists in men's imagination. Neither does it mean that many of the "immediate demands" of Socialism are not desirable as well as practicable.
Socialism—that is Collectivism—is bound to prove its case before any sane-minded nation will make the leap in the dark, although it is quite possible that some countries, through weak, demagogic and foolish politicians, may be drawn perilously near the brink of the precipice.
Most Socialists profess to believe in Darwinism; but the Socialist creed is absolutely opposed to the first principles of Darwin, unless it be held that the fate of the human race is death from dry rot—for that would be the inevitable result of a persistence in Collectivism. The Darwinian law of "the survival of the fittest" may be a cruel one, like the law of death itself, but all the resolutions of the "International" to the end of time will not affect that law one tittle. It is a law of nature that life is a continual struggle from birth to death; without struggle and restless movement there can be no healthy and vigorous life; but Socialism means stagnation, and under natural law there can be only one result—paralysis and death! Socialists appeal to the tribal relations and the village communities as historical proofs of the natural status of the theory of Collectivism; but as pointed out by F. W. Headley in Darwinism and Modern Socialism, the old form of tribal and village Socialism did not come in conflict with Darwinian principles: it did not check the elimination of the unfit; while "the new Socialism aims at putting a stop to the struggle for existence altogether. There is to be, if not a luxurious, yet a soft environment for all." If monopoly has stifled individual initiative and enterprise, the remedy is not Industrial Collectivism, but such an adjustment and regulation of affairs as will restore true competition and Individualism, by establishing a relative equality of opportunity. Industrial Collectivism would be more destructive to individual vigor and manly independence and human happiness than is the modern monster Monopoly. Again quoting the author of Darwinism and Modern Socialism:
The history of the human race has been the history of effort, of struggle against difficulties, hardships, and enemies. Socialism, which has been well called the philosophy of failure, means submission to difficulties. It preaches the helplessness of the individual and the omnipotence of the State. The citizens are to be, each of them, so much concrete weakness and helplessness, but somehow the State, though composed of such men and women, is to be, beyond all experience of governments, strenuous and capable. Such a system has only to be tried in its complete form and it must prove at once a disastrous failure.
The progress of Society has been gradual, and the present system has unknown ages back of it; but imperfect as it is, there is no warrant for the assumption that its improvement will, in the main, be along any other lines than those which have gone before; nevertheless, there is ground for the confident hope and expectation that these lines will be straighter and smoother than formerly, and that the rate and extent and scope of the improvements will continually increase. It is proposed by Socialists to substitute for the present long-tested system one that is utterly untried in its fulness of conception, and the partial experiments of which have all finally proven failures, in all ages and under all conditions. In cases where there has been even approximate temporary success in these partial experiments, they have been based on slavery of the body or of the mind—sometimes both—the Socialism of Classic Athens representing the former and that of Utopia the other.
Socialism, in its full concept—as dreamed of by its devotees—can never be a success until human nature has been abolished.
Socialists point to the ever-widening sphere of State activities as a demonstration of the immanence and practicability of Collectivism. But they fail to recognize that to these activities there are limitations, both in nature and degree. Leaving out of consideration such matters as public schools, parks, baths, drainage, etc. (about which there is no controversy), the State or Municipality can only handle with advantage such undertakings as are simple and uniform in their operation and administration, and that are non-industrial.
Furthermore, these undertakings are wholly or substantially to be classed as natural monopolies, such as water, light, carrying the mails, transportation (railways, street cars), or general communication (telegraphs, telephones); and it is to be observed that even some of these, designated as natural monopolies, can be operated by private corporations at least as well as by the State, under certain conditions; and indeed, there are conditions under which it would be very unwise for the State or for Municipalities to undertake their operation. It should be particularly noted that most of the undertakings now operated by the State with a measurable degree of success and satisfaction, belong to a class of necessities or conveniences, or ethical or artistic wants of Society, which are quite apart from Industrialism; and it should be remembered that the argument for Socialism, as regards its economic side, is based entirely on changing the present private industrial system to Collectivism. Socialists also neglect to note that many of the enterprises in which the State is active are entirely new, not only in form, but in conception and sphere of service.
To a great extent State Socialism, so-called, is not the substitution of communal ownership for private ownership, but is the establishment and operation by the State for the common good of undertakings which had never existed before, many of these being on entirely new ideas of human endeavor, let alone of public activity; and none of these undertakings, it must again be pointed out, are of an industrial, productive nature, properly speaking.
But directly the State or Municipality undertakes industrial productive enterprises it steps outside the limitations of its competency. There is no experience to sustain the contention of Socialists that the State can successfully undertake manufacturing, commercial, or trading enterprises, or even cultivate the land collectively with advantage. All the evidence points the other way. This is true even under the present system of society, where a failure in such an attempt is largely neutralized by the general elasticity of the conditions and the recuperative powers of the community. But under the operations of the proposed Co-operative Commonwealth, there would be no such elasticity or recuperative power. The State machine would be deadly in its destruction of the very mainsprings of human activity and inspiration. Imperfect as is the modern system of Industrialism, it obeys certain natural laws which operate successfully in the main in correcting mistakes; but were Universal Industrialism undertaken by the State, the very vastness of the scheme and the minute and uncountable complicated parts of the mechanism of executive control and administration would inevitably cause the system to be unresponsive to corrective natural laws, and finally to break down.
While the State is ever broadening and increasing its activities, yet it does not produce wealth; it simply spends wealth created under the existing system of so-called Capitalism—of individual enterprise and competition. It is true that Socialists have a list of enterprises which they label "Socialism in the Making"—in which, with triumphant exultation recent State or Municipal undertakings are pointed to as evidence of the practicability of Collectivism. It is to be observed that the great majority of these undertakings come under the category of public benevolences or "public utilities;" and the former are admittedly permanently non-productive and are always drains upon the public treasury, while the latter are examples of State or Municipal Socialism, such as the public ownership and operation of railroads, waterworks, street railroads, etc., which are, in their very nature, monopolies, and which frequently are run at a loss, and oftentimes not so efficiently as similar undertakings are by private corporations. And, by way of passing, it might be remarked that these State and Municipal activities are repudiated by real Socialists as examples of true Collectivism. But very few of the enterprises referred to can be claimed as productive industries; and such as may be claimed so to be, are of the simplest nature, and are all mere experiments, with all the precedents of history against the presumption of permanent success. Of course, there may be occasional instances in which, under abnormal conditions, and particularly under the stress of a sudden unexpected national necessity or calamity, the State might with propriety and even advantage, engage temporarily in an industrial productive enterprise; but even then, experience has shown that the State is not a successful manager of a manufacturing enterprise. Occasionally the State has to avail itself of Martial Law, but the normal condition of every free community must be under ordinary Civil Law. Socialists can be challenged to produce a single instance of real Industrial Collectivism applied to any complicated modern "socialized" manufacturing enterprise which has stood the test of time. It is impossible to definitely set the limit to the State's activity, but in a general way it may be set down that the State should not invade the field of productive enterprise. This is the major field of human activities; all others are the minor. Notwithstanding the extending field of State and Municipal Socialism, it is safe to say that for all time most of the work of the world will continue to be performed by individuals under private enterprise; although it is quite reasonable to assume that the State will in the future—and in the near future—have more to say as to the relations between the worker and the Capitalist than it now has; and, in addition, it is to be expected and hoped that the day is not far distant when these relations will be so changed and modified by voluntary and unofficial agreement as will make the lot of the toiler much more satisfactory than it is at present.
When Socialists declaim against the alleged tyranny of the present so-called "Capitalistic" Governments, they forget that these very Governments allow them to preach Socialism and to organize to overthrow them; so, also, when they boast of the increasing number of State and Municipal Socialist enterprises they lose sight of the fact that it is the private tax-payers — who get their money through the Capitalistic system — who make possible these examples of Socialism, such as they are. Under Socialism, the wellsprings of National prosperity would dry up, and individual pauperism would become universal.
One of the greatest of England's Radicals—a man beloved of the common people because of his devotion to their interests—was Charles Bradlaugh. He was preeminently a Social Reformer, but he was no Socialist, as the term is now understood. He strenuously took the position, by voice and pen, that Socialism meant National and individual suicide. He pointed out the one great overwhelming objection to the system in saying:
If Socialism could be realized, then it would be fatal to all progress by neutralizing and paralyzing individual effort, and here I say that civilization has only been in proportion to the energy of individuals.
As civilization has revolted against the old "Manchester school" of extreme Individualism, so it will refuse to accept the other extreme, that of Collectivism; it will distinguish between Social Reform and Socialism.
Modern Socialists are prone to ascribe to the State some mystical omniscience, omnipotence and moral perfection. They ignore the fact that the State is but an instrument, that before the State, the individual was, and that the potentiality and beneficence of the State depend altogether upon the people composing it.
It has been well said that Socialists are ultra-Pessimists as to the present, and ultra-Optimists as to the future. They are blind to the ever-multiplying evidences of amelioration all around them, and are fanatical enthusiasts over the prospects of a coming heaven upon earth founded upon the unsubstantial fabric of a dream. The success of Socialism pre-supposes that human nature will become angelic; but when that time comes, there will be no necessity for Socialism or any other "ism," for mankind will then have left this earth and become inhabitants of Paradise itself.
To a certain class of men, the very indefiniteness of Socialism is an attraction—and some expositors claim that this vagueness is not only a matter of course, but is one of the strong attributes of the theory; but it is a stumbling block to the candid and thoughtful student.
In its economic phase "the alpha and omega" of Socialism is the communal ownership and operation of the means of production, distribution and exchange—or "capital;" but within recent years there has been an appreciation on the part of many of the leaders of the movement of the necessity of conceding that the individual must be allowed to privately own not only natural and manufactured products for his personal use and comfort, and that he must also be permitted to own certain "means of production;" for instance, some Socialists freely admit that a man should be allowed to own a jackknife, and to use it as a means of production, and that a woman should be permitted to count a needle and even a sewing-machine among her personal property! The one Simon-pure Marxian Revolutionary Socialist who was elected to the British Parliament in the tidal-wave a few years ago was Victor Grayson. At a public meeting during his campaign a "heckler" asked him, "Do you believe in private property?" and his answer was, "I would nationalize the means of production, but a man would keep his tooth-brush and tooth-pick!" The Socialists have been so hard pressed upon this phase of the question, that the necessity of "hedging" has been forced upon them; and the latter-day explanation is that "the means of production" to be owned by the State under Collectivism would be only those that are employed in "socialized" industries—that is, those which require the combined labor of a number of groups of workmen. But, except in regard to the simplest things, every industrial product is the result of "socialized" labor, to a greater or less extent, in these days of the sub-division of labor. Reflection will clearly show that it is absolutely impossible to draw a line of distinction.
There is equally the same difficulty in the attempt to define and limit what is called "Capital." Any man who possesses anything above his actual needs which another man wants and for which the latter is willing to give anything else (including his labor), is to that extent a "Capitalist." It is claimed that the establishment of the Collectivist Commonwealth would mark the extinction of Capitalism; but the probabilities are that it would be but the beginning of a new craze for private possessions, eventuating in the birth of a new race of capitalists, who would at first operate secretly and in a small way, but would in time openly defy the Commonwealth and branch out on a large scale. They would commence by saving and hoarding, and after a while they would have accumulated a large quantity of excess goods and money,—if the Commonwealth used money—which is a matter much in dispute among Socialists themselves. No law on earth could stop them from doing so,—the history of the Jews under cruel repressive laws demonstrates that—and no law on earth could prevent other men from exchanging their own accumulated goods or money, or even from working for a wage or return in "kind." Hence, there would inevitably be a return to Capitalism and a wage-earning class.
In its very essence, Collectivism, in its full conception, must be monopolistic: the State would, as a matter of necessity, use all of its authority to prevent competition from private individuals; therefore, from purely economic reasons—apart from others—there would develop a clash between the supporters of the Industrial Commonwealth and those favoring individual enterprise. On the part of Socialists there is a most amazing conviction that when their Collectivist State had been ushered in, there would at once be a cessation to all agitation—that the end of the struggle of mankind to improve their condition had been reached. But ever since man evoluted from the lowest depths of savagery, he has been afflicted with "divine discontent," and there is no reason for supposing that he would lose this characteristic under the reign of King Demos.
In addition to these opposing economic forces, there would inevitably grow up an ever-increasing antagonism to the Socialist State based on the ineradicable love of personal liberty. Individualism would be bound to assert itself. Men would never permanently accept without protest a despotism greater than that of the Russian Czars, merely because it was labelled "Socialism." And the State, to be effective in its role of the Universal, Monopolistic, Exclusive Employer and Boss, would have to be despotic; it could not with safety to its own existence be tolerant to minorities or opposition of any kind; and being despotic, it would work its own doom. In fact, even now, in its attitude toward opposition, Socialism is arrogantly intolerant. Socialists, as a rule, are conspicuous for their unfairness and self-sufficiency in controversy. They allow no one to differ from them.
Even the latter-day "trimming" apologists of Socialism who deny that it has anything to do with religion or ethics, admit or boast that it means far more than a mere change of employers—from the Capitalist to the State. In its full conception, even economically, Collectivism implies a new and fundamental change in every-day life in the relations of the individual toward other individuals and toward the State, and inversely so. The State would either be a tyrannical task-master or a dole-giver; if the first, it would be hated; in the latter case it would be soon "sucked dry." From either point of view, Collectivism would be bound to collapse—either through assaults from without or through its own inherent weakness and lack of substance.
The natural tendency would be for the Socialist State —the triumphant majority, for the time being—to be despotic and to be indifferent to the views and rights of the minority. No writer in the English language has a greater right to be accepted as an authoritative exponent of pure, unadulterated Marxian Collectivism than Mr. Belfort Bax, and in his Ethics of Socialism that gentleman lays it down that—
The only public opinion, the only will of the majority, which has any sort of claim on the recognition of the Socialist in the present day, is that of the majority of those who have like aspirations with him, who have a definite consciousness of certain aims—in other words, the will of the majority of the European Socialist party.
. . The practical question finally presents itself: What is the duty of the convinced Socialist towards the present mechanical majority—say of the English nation—a majority mainly composed of human cabbage-stalks, the growth of the suburban villa and the slum, respectively? The answer is, Make use of it wherever possible without loss of principle, but where this is not possible disregard it. The Socialist has a distinct aim in view. If he can carry the initial stages towards its realization by means of the count-of-heads majority, by all means let him do so. If, on the other hand, he sees the possibility of carrying a salient portion of his programme by tramping on this majority, by all means let him do this also.
No old fossilized Tory member of the hereditary British House of Lords ever gave expression to such undemocratic sentiments; and yet Mr. Bax is the great literary expounder of the doctrines of the British Social Democratic Party, the repository of the undiluted and untainted full-fledged Marxism!
No class of people are louder in demanding their "rights" than are the Socialists, but this is how they will treat opposition when they get into power, according to another "intellectual" advocate, Prof. Karl Pearson, in The Ethics of Free-thought:
Socialists have to inculcate that spirit which would give offenders against the State short shrift and the nearest lamp-post.
Sidney Webb is accepted in both America and England as entitled to speak for Socialism. He is frank enough to acknowledge (Fabian Tracts, No. 51) as to conditions under Collectivism:
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.
So, likewise, that even more brilliant Socialist, H. G. Wells (Fortnightly Review, November, 1906), controverts the assumption of some enthusiasts that "natural impulses and the native goodness of man" will be sufficient to run the affairs of the Industrial Commonwealth.
Mr. H. M. Hyndman is a graduate of Oxford, is the founder of the British Social Democratic Party, and has given his private fortune and all his life to propagating and defending the principles of Revolutionary Socialism. He does not indulge in the delusion so common among working men that Collectivism is another name for "Liberty Hall," where every man will be permitted to do just as he likes, or do nothing if such be his will, and get well paid for doing anything or nothing. In a lecture in London in 1904 on "Social Democracy," Mr. Hyndman said:
But do not let us forget that in so far as this tends simply to State control it may mean the control of a bureaucracy and the domination of experts. That entails with it a sort of qualified slavery.... There is no more offensive prig than a bureaucrat, none more wholly impervious to reason when his conceit of himself is threatened.
The learned Prof. Flint, of Edinburgh, is not a Socialist, but he is admittedly a fair critic. He declares (Socialism, pp. 373 and 374):
Socialism of its very nature so absorbs the individual in society as to sacrifice his rights to its authority. ... It denies to the individual any rights independent of society, and assigns to society authority to do whatever it deems for its own good with the persons, faculties, and possessions of individuals. It undertakes to relieve individuals of what are manifestly their own moral responsibilities, and proposes to deprive them of the means of fulfilling them. It would place the masses of mankind completely at the mercy of a comparatively small and highly centralized body of organizers and administrators entrusted with such powers as no human hands can safely or righteously wield.
Dr. Schaffle, the Austrian economist, whose Quintessence of Socialism is a classic accepted by Socialists themselves, points out in that remarkable exposition of Marxism that under Collectivism (which he afterwards demonstrated was an impossibility)—"The producers would still be, individually, no more than workmen. . . . The only difference would be that they would be completely at the mercy of their foremen."
The individual would find that not only would he be limited to one employer—the State, or the Collective Commonwealth, or the Committee of Administration of Things, or whatever might be the name of the Communal authority—but that his personal liberty was all gone. He would be labelled and numbered and barracked; he would be shorn of all individuality; he would be watched, reported upon, registered and inspected; his goings out and incomings would all be recorded; he would have to accept whatever uniform the Bureau on Dress prescribed for him; he would have to take lean meat when he wanted fat, and mutton when he preferred beef; if he desired a change of climate he would have to make dutiful request for it, and would not dare to go away unless he secured permission; he would have to work in a foundry when he wanted to be a carpenter; he would be discontented because his neighbor had a better house to live in than the Committee had assigned to him; he could not own anything without a license; he could not do an odd job to earn a little extra money; he would not be allowed to trade off or sell anything; he could not do anything of his own free will except—Revolt! And revolt he would. The pendulum would swing from the slavishness of Collectivism to the unrestrained freedom of absolute Individualism—Anarchy! And if he failed in his rebellion, Absolutism would be enthroned. Such would be the ultimate end of Socialism!
Socialism is an impossibility for two reasons—and many others might be named, but these are sufficient:
(1) It could never be established. The wisest of Marxians have utterly failed—some admittedly—to elucidate how the private productive property of a nation could be turned into collective property; and it should be kept in mind that according to its very nature, Socialism, even from a theoretical standpoint, must be world-wide to be logical and successful. If the State attempted the transfer of property or capital by confiscation there would be civil war; if it attempted honest payment, bankruptcy would follow.
(2) It could never be administered. The State would be utterly unable to keep the gigantic machinery of modern Industrialism going. No official bureau would be vast enough or efficient enough to do the bookkeeping required, to decide upon the quantity and quality, the nature and style of the different products, and to meet the infinite variety of tastes and necessities of the citizens. Neither could any Collectivist system be devised to satisfactorily assign labor according to its ability or preference, or to provide for its equitable compensation. It is inconceivable that there would not be favoritism in assignments to labor; and there would inevitably be inequality and injustice in compensation.
There is no force in the Socialist reply to these objections, that citizens now-a-days have satisfactory relations with the State in regard to official positions: for they enter the Government service of their own free-will and accord, and if they do not like it they are at perfect liberty to resign and to enter the service of a private individual or a private corporation; but under Collectivism there would be only one employer, one buyer of Labor— the State; and if the citizen were unsatisfied with either his assignment to labor or his compensation, he would have no remedy, as there would be no position open to him outside the State.
But even though Collectivism in its full conception could be established and administered, it would be a calamity past description. It would be contrary to and eternally antagonistic to human nature. All Individualism would be killed; the private understanding and conception of things would be absolutely destroyed; and the individual would become the mere creature, the slave, of the State. There could be no appeal from Caesar: Whatever the State decreed, that the citizen must do; instead of the State being an aggregation of individual units, it would be One Indivisible Whole, composed of indistinguishable human atoms; the State would be the Monopolistic Task-master and Employer—the Universal Buyer and Seller, the Arbiter of Fashion, and the Sole Custodian of Life and Liberty. All individual freedom would be gone, for the State would not—and could not for its own safety—tolerate any interference with its absolute and sovereign prerogatives. To protest peaceably would be impossible, for the State would own all the printing presses, type and paper, and the other accessories of publication; and the State would never permit its own property to be used for its own destruction. Necessarily, no book, no magazine, no pamphlet, no newspaper, no leaflet, could be printed without having passed the government censor; and the same is true of all messages by the telegraph and telephone systems, for the State would own all these.
Ethically, the establishment of Socialism would be the greatest misfortune which could overtake the human race. It would entirely extinguish all those qualities which have distinguished the most progressive and civilized nations: individuality, personal responsibility and independence, the spirit of self-help and self-reliance, thrift, industry, initiative, enterprise, persistence, ambition, hope, patriotism, courage. It would make of the citizens a horde of lazy, hopeless and dissatisfied paupers, as already is the tendency manifesting itself under the operation of the dole-giving poor-law and non-contributory pension system now in full blast in England. There the working class have become inoculated with the wretched and character-destroying poison that the State is the Universal Provider. A nation which adopts this as its ideal must inevitably perish from the face of the earth, and deservedly so. It would likely starve to death, or its people would become the under-strappers or even slaves of some strong race which had retained the attributes of real virile manhood; or it would find its fate in a cataclysm of Civil War and Anarchy, ending in a Military Absolutism!
All this is on the assumption that the effects of Socialism would be merely economic. But let the Collective Commonwealth be such as that contemplated by Marx and his disciples: then religion would be banished from the earth; then the fear and love of God would be no more; gone would be the hope of Immortality; and not even the sweet relationship of man and wife and parent and children, as now understood, would be left.
Yet Socialism has its good side, although with characteristic effrontery it appropriates to itself as its peculiar possession attributes and forces which have been in beneficent operation through the long centuries by men who never heard of Socialism, and by agencies which have always had the scorn and even hatred of the greatest of Socialists, from Marx and Engels to Bax and Bebel.
Nevertheless, Socialism, extravagant and impracticable though it be, has played a great part and is entitled to its share of credit in the ever onward and upward movement, limited to no class, no creed, no nationality, no theory of government or economics, for the amelioration of the lot of the sons of toil, the righting of wrong wherever found, and the uplifting of the race to higher planes of life in all its aspects.
But, as an universal condition of Society, as a panacea for present evils, as the hope of the proletariat, Socialism, in its complete conception, is an absolute and a hideous impossibility.
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