Socialism Equals Complete Disaster by Florence Parbury 1893
Three thousand words are allowed for the enthusiast to criticise or discuss Socialism and the effect it would have upon the nation's welfare were it put into practice! Surely two words will suffice to describe the ultimate result of Socialism—i.e., Complete Disaster.
And now for some of the remainder of those three thousand words! The Socialist ideal is that all means of production shall be owned by the State for the benefit of the community, and that there shall be no social differences. All men shall be equal—working only for the State and Community at large, and in return receiving an equal share with their fellow-men, in the provision for their needs, which the State would make.
This would mean that no individuality would be permitted—there would be regulation food and clothes dealt out to each man by State officials. The man with delicate digestion would not be permitted to work harder that he might obtain better food, as he does to-day, for that would be putting forth his vitality for his own benefit. Likewise the strong individual would not be permitted to satisfy his healthy hunger—because the State would decide that he was eating more than his fair share—in other words, more than the man with the small appetite. Food being one of the most important necessities of life, I have naturally tackled it first, upon a purely Socialistic basis.
Next, we come to clothing and that nice State uniform we shall all be forced to wear. Here is a fearful problem: A, being 6ft. 6in., requires far more material for his uniform than B, who is only 5ft. 2in. Because A needs more, and may work 18 hours a day with the hope of getting it, no recognition of this could be made by a fair-minded State, based upon lines of equality. It would be so unfair to poor little B. The State could not even settle the matter by giving them an equal amount of cloth, because A would use all his and B would have some to spare. This would be abominable from A's point of view, because B would have enough for his State uniform and a piece over.
Now comes the awkward point of argument. What will the State do concerning B's surplus material? B certainly could not keep it because it would be private property, and if B was allowed to hoard his share like that he would have enough to keep a shop on in time. B would not permit the State to take it away from him, for it was only his equal share, actually, with A and all the rest of his fellow-workers. The only way to settle the matter would be for the State to make one stock size—which would be little B's size of course—and there could be no unfairness then. The only trouble would be that thousands of A's would suffer when the cold weather came on, just as they do now.
Perhaps, knowing that the State had given them their fair share, they would be perfectly satisfied to see B looking spruce and snug in his comfortable kit—but to be satisfied with personal discomfort is not in human nature. Besides, the Socialists reckon that their aim is to do away with all the sufferings and discomforts of human nature, by means of a State with the famous motto "Equality" as its guiding law.
The above instances of equality I have given because they concern the primary necessities of existence—all other things, great or small, follow on in like manner—to prove the utter impossibility of running a State and dealing with human nature upon lines of equality.
If we were a community of godlike beings living in a land of promise, under ideal climatic conditions, there would be some possibility of equality, but unfortunately for us we are not, and day by day we have to face the stern reality that human nature is about the worst thing to deal with that it is possible to imagine. Unless we can eliminate human nature—Socialism is impossible.
Everyone attacks Socialism from the economic side of the question, which is quite a waste of time, for if it ever came into power there would very shortly be no economic side to discuss. The labourer cries out now that he creates the wealth which enables the rich minority to hoard and save their gold, and continue to live their idle lives. He does not see that if there are no capitalists there will be no one to buy, and therefore no one for whom to create. With equality as the great national check to progression, no man will have the right to desire anything more valuable than that possessed by his fellow-man—and if he does, he will not have the means to purchase it. Thus, we may safely presume that the manufacture of things of value or beauty or luxury, which could not be made for the general use of the community, would be strenuously forbidden by the State, for the excellent reason that there would be no market for them. Oh! what a dead-lock in the wheel of progression! All evolution would be crushed under the heel of so-called Equality.
As things stand the individual indulges his theories of progression, whatever they may be, at the risk of success or failure to himself and maybe a few others. If he fails the world pities or laughs, but if he succeeds, the world benefits by the fact that he, and perhaps others, have risked much to achieve that which was hitherto undreamed of by the Community or the State.
A Socialist Government, having a hold upon all means of production, could not, under laws of equality, be permitted to dole out material and wealth to an inventor who wanted to experiment, and might fail several times before achieving success. It would be wasting the money of the Community, and the said Community would have an equal voice in the matter, and would say "No." The great majority of beings are possessed of pygmy intellects and because they have no bump of originality in their small minds, they scout all the inventive capacity of others.
Governments are notoriously sceptical and Socialists notoriously cynical—where would individual initiative get a chance with a combination of the two?
But as far as invention and progression are concerned, I am inclined to think those would gradually cease to exist. Human nature being the same all the world over, it is only reasonable to suppose that no man of ingenuity, thrift or self-denial, will think it worth his while to practise those qualities, if the produce of his brain and hard endeavour is to go to any but his own posterity. As I have said before, we are not godlike beings, but human beings, and to crush out ambition, enthusiasm and enterprise by depriving all men of their right to gain, is to bring about mental inertia.
All progression will cease under Socialism, and the only important work and object of the State will be to see that all men work equally hard in order to produce enough food and clothing for the general need of the community—and then we come back to my first argument concerning the equal division of food and clothing. The need of all other things would cease to exist and daily enterprise would be devoted to creating enough food, etc., and dividing it up. So far from improving conditions, we should gradually revert to living the lives of savages.
But enough of the economic and domestic side of the question.
The mental side is the most important, for all the enterprise of a nation is run by mind and imagination. Under Socialism everyone will be provided for, hence irresponsibility will increase. It is the knowledge of responsibility for the well-being of himself, or of his family, which makes a man call forth all the active power of his mind. It is the anxiety which sharpens his wits and fires his ambition and eventually calls into play nerve and brain-force which enable him to achieve some great success, by which not only does he benefit himself and family but probably hundreds and thousands of others. Take away responsibility from that man and you rob him of the cause which brought about the effect. You steal away from him his motive and the universe is robbed, in consequence, of the result of that motive. The spark of mental electricity is left unused, because the necessity of using it is dulled by the encouragement of irresponsibility. The driving power of the human race is that unseen, mental force which is responsible for' all invention and all enterprise. Remove responsibility from the human race and the brain power will be about as actively useful as the electric current would be to a lighting apparatus when disconnected. Responsibility is so to speak, the human sparking plug, and without it no one is very much use.
A Socialist State would, by submerging the individualist in its great desire to equalize things for the collectivist, create a breed of "shirkers" whose main object in life would be no higher than that of daily turning to the State for maintenance. And what kind of State would exist with such a half-hearted nation of supporters. Responsibility, either to the Great Unknown, or to themselves, is quite the last thing Socialists wish to recognise. The "idle rich" are, from all accounts, responsible for all the misery in the world, and yet, if it were not for the prospect of one day becoming either idle or rich or both, mental and physical endeavour would be more or less at a standstill; self-sacrifice would be non-existent, and individual initiative would be crushed into inactivity.
There would be no encouragement for improvement, and little by little it would come to pass that there would be no desire for it.
A Socialist does not, as a general rule, ask himself why he is discontented with his lot, and search for the fault in himself; he merely blames other people and holds them responsible for his misfortune or incapacity. He does not conscientiously ask himself if his reason for becoming a Socialist is really the outcome of a deep longing to give all his time and the fruit of his energy to those less fortunate than himself. At any rate among all the Socialists one hears of very few who actually put this desire into practice, and one can have very little faith in following those who do not practise what they preach.
While giving beautiful descriptions of what would happen if Socialism could be realised, they never hide, or attempt to hide, the vindictive hatred they bear towards the "idle rich," who must be plundered in order to find the money for the working of the Socialist doctrines. What do they offer in exchange for the present conditions of the labourer? They offer a State which will provide each individual if possible with the necessaries of existence and which, in return, will be forced to adopt a slave-driving principle in order to maintain itself and its dependents. Should it come to pass, man will exchange his liberty for so-called equality, and partial servitude for perpetual servitude. Instead of Socialism let us inaugurate "Reformitis" and teach it in the home, in the school and in our daily life. Encourage among our children as well as among ourselves a system of self-analysis, and mental cross-examination upon our motives and our responsibility to God and afterwards to ourselves in all things. As all the ills and sorrows of life are directly caused by some bygone act of selfishness, let us study and teach in our schools a little more self-abnegation even at the cost of the time a little more useless or unnecessary knowledge would require, and there would be less misery in the world—less need of State maintenance for the offspring of the irresponsible parent.
No State can rectify the misery caused by the indulgence of self.
The State may confiscate all private property and all man's liberty, but this would mean ruin to the country's genius, industry and enterprise— far worse still, it would crush out the individual initiative, to which abstract quality, fundamentally, all nations owe their prosperity.
Three thousand words are allowed for the enthusiast to criticise or discuss Socialism and the effect it would have upon the nation's welfare were it put into practice! Surely two words will suffice to describe the ultimate result of Socialism—i.e., Complete Disaster.
And now for some of the remainder of those three thousand words! The Socialist ideal is that all means of production shall be owned by the State for the benefit of the community, and that there shall be no social differences. All men shall be equal—working only for the State and Community at large, and in return receiving an equal share with their fellow-men, in the provision for their needs, which the State would make.
This would mean that no individuality would be permitted—there would be regulation food and clothes dealt out to each man by State officials. The man with delicate digestion would not be permitted to work harder that he might obtain better food, as he does to-day, for that would be putting forth his vitality for his own benefit. Likewise the strong individual would not be permitted to satisfy his healthy hunger—because the State would decide that he was eating more than his fair share—in other words, more than the man with the small appetite. Food being one of the most important necessities of life, I have naturally tackled it first, upon a purely Socialistic basis.
Next, we come to clothing and that nice State uniform we shall all be forced to wear. Here is a fearful problem: A, being 6ft. 6in., requires far more material for his uniform than B, who is only 5ft. 2in. Because A needs more, and may work 18 hours a day with the hope of getting it, no recognition of this could be made by a fair-minded State, based upon lines of equality. It would be so unfair to poor little B. The State could not even settle the matter by giving them an equal amount of cloth, because A would use all his and B would have some to spare. This would be abominable from A's point of view, because B would have enough for his State uniform and a piece over.
Now comes the awkward point of argument. What will the State do concerning B's surplus material? B certainly could not keep it because it would be private property, and if B was allowed to hoard his share like that he would have enough to keep a shop on in time. B would not permit the State to take it away from him, for it was only his equal share, actually, with A and all the rest of his fellow-workers. The only way to settle the matter would be for the State to make one stock size—which would be little B's size of course—and there could be no unfairness then. The only trouble would be that thousands of A's would suffer when the cold weather came on, just as they do now.
Perhaps, knowing that the State had given them their fair share, they would be perfectly satisfied to see B looking spruce and snug in his comfortable kit—but to be satisfied with personal discomfort is not in human nature. Besides, the Socialists reckon that their aim is to do away with all the sufferings and discomforts of human nature, by means of a State with the famous motto "Equality" as its guiding law.
The above instances of equality I have given because they concern the primary necessities of existence—all other things, great or small, follow on in like manner—to prove the utter impossibility of running a State and dealing with human nature upon lines of equality.
If we were a community of godlike beings living in a land of promise, under ideal climatic conditions, there would be some possibility of equality, but unfortunately for us we are not, and day by day we have to face the stern reality that human nature is about the worst thing to deal with that it is possible to imagine. Unless we can eliminate human nature—Socialism is impossible.
Everyone attacks Socialism from the economic side of the question, which is quite a waste of time, for if it ever came into power there would very shortly be no economic side to discuss. The labourer cries out now that he creates the wealth which enables the rich minority to hoard and save their gold, and continue to live their idle lives. He does not see that if there are no capitalists there will be no one to buy, and therefore no one for whom to create. With equality as the great national check to progression, no man will have the right to desire anything more valuable than that possessed by his fellow-man—and if he does, he will not have the means to purchase it. Thus, we may safely presume that the manufacture of things of value or beauty or luxury, which could not be made for the general use of the community, would be strenuously forbidden by the State, for the excellent reason that there would be no market for them. Oh! what a dead-lock in the wheel of progression! All evolution would be crushed under the heel of so-called Equality.
As things stand the individual indulges his theories of progression, whatever they may be, at the risk of success or failure to himself and maybe a few others. If he fails the world pities or laughs, but if he succeeds, the world benefits by the fact that he, and perhaps others, have risked much to achieve that which was hitherto undreamed of by the Community or the State.
A Socialist Government, having a hold upon all means of production, could not, under laws of equality, be permitted to dole out material and wealth to an inventor who wanted to experiment, and might fail several times before achieving success. It would be wasting the money of the Community, and the said Community would have an equal voice in the matter, and would say "No." The great majority of beings are possessed of pygmy intellects and because they have no bump of originality in their small minds, they scout all the inventive capacity of others.
Governments are notoriously sceptical and Socialists notoriously cynical—where would individual initiative get a chance with a combination of the two?
But as far as invention and progression are concerned, I am inclined to think those would gradually cease to exist. Human nature being the same all the world over, it is only reasonable to suppose that no man of ingenuity, thrift or self-denial, will think it worth his while to practise those qualities, if the produce of his brain and hard endeavour is to go to any but his own posterity. As I have said before, we are not godlike beings, but human beings, and to crush out ambition, enthusiasm and enterprise by depriving all men of their right to gain, is to bring about mental inertia.
All progression will cease under Socialism, and the only important work and object of the State will be to see that all men work equally hard in order to produce enough food and clothing for the general need of the community—and then we come back to my first argument concerning the equal division of food and clothing. The need of all other things would cease to exist and daily enterprise would be devoted to creating enough food, etc., and dividing it up. So far from improving conditions, we should gradually revert to living the lives of savages.
But enough of the economic and domestic side of the question.
The mental side is the most important, for all the enterprise of a nation is run by mind and imagination. Under Socialism everyone will be provided for, hence irresponsibility will increase. It is the knowledge of responsibility for the well-being of himself, or of his family, which makes a man call forth all the active power of his mind. It is the anxiety which sharpens his wits and fires his ambition and eventually calls into play nerve and brain-force which enable him to achieve some great success, by which not only does he benefit himself and family but probably hundreds and thousands of others. Take away responsibility from that man and you rob him of the cause which brought about the effect. You steal away from him his motive and the universe is robbed, in consequence, of the result of that motive. The spark of mental electricity is left unused, because the necessity of using it is dulled by the encouragement of irresponsibility. The driving power of the human race is that unseen, mental force which is responsible for' all invention and all enterprise. Remove responsibility from the human race and the brain power will be about as actively useful as the electric current would be to a lighting apparatus when disconnected. Responsibility is so to speak, the human sparking plug, and without it no one is very much use.
A Socialist State would, by submerging the individualist in its great desire to equalize things for the collectivist, create a breed of "shirkers" whose main object in life would be no higher than that of daily turning to the State for maintenance. And what kind of State would exist with such a half-hearted nation of supporters. Responsibility, either to the Great Unknown, or to themselves, is quite the last thing Socialists wish to recognise. The "idle rich" are, from all accounts, responsible for all the misery in the world, and yet, if it were not for the prospect of one day becoming either idle or rich or both, mental and physical endeavour would be more or less at a standstill; self-sacrifice would be non-existent, and individual initiative would be crushed into inactivity.
There would be no encouragement for improvement, and little by little it would come to pass that there would be no desire for it.
A Socialist does not, as a general rule, ask himself why he is discontented with his lot, and search for the fault in himself; he merely blames other people and holds them responsible for his misfortune or incapacity. He does not conscientiously ask himself if his reason for becoming a Socialist is really the outcome of a deep longing to give all his time and the fruit of his energy to those less fortunate than himself. At any rate among all the Socialists one hears of very few who actually put this desire into practice, and one can have very little faith in following those who do not practise what they preach.
While giving beautiful descriptions of what would happen if Socialism could be realised, they never hide, or attempt to hide, the vindictive hatred they bear towards the "idle rich," who must be plundered in order to find the money for the working of the Socialist doctrines. What do they offer in exchange for the present conditions of the labourer? They offer a State which will provide each individual if possible with the necessaries of existence and which, in return, will be forced to adopt a slave-driving principle in order to maintain itself and its dependents. Should it come to pass, man will exchange his liberty for so-called equality, and partial servitude for perpetual servitude. Instead of Socialism let us inaugurate "Reformitis" and teach it in the home, in the school and in our daily life. Encourage among our children as well as among ourselves a system of self-analysis, and mental cross-examination upon our motives and our responsibility to God and afterwards to ourselves in all things. As all the ills and sorrows of life are directly caused by some bygone act of selfishness, let us study and teach in our schools a little more self-abnegation even at the cost of the time a little more useless or unnecessary knowledge would require, and there would be less misery in the world—less need of State maintenance for the offspring of the irresponsible parent.
No State can rectify the misery caused by the indulgence of self.
The State may confiscate all private property and all man's liberty, but this would mean ruin to the country's genius, industry and enterprise— far worse still, it would crush out the individual initiative, to which abstract quality, fundamentally, all nations owe their prosperity.
No comments:
Post a Comment