[1]See p. 316.
[1]
See p. 316.
[2]SeeInquiry into Socialism, 3rd ed. p. 96.
[2]
SeeInquiry into Socialism, 3rd ed. p. 96.
[3]See p. 313.
[3]
See p. 313.
In the last chapter we have seen how in many lands the social democracy is seeking to reach its goal by parliamentary action, and how in France, Italy, and Russia the socialist movement tends less or more to assume an aggressive and violent form. We have seen how socialism is everywhere becoming the creed of organised labour. The socialist parties and the trade unions are the organised and articulate expression of the labour of the world, and they are being combined into one great movement. We must, therefore, understand the socialist movement as having its basis and its background in a vast reality which as yet has only partially found voice and organisation. One of the most striking features in recent history is to be found in the symptoms which so frequently appear of a latent and undefined socialism, which only needs a fitting occasion to call it forth, and which forms a serious but incalculable quantity in the forces of our time. In these symptoms the seeing eye can discern labour moving uneasily under its chronic burden. The unorganised labour breaks out in streetriots and agrarian risings. Labour partially organised in Russia shows an intense revolutionary energy. While the prevalent socialism seeks to gain its ends by peaceful action the situation contains serious possibilities of revolution, especially in Eastern Europe.
It behoves all men of good-will in every country to ponder the extreme gravity of the situation which is being established throughout the civilised world. Are we to face a confused struggle of the old sort between those who have and those who have not, or are we to see the blessed and beneficent action of a great transforming principle? Is it to be a contest for the possession of political power, carried on with violence, and pregnant with incalculable disaster to all concerned? Or may we expect to watch the peaceful progress of a new type of industry gradually but effectually realised, under the guidance of men inspired by high economic and ethical ideals?
In England we have good ground to hope for a peaceful solution. Among our working classes there is a notable absence of rancour, and even of bitterness. But it would be very unwise to count upon the continuance of this spirit, and most unfair to make it an occasion or excuse for further neglect. It should rather be a stimulus to a truer appreciation of the position and needs of the working class. If we survey English history to the beginning of the nineteenth century, our main difficulty is to determine whether our sins of omission or commission have been the greater. Both have been heinous and enormous. In the village communityas it existed long ago we see comprehended all that we now call land, labour, and capital. For the worker it performed the services that are now rendered by the trade union, the co-operative society, the friendly and benefit society, and the insurance society. It stood also for local government, and even to a large degree for what now is national government, defence, justice, and for education so far as was possible long ago. The economic, social, and political life of the men of those earliest times was summed up in the village community.
On the rise of feudalism this village community was transformed into the manor, and on the downfall of feudalism the manor was changed to the modern parish, definable as ‘a distinct area, in which a separate poor-rate is, or can be, levied.’ For a long period after the Black Death in 1349 labour was scarce and had a great opportunity. Through the conversion of small holdings into sheep-runs and the dissolution of the monasteries, labour was made superfluous and helpless. It was a tragic reversal of the situation which has had serious consequences during all the centuries that have followed. The opportunities and advantages which were offered to the worker in ancient times by the village community were at the close of the reign of Elizabeth reduced to the miserable privilege of poor relief! The worker could not be regarded as included within the body politic or social. He was no longer a citizen or member of the community. He was a landless serf, the subject of the landed class, and his position was determined by class legislation and class administration.
When the change came from class legislation tolaissez faire, his position was little improved. Centuries of oppression were followed by generations of neglect. Thus the English workers have suffered in succession from evils of two kinds, from the evils of oppression and from the evils of neglect. This aspect of English history is summed up and condemned in the single fact that we had no national system of education till 1870, a fact all the more striking because Scotland, though much later in its political and economic development, had an enlightened system of education at a very early date.
Factory workers gained much dining the nineteenth century. But even yet the State has hardly done anything substantial for the rural workers. Scarcely a voice has been raised for a class which has borne the chief burden of national industry, of colonisation and war, which for so many centuries carried Church and State, aristocracy and squirearchy, on its much-enduring shoulders. Some of us hoped that in 1885 the time had at last come. We all know what happened to defer it again. Will the State never give heed to such a duty till the demand grows clamorous and agitation menacing? No class has done so much and received so little as the rural workers. Every man connected with the ruling class in England should be ashamed to look one of the peasantry in the face. It is the continual neglect of the needs and claims of the people that makes a peaceful change difficult and prepares for revolution.
There are however, many very promising symptoms.Among these we may note a growing spirit of conciliation and of sympathy with the claims of labour, shown particularly in the friendly and courteous reception accorded to the newly founded Labour Party. In the ruling and possessing classes we may observe an increasing recognition of the necessity to make substantial concessions to the needs and aspirations of the workers. One of the brightest of recent symptoms was the atmosphere, enlightened, sympathetic, and generous, which pervaded the discussions at the Pan-Anglican Congress in 1908. It was a sign of the times. No one could accuse the Congress of being a revolutionary gathering. We may expect that the influence of its members among the conservative and influential classes all over the English-speaking world will have good results.
We have abundant evidence that the American people have done much hard thinking on social politics during recent years. A striking instance of it appears in President Roosevelt’s message to Congress in December 1908. We may summarise as follows the proposals for social legislation which it contained. Besides the general control of the great corporations which he has all along urged, he advocated supervision of corporate finance, a progressive inheritance tax on large fortunes, lightening of the burden of taxation on the small man, prohibition of child labour, diminution of woman labour, shortening of hours of all mechanical labour, an eight hours’ day to be extended as soon and as far as practicable to the entire work to be carried on by Government. He particularly urges theimmediate passing of an effective Employers’ Liability Act. This is a good beginning, and it is a happy omen that such legislation should be advocated by a man with so fearless and stainless a record as Mr. Roosevelt. If the American people are prepared to follow him a beneficent solution of many grave problems is assured.
In the foregoing pages we have discussed the State as a possible engine of social amelioration. But we should not forget that the most hopeful movement of recent times, the co-operative movement, owes little to the State. The State has very great power, but it has no magical power. And it is a grave mistake to regard it too much as the pivot of social evolution. The State itself is only a phase of social evolution. We can trace its rise and progress in history, and its record has not been a good one. While it has been a decisive element of strength in the struggle for existence, it has also too long and too much been an organ for the exploiting of the mass of the people by the ruling minority.
Recent English socialism has given excessive prominence to the State; to the prejudice of the question, and for two reasons. The State means compulsion, and it suggests the official. Socialism carried out by the State suggests bureaucracy, and is opposed to freedom. Such a conception of the subject is most misleading and in the highest degree prejudicial to progress.
In its propaganda the Fabian Society has too often interpreted socialism in terms of the State and the municipality. Though most important, the State and the municipality are only historic phases of deeperprinciples and forces. It may be a way to make the subject intelligible. But this convenience is more than counterbalanced by the tactical disadvantage that orators on the other side find an easy way of ‘confuting’ socialism, by asking how the State or municipality can grapple with the vast complexity of modern industry, and how freedom could be conserved under the compulsory action of the State and its officials.
The proposal in the Fabian Basis to transfer industrial capital to the community ‘without compensation’ is open to still wider and more serious objection. The claim of socialism to be the future form of industrial organisation rests on its superior efficiency. It claims to prevail because it is best, and it needs no arbitrary exercise of power to carry it through. Theoretically and practically, from an economic and political, social, and moral point of view, it lays claim to superior competence to do the best for mankind by giving fuller scope to the free, many-sided development of the highest human life. In this and in other points the language of the Fabian Basis is too suggestive of the rigid and abstract collectivism set forth in the prevalent socialism.
If we are to understand the true inwardness of our subject we must go behind the State. Rightly understood, socialism is concerned with principles and tendencies which are more fundamental than the State. As I have said in another place, ‘Socialism is a new type of social and economic organisation, the aim and tendency of which are to reform the existing society, theState included. It is a principle of social change which goes beyond and behind the existing State, which will modify the State, but does not depend upon it for its realisation.’[1]To be more precise, socialism is a principle of economic organisation, with the correlated social and ethical principles constituting a great ideal, to which the State must be made to conform. How far the State may in this way need to be transformed is a question which hardly concerns us at present.
In the chapter on the Purified Socialism I attempted to show how ‘the true meaning of socialism is given in the dominating tendencies of social evolution.’[2]Through the fog of controversy we should clearly see that the fundamental principle of socialism is marked by extreme simplicity. The keynote of socialism is the principle of association. Only by associating for the ownership and control of land and capital can the people protect themselves against the evils of competition and monopoly. Only by association can they control and utilise the large industry for the general good. It means that industry should be carried on by free associated workers utilising a joint capital with a view to an equitable system of distribution. And in the political organisation of society it has for complement a like ideal, namely, that the old methods of force, subjection, and exploitation should give place to the principle of free association. Through the application and development of the principle of free association it seeks to transform State, municipality, and industry in all their departments.
Socialism rests on the great ideals of freedom and justice, of brotherhood and mutual service. It may well claim to be the heir of the great ideals of the greatest races. The Hebrew ideal of truth, righteousness, and mercy, which on its ethical side was widened and deepened into the Christian ideals of love, brotherhood, and mutual service, and the Greek ideal of the true, the good, and the beautiful, all may and should be accepted by socialism, and they should be supplemented by the Roman conceptions of law, order, and continuity, but with far wider aims and meanings. In its law of mutual service, by which it at once asserted the interdependence of the members of the social organism and a profound conception of social duty, Christianity went deeper, both in philosophy and practice, than the French Revolution with its watchwords of liberty, equality, and fraternity. All these ideals, though not seldom abused and discredited in the rough school of human experience, are in their essence profoundly true and real, and they all meet and are summed up in a worthy conception of the great socialistic ideal.
These ideals, it will be seen, go together; and it should be specially observed that freedom for the mass of mankind can be won and maintained only by association. In the competitive struggle the victors are few; the many are defeated and become subject. It is a delusion to suppose that freedom and competition are really compatible.
This truth has received striking exemplification in the recent history of America. In the course of asingle generation the country has passed under a system of competition from industrial freedom to what looks very like industrial oligarchy. The men who could best adapt themselves to the conditions of competition have won; and the trusts which they have organised are the natural results. The oligarchy appears to be the very unwelcome but very natural result of the free struggle for success which has been the accepted system and the ideal of the American people.
Rightly understood, socialism will thus be seen to embody the highest conceptions of life, ancient and modern, and the highest aspirations of Christian ethics interpreted and applied by the experience of centuries. The failures which we have experienced in realising our ideals are no excuse for lowering them. They are far-reaching; they are limited by obvious natural facts, and cannot be realised in a day. But we should remember that every step forward brings us nearer to the goal.
This great ideal remains, therefore, as a far-shining goal to provoke and encourage the endeavours of men to attain it. We cannot lower it, but we should be grateful for every sincere attempt to reach it, for every successful step towards it. For the rise and growth of socialism a lower and, as some would reckon, a more solid foundation is all that we need. The necessary minimum is an enlightened self-interest. Socialism does not aim at the extinguishing or superseding of the self-regarding principle—that is impossible and absurd. It seeks to regulate it, to place it under social guidance and control. When and so far as the mass of the peoplein any particular country and throughout the world gain a moderate, rational, and enlightened view of their real needs and interests, then and so far will socialism tend to be realised. While the elect souls have been and are ready to go far in deeds of heroism and self-sacrifice, nothing more is demanded of the average mass of mankind than to learn to understand their true interests. On this prosaic basis much has already been done.
While the competitive system still holds the field, we have very good grounds for thinking that it should pass away, and is passing away. We have seen how, in accordance with the fundamental principles of socialism, the State is becoming, not in name only, but in reality, an association for the promotion of common national interests, in so far as they can well be furthered by the central organ; and we have also seen how the municipality or commune is really beginning to perform the same functions for local purposes. In the co-operative system, in the growth of trade unions, of arbitration, boards of conciliation, and similar forms of organisation, we see partial efforts towards a comprehensive system of social control over the industrial processes. And the natural development of the company is providing the mechanism whereby it may also be placed under social management. It is clear that along these lines the movement may spread till it cover the whole field of our social-economic life and place the competitive spirit under an effective and reasonable regulation.
It may be well here to speak more at length regarding the functions of the State under a rationalsocialism. Of all the absurdities entertained about socialism by its critics, and apparently also by some of its adherents, the most grotesque is the idea that everything will be done by the direct action of the State. It will rather be the aim of a reasonable socialism to diminish and lighten the pressure of the State as an engine of compulsion and coercion, and to offer suitable scope for the free action of the individual and the family, for free association and voluntary agreement. For this reason one of the most urgent needs of such a socialism will be to promote local autonomy, and also to foster what we may call the autonomy of the individual and the family, but in a living organic relation to the whole community.
We must therefore regard social action as proceeding not only from above downwards, but also from below upwards, and indeed mutually and reciprocally through all the members and departments of society, from the centre to the extremities and from the extremities to the centre. But even this is only a very imperfect explanation of an organic process which expresses itself in a consensus of life and action.
The federal idea also very imperfectly expresses the relation that the parts may bear to each other and to the whole in a great society, but it helps us to understand. This federal conception may have a great future, in Austria-Hungary, in Russia, and in the Balkan Peninsula, for the solution of political difficulties. The British Empire is being transformed into a free association of free States. And we may add that thehighest directing agency in the Empire, the British Cabinet, is a combination of the leading men of the strongest party for the time being, who in the main hold the same political views, and who are united, not according to a statute or a written constitution, or any kind of formal contract, but by what for want of a better name we may call a gentlemen’s agreement. The British Cabinet may be regarded as a free association of gentlemen, the Premier presidingprimus inter pares.
As regards socialism, one of the most urgent needs for the promoting of local and individual autonomy is fully to reconstitute the homestead and the village community. The homestead will satisfy the most natural craving for individual property and for a family and ancestral home, with all the beneficent and sacred association implied in such a home. ‘The area of the homestead should be sufficient to employ and support a family.’ In my bookProgress and the Fiscal Problem(p. 172) I have spoken of such a homestead as a freehold. But it matters comparatively little what legal term we employ, provided the occupancy be permanent and not dependent on the will of officials connected with the central government. There should, however, be some guarantee that the social conditions of occupancy be fulfilled. Tax or rent might reasonably be paid into a social fund for collective needs. Here, as in other matters, one of the difficulties in elucidating a reasonable socialism lies in the fact that we have to use old words to express facts and institutions that may be expected to become new,or at least to undergo a material change in the course of social development. For such words, it should be observed, have not a final and conclusive meaning which can be stereotyped and put into a definition in a dictionary or legal enactment, but can only be unfolded in actual human use and in the process of changing human history. It is meant that the homestead and the village community be restored to a full and beneficent life under modern conditions and to serve modern needs.
Of the State for the near future the most desirable type undoubtedly is one which, while providing a strong and efficient central organisation, gives a real and substantial autonomy to the various parts and members of which it may be composed. And it will be one of the noblest functions of such a State to train to a higher social and political life the peoples which are now subject and by some are reckoned inferior. This duty Great Britain is performing in India and Egypt. The United States of America have undertaken a like office in Cuba and the Philippine Islands. It might even be possible under wise guidance to lead peoples like the Kaffirs direct from the warlike and tribal stage into the industrial and co-operative stage. Some day, perhaps, the best solution for racial difficulties in America may be to give some kind of special autonomy to the negroes in the hot regions where they are most thickly planted near the Gulf of Mexico.
Progress in these high matters will obviously depend on the growing insight and sympathy of therulers, as well as on the increasing enlightenment, self-control, and political experience of the subject races. It is a most important matter that the task has been worthily begun. Such work is in quality like mercy—
It is twice blest:It blesseth him that gives and him that takes.
It is twice blest:It blesseth him that gives and him that takes.
It is twice blest:It blesseth him that gives and him that takes.
It is twice blest:
It blesseth him that gives and him that takes.
It will most effectually tend to cultivate the nobler political life in the States that have undertaken it, and we may believe that it will in the course of time train the more backward races in the higher life of self-government, and introduce among them the co-operative organisation of industry which is required by modern conditions. In all this we see a striking contrast to the older empires, in which the domination of race, nation, and class was twice cursed, a curse alike to rulers and ruled, to master and slave, to lord and serf. In these matters generally a reasonable socialism demands the transformation of empire into a free association of free States bound by ties of mutual service. For a fuller treatment of this idea I may refer my readers to the chapter ‘Bonds of Empire’ in my bookSouth Africa Old and New(p. 95).
Referring to questions which were raised in other parts of this book, we believe that recent modifications in the Iron Law of Wages, which have been alleged in confutation of Lassalle’s position, are really symptoms of the decline of capitalism. Such modifications are due to influences which are inconsistent with the continued predominance of capitalism. And here we may say explicitly that socialism has no controversy withthe prevalent political economy in so far as it is a correct description and analysis of the prevalent economic system. The aim of socialism is to show why and how that system should and must pass away, and is passing away; and we may believe that this is a much worthier task, from the point of view both of science and the public good, than the microscopic investigation of the conditions of the competitive system, which constitutes so large a portion of the current political economy. Anyhow the practical aim of socialism is to remove and abolish the conditions under which the so-called laws of political economy had their validity. Regarding the assumption so often made by economists that individual self-interest is the solid basis on which science must build, we can only say that it is not science, but a one-sided and erroneous conception of human nature, of human society, and of social evolution, which obviously requires the most serious correction.
With regard to the population question, and the question of the struggle for existence so intimately connected with it, we can no longer ignore the practice of limitation of families, which has now become so prevalent. It cannot be regarded as a satisfactory solution of the population question. In the past it has been one of the surest signs of a stagnant and decadent nation. No race or nation, in which the rights and duties of motherhood or the family moralities are slightly valued, can hope permanently to maintain a high standard of life and worth. We may most surely forecast the future of a class or nation from the manner in whichthe rights and duties of motherhood are observed by it. To use the language of biology, race suicide is the most unfavourable variation which classes and nations can inflict upon themselves. But we are not in this book concerned with the general question. What we have to note here is that the practice of limiting families, having become so prevalent, will tend to diminish the intensity of the struggle for existence, which it is the aim of socialism to regulate. For this reason we must recognise it as a fact which has an important bearing on our subject.
It was a theory of the Marx school that thebourgeoisie, in the course of the development of capitalism, would be ‘no longer capable of controlling the industrial world.’[3]The recent development of the trust system in America and Germany has shown that thebourgeoisieare only too capable of doing so on the vastest scale. The leaders of the trusts are showing that they can regulate production, wages, prices, and the markets, not for nations only but for the world. Oligarchies showed their capacity in Rome, Carthage, Venice, and Holland for centuries. They came to ruin at last, but the causes of their ruin were wider and deeper than mere want of capacity. With these we are not concerned here. The concern of socialism is that the oligarchy or plutocracy which is foreshadowed in the gigantic trust system should not be allowed to gain a permanent footing, but should be regulated and transformed in the way required by the public good. The trust is a menace alike tolabour and to society. With the growth of the trust system free competition really ceases to exist, and the alternative lies between a gigantic system of monopoly and socialism.
We believe also that Marx made a serious mistake in holding that the further development of capitalism will be marked by the growing ‘wretchedness, oppression, slavery, degeneracy, and exploitation’[4]of the working class. Facts and reasonable expectations combine clearly to indicate that the democracy, on which the social evolution of the future depends, is marked by a growing intellectual, moral, and political capacity, and by an increasing freedom and prosperity; and all these things make it only more ardent and capable for further progress and for the great tasks that lie before it. Social progress must in the last resort depend on the character and capacity of the human beings concerned in it. The democracy, the representative and promoter of the new order, shows a growing fitness for its world-historic mission. The claim of socialism to be the dominant form of social organisation in the future must ultimately be its efficiency to fulfil the great ends of social union, and the decisive element in this efficiency must be the fitness of the agents who are to realise it.
This is a point of supreme and far-reaching importance which it will be well for us to ponder. All social problems in the long run resolve themselves into the question of human character. The moral forcescontrol the world and the course of history. It has been the special function of socialism to show that a real and durable freedom can be established only on an economic basis. We should also not forget that such freedom can be attained and secured only by loyalty to reason and especially to moral law. Freedom and social progress, reason and morality, are correlated and organic conceptions which go together and can thrive only in harmony.
Government of State and municipality is only a mechanism, of which the action for good or evil will depend on the spirit by which it is moved. The nationalisation of railways may merely open up a new field of corruption, if there is not integrity to manage them for the public good. Noble ideals are of no avail, if they remain outside of our spiritual framework: they must be assimilated and become part of us. Fine sentiments, unless they are consolidated into character and translated into habitual action, may become an insidious and harmful form of self-indulgence. Let it be understood that in the great struggle for a really free commonwealth against organised wealth, called plutocracy, on which men are now entering, we shall achieve victory only by deserving it. The sacred cause of freedom will not be maintained by mammon-worshippers, parasites, and pedants. No nation or class whose women are slaves of self-indulgence and of fashion can expect to be free. We cannot hope that freedom will thrive among the base and mean, or the hysterical, irresponsible, frivolous, and apathetic.
To use the words of John Milton, it was a ‘strenuous liberty’ which was cherished and maintained by our Puritan forefathers, the fathers and founders of the American Commonwealth. We know with what solemnity and earnestness, with what gravity, deliberation, and foresight they entered on the long struggle against Stuart tyranny. If the Americans and we are to succeed in the coming struggle against plutocracy, an abundant measure of the high and virile qualities which characterised their forefathers and ours will be needed.
Happily signs are not wanting that a spirit and character strenuous and capable of the task of reformation will be forthcoming. In all civilised countries, and especially in America, men have been accomplices in the sin of mammon-worship: success in the struggle for wealth, with its many base and unscrupulous incidents, has been far too highly esteemed. There has been, especially in America, a great moral awakening, which we may expect to have good results among all classes. As regards the working classes, we have seen how long and hard in most countries has been their discipline of privation and sorrow. The representatives of labour have for generations undergone a stern and severe training in prison and exile. In Russia to-day they have been suffering and inflicting horrors which have been far worse.
But as we have repeatedly had occasion to point out in this book, their training in constructive work, in political organisation, in trade unions, and co-operativesocieties has been vastly more efficacious. Most promising of all; as we have seen, is the co-operative movement, because it best combines the collective use of the means of production and exchange with individual freedom and responsibility. In the vast and ever-widening co-operative movement we can see a new society rising in the midst of the old. Every year it widens and grows, and we hope it will grow and widen till the old, with all its false and base ideals, its unreason, its militarism, its mismanagement, waste, and extravagance has been put away. Hearts have been burning with the sacred fire of noble ideals in the promoting of this grand work. Imaginations have been haunted with beautiful dreams, which have not been vain. But we should prize not less the patient and persevering integrity which, through a multitude of petty and prosaic details, is bearing the movement onward to an ever higher position in the world. At Ghent and other places we may already see both in spirit and material outline the city that is to be, the new society that is rising to make life happy and beautiful for the people who have mourned so long! In the application of the co-operative principle to agriculture we can at last see an ending to the oppression of the tiller of the soil by the usurer and middleman, which has been a stain on civilisation since it began thousands of years ago in the valleys of the Euphrates and the Nile.
The day is coming, perhaps it may be near at hand, when we shall be able to discover and to apply the true tests of greatness. When, with their help, weare able to write history in a really scientific manner, we shall find that the Napoleons and the others, the records of whose doings now fill our libraries, were not great at all, but the reverse of it, and that the true heroes and benefactors of the nineteenth century were the poor weavers of Rochdale and Ghent, who started and carried forward the co-operative movement. All honour to them for what they have done!
And yet all that they have done is only the solid and hopeful beginning of the realisation of our dreams. For the ideal is superb and exacting. Men are slow to move towards it. They find it hard even to understand and appreciate its beauty and excellence. Let us fervently hope that after the way towards a good and beautiful life for humanity has been so clearly pointed out, an ever-increasing multitude may have the wisdom to walk in it.
We believe that the transition to a reasonable socialism will be marked by a long and testing process of social selection. From the beginning of the movement socialist theories have been subjected to the tests of discussion and of experience. Socialist parties have also undergone very severe trial in debate, organisation, and action. Trade unions and labour parties have been obliged to go through a very hard course of discipline and of suffering.
It should be particularly observed that these tests more and more belong to the domain of intelligence, of moral character, and of skilled organisation. Success in the struggle for existence depends on fitness oradaptation to surrounding conditions. In the lower stages of the struggle for existence, as we saw in Chap. XII., the conditions were of a lower order. In the ascending struggle for a higher existence the conditions are higher and offer a severer and more exacting test. Labour which aspires to a higher life must stand those higher tests. Socialist programmes and resolutions are therefore perfectly right in dwelling on the urgent need for agitation, education, and organisation as a means of training the working class for its great duties and its high career. And we may repeat that the most urgent need of all is the capacity, moral and intellectual, for association.
Thus the transition to socialism can be made only by increasing and widening adaptation to the higher conditions of intelligence, character, and organisation. Once made, the change to socialism will place men in a higher moral and economic environment. As we saw, two vital human interests will under socialism be no longer subject to the conditions of competition, the working day and the ‘daily bread.’ Every able man will be under obligation to perform reasonable service for a competent livelihood; but beyond this his time and faculties will be his own. In this better environment men will find the rights and the opportunities which will give them the basis and scope for a better life. There will be corresponding duties and obligations. And for those who, from vices and defects of temperament or of habit, are not disposed to fulfil such obligations suitable measures of social discipline willneed to be devised. The weak and disabled will receive suitable guidance and support. But we may be assured that all normally constituted men will be ready to respond to all natural and reasonable calls.
Social service will be the main field for emulation, rivalry, and ambition, and here the struggle for a higher life may be carried on under the better conditions which will prevail. We may call it competition if we will, but it will be competition on terms that differ entirely from those which exist under the present system. It will be competition for social distinction and rewards. The reticence, secrecy, and hypocrisy, the jealousy and detraction, which are now so common will pass away. Men will be able to live sincerely and openly. Their record will be an open and public one, which their fellow-citizens will be able to read and estimate fairly. And we should avoid the grave mistake of confounding the human qualities that make for success in the present competition with the qualities that would meet with approval under the new system. The qualities that command success at present we all know. The qualities that would meet with favour under a reasonable socialism will be those which answer to the great ideals we have spoken of, and particularly those which fit men for the best social service.
The waste and demoralisation, the injustice and cruelty, which are so rife under the present system will pass away. But the new era will work for much more than the mere abolition of evil. It will make for the positive and integral development of the highest humanlife. Natural capacity in all the forms that are consistent with social good will have free scope for unfolding itself. We may believe that in the majority of lives the exercise of natural endowment will be in direct conformity with the requirements of social service. It will obviously be for the good of society that each will do the work for which he is best fitted. Spiritual teaching, scientific discovery, literature, art, and music will all be duly prized and rewarded as modes of social service. But if the aspirant wishes to do his share of social work in the form of some ordinary craft, in order to devote his ample leisure to a special pursuit entirely of his own choosing, he will be free to do so. In this matter freedom will be an interest of the first order.
The lesson taught by much recent experience and the goal of many convergent tendencies seem undoubtedly to be, that society should control industry in its own interest. An industry carried on by free associated men would be in perfect accord with other forms and methods of progress, ethical, political, and economic. The purified socialism may be regarded as the co-ordination and consummation of every other form of human progress, inasmuch as it applies to the use of man all the factors of scientific, mechanical, and artistic development in harmony with the prevailing political and ethical ideas.
It is therefore a most desirable form of organisation. And many large and growing symptoms show that it is practicable. It is a type of organisation which may take shape in a thousand diverse ways, according tothe differences in historic conditions and in national temperament. Within its limits, as we have seen, there will be reasonable scope for individual development and for every variety of liking and capacity consistent with the well-being of others; but exceptional talent and the generous enthusiasm which is its fitting accompaniment will more and more find their proper field in the service of society, an ideal which is already largely realised in the democratic state.
In a rational socialism we may therefore see a long and widening avenue of progress, along which the improvement of mankind may be continued in a peaceful and gradual, yet most hopeful, sure, and effective way. Such a prospect offers the best remedy for the apathy and frivolity, cynicism and pessimism, which are now so prevalent; and it is the most effectual counteractive to restlessness, discontent, and all the evils and excesses of the revolutionary spirit. Under it the social forces will consciously and directly work for social ideals. The ideal will be made real, and might and right will be reconciled. The real forces which operate in modern history will be shaped by beneficent ideals, till, as Tennyson sings,
Each man find his own in all men’s good,And all men work in noble brotherhood.
Each man find his own in all men’s good,And all men work in noble brotherhood.
Each man find his own in all men’s good,And all men work in noble brotherhood.
Each man find his own in all men’s good,
And all men work in noble brotherhood.
May we not with Saint-Simon hope that the golden age is not behind but before us?
[1]Inquiry into Socialism, 3rd edition, p. 133.
[1]
Inquiry into Socialism, 3rd edition, p. 133.
[2]See pp. 287, 288.
[2]
See pp. 287, 288.
[3]See p. 148.
[3]
See p. 148.
[4]Kapital, p. 790.
[4]
Kapital, p. 790.
After the Revolution of 1830 the Saint-Simonists were referred to in the French Chamber of Deputies as a sect who advocated community of goods and of women. The following communication in their defence was addressed to the Chamber by Bazard and Enfantin, October 1, 1830:—
‘The Saint-Simonists undoubtedly do profess ideas on the future of property and of women which are special to themselves, and which are connected with views entirely new and special on religion, authority, liberty—in short, on all the great problems which are now being agitated over the whole of Europe with so much disorder and violence; but these ideas are very different from the opinions which men attribute to them.
‘The system of community of goods is always understood to mean equal division among all the members of society, either of the means of production or of the fruit of the labour of all.
‘The Saint-Simonists reject this equal division of property, which in their eyes would constitute a greater violence, a more revolting injustice, than the unequal division, which was originally effected by force of arms, by conquest.
‘For they believe in the natural inequality of men, and regard this inequality as the very basis of association, as the indispensable condition of social order.
‘They reject the system of community of goods, for this would be a manifest violation of the first of all themoral laws, which it is their mission to teach, and which enjoins that in the future each man should be placed according to his capacity, and rewarded according to his work.
‘But in virtue of this law they demand the abolition of all the privileges of birth without exception, and consequently the destruction of the right of inheritance, the greatest of those privileges, which at present comprehends them all, and of which the effect is to leave to chance the distribution of social privileges amongst the small number of those who can lay claim to them, and to condemn the most numerous class to depravation, ignorance, and misery.
‘They demand that all the instruments of labour, land, and capital, which at present form the divided stock of private proprietors, should be exploited by associations with a suitable gradation of functions, so that the task of each may be the expression of his capacity, and his riches the measure of his services.
‘The Saint-Simonists do not attack the institution of private property, except in so far as it consecrates for some the impious privilege of idleness—that is to say, of living on the labour of others; except as it leaves to the accident of birth the social status of individuals.
‘Christianity has delivered women from slavery, but it has nevertheless condemned them to an inferior position, and in Christian Europe we still see them everywhere deprived of religious, political, and civil rights.
‘The Saint-Simonists announce their final liberation, their complete emancipation, but they do not aim at abolishing the sacred law of marriage proclaimed by Christianity; on the contrary, they desire to fulfil this law, to give it a new sanction, to add to the authority and inviolability of the union which it consecrates.
‘Like Christians they demand that a single man be united to a single woman; but they teach that the wife should become the equal of the husband, and that, according to the special grace with which God has endowed her sex, she should be associated in the exercise of the triple function of religion, the State, and the family, so thatthe social individual, which hitherto has been the man only, may henceforward be man and woman.
‘The religion of Saint-Simon seeks only to abolish the shameful traffic, the legal prostitution, which, under the name of marriage, at present so frequently consecrates the unnatural union of self-sacrifice and egotism, of intelligence and ignorance, of youth and decrepitude.
‘Such are the most general ideas of the Saint-Simonists on the changes which they demand in the arrangements of property and in the social condition of women.’
Gotha,May1875.
I. Labour is the source of all wealth and all culture, and as useful work in general is possible only through society, so to society, that is to all its members, the entire product belongs; while as the obligation to labour is universal, all have an equal right to such product, each one according to his reasonable needs.
In the existing society the instruments of labour are a monopoly of the capitalist class; the subjection of the working class thus arising is the cause of misery and servitude in every form.
The emancipation of the working class demands the transformation of the instruments of labour into the common property of society and the co-operative control of the total labour, with application of the product of labour to the common good and just distribution of the same.
The emancipation of labour must be the work of the labouring class, in contrast to which all other classes are only a reactionary mass.
II. Proceeding from these principles, the socialistic working men’s party of Germany aims by all legal means at the establishment of the free state and the socialistic society, to destroy the Iron Law of Wages by abolishingthe system of wage-labour, to put an end to exploitation in every form, to remove all social and political inequality.
The socialistic working men’s party of Germany, though acting first of all within the national limits, is conscious of the international character of the labour movement, and resolved to fulfil all the duties which this imposes on the workmen, in order to realise the universal brotherhood of men.
In order to prepare the way for the solution of the social question, the socialistic working men’s party of Germany demands the establishment of socialistic productive associations with State help under the democratic control of the labouring people. The productive associations are to be founded on such a scale both for industry and agriculture that out of them may develop the socialistic organisation of the total labour.
The socialistic working men’s party of Germany demands as the basis of the State:—
I. Universal, equal, and direct right of electing and voting, with secret and obligatory voting, of all citizens from twenty years of age, for all elections and deliberations in the State and local bodies. The day of election or voting must be a Sunday or holiday.
II. Direct legislation by the people. Questions of war and peace to be decided by the people.
III. Universal military duty. A people’s army in place of the standing armies.
IV. Abolition of all exceptional laws, especially as regards the press, unions, and meetings, and generally of all laws which restrict freedom of thought and inquiry.
V. Administration of justice by the people. Free justice.
VI. Universal and equal education by the State. Compulsory education. Free education in all public places of instruction. Religion declared to be a private concern.
The socialistic working men’s party demands within the existing society:
(1) Greatest possible extension of political rights and liberties in the sense of the above demands.
(2) A single progressive income-tax for State and commune, instead of the existing taxes, and especially of the indirect taxes that oppress the people.
(3) Unrestricted right of combination.
(4) A normal working-day corresponding to the needs of society. Prohibition of Sunday labour.
(5) Prohibition of labour of children, and of all women’s labour that is injurious to health and morality.
(6) Laws for the protection of the life and health of workmen. Sanitary control of workmen’s dwellings. Inspection of mines, of factories, workshops, and home industries by officials chosen by the workmen. An effective Employers’ Liability Act.
(7) Regulation of prison labour.
(8) Workmen’s funds to be under the entire control of the workmen.
I. To make industrial and moral worth, not wealth, the true standard of individual and national greatness.
II. To secure to the workers the full enjoyment of the wealth they create; sufficient leisure in which to develop their intellectual, moral, and social faculties; all the benefits, recreation, and pleasures of association; in a word, to enable them to share in the gains and honours of advancing civilisation.
In order to secure these results, we demand of the State:
III. The establishment of Bureaus of Labour Statistics, that we may arrive at a correct knowledge of the educational, moral, and financial condition of the labouring masses.
IV. That the public lands, the heritage of the people, be reserved for actual settlers; not another acre for railroads or speculators: and that all lands now held for speculative purposes be taxed to their full value.
V. The abrogation of all laws that do not bear equallyupon capital and labour, and the removal of unjust technicalities, delays, and discriminations in the administration of justice.
VI. The adoption of measures providing for the health and safety of those engaged in mining, manufacturing, and building industries; and for indemnification to those engaged therein for injuries received through lack of necessary safeguards.
VII. The recognition by incorporation of trades-unions, orders, and such other associations as may be organised by the working masses to improve their condition and protect their rights.
VIII. The enactment of laws to compel corporations to pay their employees weekly, in lawful money, for the labour of the preceding week, and giving mechanics and labourers a first lien upon the product of their labour to the extent of their full wages.
IX. The abolition of the contract system on national, State, and municipal works.
X. The enactment of laws providing for arbitration between employers and employed, and to enforce the decision of the arbitrators.
XI. The prohibition by law of the employment of children under fifteen years of age in workshops, mines, and factories.
XII. To prohibit the hiring out of convict labour.
XIII. That a graduated income-tax be levied.
And we demand at the hands of the Congress:
XIV. The establishment of a national monetary system, in which a circulating medium in necessary quantity shall issue direct to the people, without the intervention of banks; that all the national issue shall be full legal tender in payment of all debts, public and private; and that the Government shall not guarantee or recognise any private banks, or create any banking corporations.
XV. That interest-bearing bonds, bills of credit or notes shall never be issued by the Government, but that, when need arises, the emergency shall be met by issue of legal tender, non-interest-bearing money.
XVI. That the importation of foreign labour under contract be prohibited.
XVII. That in connection with the post-office, the Government shall organise financial exchanges, safe deposits and facilities for deposit of the savings of the people in small sums.
XVIII. That the Government shall obtain possession, by purchase, under the rights of eminent domain, of all telegraphs, telephones, and railroads, and that hereafter no charter or licence be issued to any corporation for construction or operation of any means of transporting intelligence, passengers or freight.
And while making the foregoing demands upon the State and National Government, we will endeavour to associate our own labours:
XIX. To establish co-operative institutions such as will tend to supersede the wage system, by the introduction of a co-operative industrial system.
XX. To secure for both sexes equal pay for equal work.
XXI. To shorten the hours of labour by a general refusal to work for more than eight hours.
XXII. To persuade employers to agree to arbitrate all differences which may arise between them and their employees, in order that the bonds of sympathy between them may be strengthened and that strikes may be rendered unnecessary.
The Fabian Society consists of socialists.
It therefore aims at the reorganisation of society by the emancipation of Land and Industrial Capital from individual and class ownership, and the vesting of them in the community for the general benefit. In this way only can the natural and acquired advantages of the country be equitably shared by the whole people.
The Society accordingly works for the extinction of private property in land and of the consequent individual appropriation, in the form of rent of the price paid forpermission to use the earth, as well as for the advantages of superior soils and sites.
The Society, further, works for the transfer to the community of the administration of such industrial capital as can conveniently be managed socially. For, owing to the monopoly of the means of production in the past, industrial inventions and the transformation of surplus income into capital have mainly enriched the proprietary class, the worker being now dependent on that class for leave to earn a living.
If these measures be carried out, without compensation (though not without such relief to expropriated individuals as may seem fit to the community), rent and interest will be added to the reward of labour, the idle class now living on the labour of others will necessarily disappear, and practical equality of opportunity will be maintained by the spontaneous action of economic forces with much less interference with personal liberty than the present system entails.
For the attainment of these ends the Fabian Society looks to the spread of socialist opinions, and the social and political changes consequent thereon, including the establishment of equal citizenship for men and women. It seeks to promote these by the general dissemination of knowledge as to the relation between the individual and society in its economic, ethical, and political aspects.
The work of the Fabian Society takes, at present, the following forms:—
(1) Meetings for the discussion of questions connected with socialism.
(2) The further investigation of economic problems, and the collection of facts contributing to their elucidation.
(3) The issue of publications containing information on social questions, and arguments relating to socialism.
(4) The promotion of socialist lectures and debates in other societies and clubs.
(5) The representation of the Society in public conferences and discussions on social questions.