" Down to the present generation," says Mr. Sidney Webb, "the aspirant after social regeneration naturally vindicated the practicability of his ideas by offering an elaborate plan with specifications of a new social order from which all contemporary evils were eliminated. Just as Plato has his republic and Sir Thomas More his Utopia, so Babeuf had his charter of equality, Cabet his 'Icaria,' St. Simon his 'Industrial System,' and Fourier his ideal 'Phalanstery.' " Robert Owen spent a fortune in pressing upon an unbelieving generation his 'New Moral World,' and even Auguste Comte, superior as he was to many of the weaknesses of his time, must needs add a detailed polity to his 'Philosophy of Positivism.' "
Since their day we have learned that social reconstruction must not be gone at in this fashion. "The necessity of the constant growth and development of the social organism has become axiomatic. No philosopher now looks for anything but a gradual evolution of the new order from the old, without breach of continuity or abrupt charge of the entire social tissue at any point during the process. The new becomes itself old often before it is consciously recognised as new, and history shows us no example of the sudden substitutions of Utopian and revolutionary romance."
The failure to recognise this changed attitude of advanced socialists on the part of the opponents of Socialism leads to their failure to understand a movement which for good or evil is the inevitable outcome of democracy and the industrial revolution. Though socialists have learnt this lesson the common criticism of socialism has not yet noted the change, and still deals mainly with the obsolete Utopias of a pre-revolutionary age. Parodies of the domestic details of an imaginary phalanstery and homilies on the failure of " Brook Farm" or "Icaria" may be passed over as belated and irrelevant now that socialists are only advocating the conscious adoption of a principle of social organisation which the world has already found to be inevitable in advanced societies. Mr. Webb significantly says — "Socialism is a wave surging throughout all Europe, and for want of a grasp of the series of apparently unconnected events by which and with which it has been for two generations rapidly coming upon us—for want, in short, of knowledge of the intellectual history, we in England to-day see our political leaders in a general attitude of astonishment at the changing face of current politics—both great parties drifting vaguely before a nameless undercurrent which they fail utterly to recognise or understand. With some dim impression that socialism is one of the Utopian dreams they remember to have heard comfortably disposed of in their academic youth as the impossible ideal of humanity, intoxicated Frenchmen, they go their way through the nineteenth century as a countryman blunders through Cheapside. One or two are history fanciers, learned in curious details of the past; the present eludes them no less than the others. They are so near to the individual events that they are blind to the onward sweep of the column. They cannot see the forest for the trees."
Mr. Bernard Shaw's economic analysis of the existing order is it must be admitted a very suggestive article. He claims to have shown "that private property is unjust, even from the beginning, and utterly impossible as a final solution of even the individualist aspect of the problem of adjusting the share of the worker in the distribution of wealth to the labor incurred by him in its production. All attempts yet made to construct true societies upon it have failed. The nearest things to societies so achieved have been civilisations, which have rotted into centres of vice and luxury and eventually been swept away by uncivilised races." That English civilisation is already in an advanced stage of rottenness may be taken, Mr. Shaw says, as statistically proved. "That further decay, instead of improvement, must ensue if the institution of private property be maintained, is economically certain. Although the safety-valve of emigration has been furiously at work during this century, yet the pressure of population has forced English politicians and social reformers to begin the restitution to the people of the sums taken from them for the ground landlords, holders of tenant right, and capitalists by the imposition of an income tax, and by compelling them to establish out of their revenues a national system of education, besides imposing restrictions—as yet only of the forcible feeble sort—on their terrible power of abusing the wages contract. It is clear to every thoughtful man that emigration can afford only temporary relief to the congested conditions of tho older civilisations."
Mr. William Clarke states, as the object of his paper, the presentation of "a brief narrative of the economic history of the last century or century and a half." From this he draws a moral that there has been, and is, proceeding an economic evolution practically independent of our individual desires or prejudices; an evolution which has changed the whole social problem by changing the conditions of material production, and which, ipso facto, effects a revolution in our modern life. To learn clearly what this revolution is, and to prepare ourselves for taking advantage of it in due course Mr. Clarke takes to be briefly what is meant by socialism. "The ignorant public represented by, let us say, the average bishop or member of Parliament, hears of the social revolution and instantly thinks of street riots, noyades, with a coup d'etat —a 10th of August, followed perhaps by its Nemesis in an 18th Brumaire. But these are not the social revolutions. That great change is proceeding silently every day. Each new line of railway that opens up the trackless desert, every new machine that supplants hand labor, each fresh combination formed by capitalists, every new labor organisation, every change in prices, each new invention —all these forces, and many more, are actually working out a social revolution before our eyes, for they are changing fundamentally the economic basis of life." For a vivid sketch of the terrible condition of workers we must refer our readers to Mr. Clarke's paper; as also for an analysis of "Property under Socialism," to Mr. Graham Wallas's paper on that subject; and for a statement of the probable forms of industry under socialism to Mrs, Besant's article.
Turning now to that portion of the book which will probably be most interesting to a large number of persons, we have two papers dealing with the "Transition to social democracy." Mr. Bernard Shaw deals with the practical steps by which the transition to democracy is likely to be accomplished, and Mr. Robert Bland with its effect on political parties in the immediate future.
The questions which arise in almost every mind when perusing the writings of the socialists are these:—Suppose for a moment that their diagnosis of the case is correct, and that their criticisms of the existing order are just; and granting still farther, for the sake of argument, that the remedies which the socialists suggest are ideally perfect, and would, it applied and carried out thoroughly, accomplish everything that they themselves say, how are these ideas to be realised? In short, how is the transition to the new order to be completed? and what effect would such a tremendous change as is involved in this transition have upon our present social structure and the men and women who constitute it?
To these questions Mr. G. Bernard Shaw and Mr. Hubert Bland distinctly and definitely address themselves. They are alive to the practical difficulties which confront every social reformer. Mr. Shaw, in particular, admits very frankly that the transition cannot be accomplished without difficulty. But he very distinctly says that these practical difficulties are the only valid objections to socialism. "On the ground of abstract justice socialism is not only unobjectionable but sacredly imperative. . . It is as honest as it is inevitable ; but all the mobs and guillotines in the world can no more establish it than police coercion can avert it."
The first practical difficulty is raised by the idea of the entire people collectively owning land, capital, or anything else. Here is the rent arising out of the people's industry; here are the pockets of the private proprietors. The problem is to drop that rent, not into those private pockets, but into the people's pockets. Yes; but where is the people's pocket? Who is the people ? What is the people? Tom we know, and Dick, also Harry; but solely and separately as individuals—as a trinity they have no existence. Who is their trustee, their guardian, their man of business,their manager, their secretary, even their stakeholder? The socialist is stopped dead at the threshold of practical action by this difficulty until he bethinks himself of the State as the representative and trustee of the people. But the State as we know it is incompetent and corrupt. The socialist, however, has learnt from Hegel to believe in a perfect State, or, at least, in a State, if not absolutely perfect, practically trustworthy. The gradual transition to social democracy means the gradual extension of the franchise, and the transfer of rent and interest to the State, not in one lump sum, but by instalments. Looked at in this way it will at once be seen that we are already far on the road, and are being urged farther by many politicians who do not dream that they are touched with socialism—nay, who would earnestly repudiate the touch as a taint.
The difference between the modern socialist of the more thoughtful type and the socialist of, say, 30 years ago, is well illustrated by an amusing episode in Mr. Shaw's experience. On being asked satirically and publicly when a young man, how long be thought it would take to get socialism into working order if he had his way, he replied with a spirited modesty that a fortnight would be ample for the purpose. But time and experience have corrected the optimism of youth. The socialists of these days have fallen into line as a social democratic party, and are now no more insurrectionary in their policy that any other party. The more immediate demands of the socialists are these—Manhood suffrage, the abolition of all poverty disqualifications, the Abolition of the Home of Lords, the public payment of candidature expenses, public payment of representatives, and annual elections.
We gather from these essays (of which Mr. W. C. Rigby has just received the cheap edition) that the socialists have not been blind to the lessons of history any more than their opponents. They see plainly the mistakes of their predecessors, and they are deeply impressed with the serious practical difficulties which lie in their pathway to the realisation of their ideals. Above all, they have learnt patience, and are prepared to work along lines that are recognised by advanced politicians as practicable.
Sydney Morning Herald 14 March 1891
Socialism is much in the air just now, and for the simple reason that it is obviously taking new departures. The old revolutionary Socialism of men like Mr. William Morris is out of date, and the newest school seek to attain their ends by gradual evolution and educational methods. There is an admirable article by Mr. David F. Schloss on the latest developments of Socialism in the Fortnightly Review, and a still more remarkable one by Mr. Oscar Wilde. The latter argues that there can be no true individualism without socialism. At present we have to live for others; when the socialist ideal is realised, then, according to Mr. Oscar Wilde, we can begin to live for ourselves. Their are obvious answers to some of his arguments, but his article is well worth reading.
The Advertiser 14 October 1890,
No comments:
Post a Comment