From Essays in Socialism New & Old (1907), pp.7-13.
IT may seem at first sight almost superfluous to add one more to the already sufficiently numerous definitions and brief expositions of Socialism. It can hardly, however, be deemed so, when one takes into consideration the misconceptions still existing, in spite of all the current thought and writing on Socialism going on around them, among all save those who have given themselves especial trouble to study the subject. To take only one or two obvious absurdities commonly to be heard from the man-in-the-street. Prominent among these is the extraordinary notion that Socialism to be consistent, in some mysterious way, involves a squalid way of living – that the great antithesis of Socialism is luxury. Another is, that Socialism presupposes a saint-like self-abnegation on the part of the individual. Even the old idea of the general liquidation and dividing up, as being the economic goal of Socialism, is by no means yet extinct, while that of the grinding tyranny of a regulative power ordering production and distribution for the good of all, still holds the place of honour among the weapons in the arsenal of individualist opponents of Socialism among the old political parties. But before saying a few words on the things Socialism is not, it may be well once more to rehearse the (by the present writer) oft-repeated story of what Socialism is.
The word Socialism dates from the early decades of the nineteenth century and was first used, I believe, by Robert Owen. It implied from the beginning a state of society based on Communism, though in the three great Utopian systems of Saint Simon, Fourier, and Owen, the stress was still laid rather on the communism of the product than on that of the means of production. These systems were all based on the notion of the voluntary reconstruction of society on a preconceived plan. All classes were to co-operate in the re-construction on becoming convinced of the reasonableness of the said plan. This it was held, must inevitably be the case as soon as the reasons were adequately laid before them. Hence all that was required was a thoroughgoing and vigorous propaganda. These systems of Utopian Socialism insisted on a complete transformation in all the departments of human life. The change of moral and speculative ideas formed part of the scheme of human life as put forward by the three great Utopian theorists. Other analogous schemes, the most important of which was, perhaps, that of Etienne Cabet towards the middle of the nineteenth century, also followed on similar lines.
The difference between modern scientific socialism and these fanciful speculations and crude attempts at artificial social reconstruction, is wide, but wide as it is, it is no wider than the difference between the guesses of alchemy and the conclusions of chemistry. On the other hand in either case, the later and scientific form is, in a sense, the child of the earlier. Utopian Socialism and Scientific Socialism, have so far, the same content and aim, namely a revolution in human life involving the change in matters economic, of individualistic or private property holding, to communal property holding, in matters political from the government of men to the administration of things, in matters intellectual from tradition and authority, as such, to science and criticism, as the test of belief. But while the Utopian Socialist thought to achieve his aim solely by an effort of conscious will on the part of mankind individually, irrespective of all that had preceded, the notion of evolution being unknown to him, the modern Socialist is well aware that the most the individual man can do is to hasten and, at best modify, in points of detail, the realisation of a given direction of progress – that the will of mankind in general follows certain determinate laws in economical as in intellectual matters, laws which cannot be altered fundamentally by any conscious determination on the part of the individual. These laws the Utopian Socialist ignored, being himself unaware of their existence, just as the alchemist, in seeking to modify according to his will, the constitution of bodies, ignored the laws of chemistry of which he likewise was ignorant. The modern Socialist knows that success is impossible until the time is ripe, but in recognising this he no less recognises that an analysis of modern social conditions shows him that the time is quickly ripening.
Modern Socialism lays especial stress on the economic revolution which is, indeed, the central point of Socialism. The direct aim of all practical Socialism to-day is the transformation of private ownership and control by individuals or syndicates of the means of production and exchange into their public ownership and control by the Community at large. Hence it is, that we not infrequently find Socialism described as a purely economic doctrine, implying no more than an economic change in the fabric of society. This, of course, is only true on the hypothesis that the economic change would suffice of itself to bring about those other changes which Socialism from its Utopian phase onwards, has all along been understood to involve. But even were this conceded the description of Socialism as a purely economic doctrine, and the social revolution as solely having reference to a purely economic change, is none the less calculated to mislead. And, indeed, to this source is traceable not a little of the misconception prevalent as to the true significance of the term Socialism. The word Socialism has come to be applied to any activity of the state or municipality in an economic direction, irrespective of what the nature of the activity or the state concerned is. Hence any industrial or commercial enterprise undertaken by a governmental body is labelled Socialism nowadays. The mere form is here confounded with the content. Mere Statification, as we may term it, does not mean Socialism. The state of to-day is mainly an agent of the possessing classes and industrial or commercial undertakings run to-day by governmental bodies are largely ran in the interests of these classes. Their aim in all cases is to show a profit, in the same way as ordinary capitalistic enterprises. This profit accrues to the possessing classes in the form of relief of imperial or local taxation, mainly paid by them, interest on loans, etc. In other words these industrial undertakings are run for profit and not for use and their employees are little, if at all, better off than those of private employers.
But this is not to say that Socialists do not approve of a policy of the concentration of industry as far as possible in the hands even of the present state or municipality. Such a policy necessarily prepares the way for Socialism, even though it is not Socialism itself, in addition to the fact that such a policy usually redounds to the interests of the working-classes as a whole even to-day in their capacity as consumers. The organised community, presupposed by modern Socialism or Social-Democracy, is however something very different from the existing class-state. And herein, we may see the fallacious tendency of assertions as to Socialism being a purely economic doctrine. For here it is clear that a political change is involved concurrently with the economic change. Indeed without the political revolution, sometimes spoken of as the “dictatorship of the proletariat,” the economic revolution itself, as implying the reduction of the whole means of production and distribution into the possession and under the control of the people themselves, would be impossible. The non-recognition of this fact has led to much foolish talk by “practical” prigs, Fabians, and others anent Socialism “from above,” the possibility of Socialism under existing political forms, monarchical, constitutional, or what not. As a matter of fact, Socialism as embodied in the writings of its chief protagonists, Utopian and scientific, as well as in the aspirations of the disinherited of modern civilisation, is radically inconsistent with any form of class-domination, economical, political, or otherwise. The directive power of the Community which, as Social-Democrats contend, is destined to supersede the state of to-day, will be simply the organ of a Community politically and economically free and not, as to-day, a bureaucracy representing a governing class distinct from the Community. Even where you have an elective representative system, as in the most advanced constitutional countries, it is well-known that the possession of wealth is – quite apart from bribery proper – in nine cases out of ten, the determining force which decides elections. This is the direct economic power behind politics. But this is not all. Even were the power of wealth entirely inoperative in directly or indirectly determining the results of elections, you still have the political and administrative power of class to contend with in the shape of the bureaucracy which is the real and direct governing power in the modern constitutional state. Every one who knows anything of the inner working of the governmental machinery of modern times, knows that it is the permanent officials of departments who really govern and administer the affairs of a nation. A bureaucracy, that is, a body of permanent officials, intrenched in government departments, according to whose piping ministers themselves have willingly or unwillingly dance, is totally incompatible with the very elementary conditions Socialistic administration. Any change which has Social-Democracy as its end must begin by a clean sweep of all departmental officials above the simple harmless penman-clerk. For the interests of a bureaucracy are always opposed to change of any sort whatever, and there is nothing in nature which hangs together so closely, where its interests are threatened, as a bureaucracy.
The aim of the modern Socialist movement is, of course, primarily economic, since the material conditions of life, the mode in which the wealth of the community is produced and distributed, constitutes in a very crucial sense, the basis of everything else. The intellectual, emotional, aesthetic sides of human nature can none of them escape the influence of this, their material environment, and their dependence on it. Even though up to a certain point, intellectual development may follow an independent line of causation of its own, yet this obtains only up to a certain point. In the long run the points of contact with the material conditions of life assert their importance in modifying the so-called “spiritual” side of things human. Of course they, in turn, are reacted upon. Intellectual progress modifies material progress just as much as vice versa. Hence the fact remains that a deep-lying organic change in the material side of human life, that is, in the modes of the production and the distribution of wealth, is inconceivable save as in conjunction with corresponding changes in men’s habits of thought, and ways of looking at life. Direct causation between the two sides maybe only imperfectly traceable, but their concurrence and mutual determination is undeniable. The whole of human development is concrete. It is a synthesis of different elements, but if there is one element at least in the present stage of evolution, more fundamental, more implicating the entire synthesis than another, it is incontestably the economic element in human society.
Let us take as an instance of the close connection between the material and economic bonds of human society, and the immaterial relations which bind it together, the question of ethics. It is a commonplace with modern thinkers that morality is conditioned by the structure and circumstances of a given community. Scarcely anyone contends in the present day for an absolute morality independent of the circumstances of a definite social environment. Those principles of morality, that are applicable to all conceivable states of human society, without denying their importance, so far as it goes, obviously resolves themselves into a few general maxims too vague to afford of themselves a guide for conduct in many concrete cases. It is quite clear that a society for which the individual, as an isolated entity, is the unit of social life as regards the possession and control of property, cannot have the same rules of conduct as regards property, as the society for which the individual is not a self-regarding unit in this respect, but, on the contrary, for which the community in some form or shape stands as the unit for property-holding. Then again as to the question of sexual ethics. To the anthropologist and the student of the history of institutions, it is well known that forms of marriage and the family are intimately connected with the prevailing modes of property-holding. Under primitive communistic conditions various forms of the family prevailed which appear grossly immoral to the man who has grown up among modern individualist conditions. Hence arises the tendency in the present day of many convinced Socialists to shirk this question. They are, in their own minds, perfectly well persuaded that in a society such as Socialism implies, based on the communal production of wealth for social use and enjoyment, and hence where private property-holding has either ceased to be altogether, or at least has lost its importance – while they are, I say, quite aware that in such a society the principle of rigid monogamy enforced by law and public opinion, as at present, must break down before a freer conception of human relationships, yet they are extremely chary of admitting this in so many words. The current point of view of marriage as a legally enforced bond and not a free-relationship depending for its continuance on the will of the parties concerned, has acquired an absolute character with many persons who otherwise consider themselves emancipated, and hence there is a tendency either to deny the obvious implications of Socialism in this respect, or at least to fence with the question in a disingenuous manner.
Let us take another department of ethics. Under existing individualist conditions, where every man is for himself, the Christian virtue of charity or philanthropy obviously has a distinct significance and many applications. But equally obviously in a society based on communistic conditions the occupation of the charitable soul and the philanthropist, in the sense in which it exists to-day, would most certainly have gone. Now the special ethical duty devolving upon Socialists, as such, is to hasten, by every means in their power, the advent of the state of society which shall render philanthropy unnecessary and obsolete. As regards the exercise of personal charity at the present time the Socialist stands in the same position as any ordinary good and humane man who, maybe, has never heard of Socialism – neither more nor less. His obligations to the exercise of personal charity are, indeed, not so strong from the point of view of his principles as those of the Christian believer, for whom private property-holding and its ethical counterpart private charity are a part of the divinely-ordained system of things. Yet when shall we cease to hear from the lips of non-Socialists and anti-Socialists stale twaddle to the effect that the first duty of the consistent Socialist must be to straightway distribute all his possessions in indiscriminate alms-giving? They little reck that for the Socialist, whose motto is “justice, not charity,” such a procedure would be positively inconsistent with the principles he professes. No! emphatically – alms-giving, whether good or bad, right or wrong, under existing conditions, not only is not Socialism but has nothing to do with Socialism.
Yet again, the notion that poverty and squalor have some mysterious virtue in themselves, expressed in a modified form in eulogies of “plain-living and high-thinking,” etc., is still prevalent among many who might be supposed to know better. For Socialism, poverty and squalor are unmitigated evils, and a rationally conceived and directed luxury in material things for all alike, is its direct aim. This notion of asceticism, of the virtue of mortifying the flesh, of self-abnegation on the part of the individual, derived from Christian doctrine as interpreted by the Puritanism of the rising small middle-class of former days, is attributed to Socialism as a part of its ethics – is arbitrarily foisted, that is, on to a system of thought for which it has no meaning and in which it has no place.
The saying of Tridon, subsequently repeated by Bebel and others, to the effect that Socialism stands for a system of life and thought expressing itself in economics as Communism, in Politics as Republicanism, and in Religion as Atheism, embodies in a few words a large measure of truth. It may be convenient for Socialists, with a view to election-expediency to seek to confine the definition of Socialism to the economic issue abstracted from all the other issues of life and conduct. But the attempt to limit the term Socialism within the four walls of an economic definition is, in the long run, futile. Such a limitation is justified neither by historic usage nor, as above pointed out, by the implications involved in the economic change itself.
The conviction that Socialism involves a complete revolution in all departments of human life, and that though beginning with the economic change it does not end there, is ineradicable alike with friend and foe because founded in the nature of things. Socialism as implying the emancipation of mankind from economic thraldom implies also his emancipation from every other thraldom, from political thraldom, from intellectual and moral thraldom, from domestic thraldom. Hence all the existing forms of these things – founded as they are, on convention and tradition, having their roots far back in the past, but in their present form moulded to meet the exigencies of present-day capitalistic society – must necessarily go by the board. Political institutions having their basis in class- or caste-rule, religious beliefs founded on arbitrary dogma, tradition, and inherited sentiment, domestic institutions originating in social necessities no longer obtaining, and supported in their holds on the minds of men to-day mainly by convention and custom-clad sentiment – all these things must pass away as a tale that is told. It is no use then, pretending that while the economic structure of society is undergoing a fundamental revolution, other aspects of social life are to remain unscathed. They too must go, the only question is how, and this question it is that really troubles people. When Socialism, for instance, is said to be incompatible with religion in its traditional sense, as involving belief in supernatural dogmas and sanctions, many persons conjure up to themselves visions of an attempt to forcibly repress the practice of the Christian cultus, or a drastic inquisition into private beliefs. Again, if one speaks of a modification of the marriage relation in the direction of greater freedom than at present, their horrified imagination at once portrays to them the violent rupture of all domestic relations, the hearth in ruins, etc. For them the present condition of nominal asceticism in sexual relations tempered by hypocritical licentiousness, is the only conceivable form of the relation between the sexes. They do not see that in all these things the change inaugurated by Socialism would be of a purely permissive character and would, at first, at all events, consist, in all probability, solely in the breaking down of barriers in law and public opinion by which these institutions acquire a of privilege that enables them to tyrannise over the lives of men. The Socialist administration will in religion be purely secular and hence it will recognise no form of supernatural belief or cult. Similarly it will recognise to the full individual freedom in “self-regarding” matters. It will not, therefore, presume to regulate the purely private concerns of individuals, sexual or other, as is done by the existing marriage laws and by the unwritten law of public opinion. Alike law and public opinion in a Socialist state we have no reason to doubt would confine themselves to enforcing duties, of whatever nature they may be, towards offspring. The question of offspring is the only one with which the community is concerned as regards the sexual relations of individuals; all else is a private matter only concerning the individuals themselves. This, I take it, will be the attitude of a Socialist community towards these matters. As will be seen, this implies no compulsory abandonment either of current superstitions or of current domestic relations, but merely leaves the way open for the supercession of traditional ways of thought and traditional modes of life by others more consonant with human freedom and more adapted to the human nature of the time than those that have been left behind.
Of one thing let us beware in our attempts to envisage the “world-rebuilded,” (to use William Morris’ expression) of Socialism. We are only too prone to interpolate into our conceptions elements drawn from the present or the past. The result is very much the same as though Lord Bacon or Sir Thomas Gresham had attempted to give a picture of the world of modern London. We should indeed have had a curious amalgam of mediaeval survivals, combined probably with shrewd anticipations of the real future. It would be well were all content to recognise the truth that though the attempt to picture our future of Socialism may be an amusing pastime, or even give rise to interesting products of artistic romance, yet for practical purposes it is unprofitable. We can define and appreciate tendencies, we can give the main lines on which the society of the future must build itself up, but this is all we can do towards forecasting the time to come. Of one thing, however, we may be sure, and that is, that we have rather to fear the slowness of the tempo at which fundamental changes will take place, than to dread the violence of the wrench that the world is destined to undergo in the transformation of the old into the new order.
Last updated on 14.1.2006