Socialism As It Is Part 18

"Is there," Mr. Morley had asked, "any approach to such a body of systematic political thought in our own day?" Mr. Webb announced that the Fabians proposed to fill in this void. It was primarily system and order rather than any particular principle at which he aimed. The keynote of his system was to be opposition to the individualistic _theory_ of the philosophic Liberals whom the Fabians hoped to succeed rather than opposition to the _principles_ of capitalism, which lend themselves equally well either to an individualistic or to a collectivistic application.

Just as Mr. Webb is the leading publicist, so Mr. Bernard Shaw is the leading writer, among the exponents of Fabian Socialism. It is now more than twenty years since he also began idealizing the State, and he is doing the same thing to-day. "Who is the people? What is the people?" he asked in the Fabian Essays in 1889. "Tom we know, and d.i.c.k; 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 stockholder? 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."[128] It will be noticed that Mr. Shaw does not say the State may become the representative and trustee of the people, but that it _is_ their representative. "Hegel," he continues, "expressly taught the conception of the perfect State, and his disciples saw that nothing in the nature of things made it possible or even difficult to make the existing State if not absolutely perfect, at least trustworthy;" and then, after alluding with the greatest brevity to the anti-democratic elements of the British government, Mr. Shaw proceeds to develop at great length the wonderful possibilities of the existing State as the practically trustworthy trustee, guardian, man of business, manager, secretary, and stockholder _of the people_.[129]

Yet Mr. Shaw says that a Social-Democrat is one "who _desires_ through democracy _to_ gather the whole people into the State, so that the State may be trusted with the rent of the country, and finally with the land and capital and the organization of national industry." He reasons that the transition to Socialism through gradual extensions of democracy and State action had seriously begun forty-five years before the writing of the Essays, that is, in the middle of the nineteenth century (when scarcely one sixth of the adult male population of Great Britain had a vote, and when, through the unequal election districts, the country squires practically controlled the situation--W. E. W.). In Mr. Shaw's reasoning, as in that of many other British Socialists, a very little democracy goes a long way.[130]

Later Mr. Shaw repudiated democracy altogether, saying that despotism fails only for want of a capable benevolent despot, and that what we want nowadays is not a new or modern form of democracy, but only capable benevolent representatives. He shelved his hopes for the old ideal, government _by_ the people, by opposing to it a new ideal of a very active and beneficent government _for_ the people. In "Fabianism and the Empire" Shaw and his collaborators say frankly: "The nation makes no serious attempt to democratize its government, because its ma.s.ses are still in so deplorable a condition that democracy, in the popular sense of government by the ma.s.ses, is clearly contrary to common sense."[131]

Mr. H. G. Wells, long a member of the Fabian Society, has well summed up the character of what he calls this "opportunist Socialist group" which has done so much to shape the so-called British Socialism. He says that Mr. Sidney Webb was, during the first twenty years of his career "the prevailing Fabian."

"His insistence upon continuity pervaded the Society, was re-echoed and intensified by others, and developed into something like a mania for achieving Socialism _without the overt change of any existing ruling body_. His impetus carried this reaction against the crude democratic idea to its extremest opposite. Then arose Webbites to caricature Webb. From saying that the unorganized people cannot achieve Socialism, they pa.s.sed to the implication that organization alone, without popular support, might achieve Socialism. Socialism was to arrive as it were _insidiously_.

"To some minds this new proposal had the charm of a schoolboy's first dark lantern. Socialism ceased to be an open revolution, and become a plot. Functions were to be shifted, quietly, unostentatiously, from the representative to the official he appointed; a bureaucracy was to slip into power through the mechanical difficulties of an administration by debating representatives; and since these officials would, by the nature of their positions, const.i.tute a scientific government as distinguished from haphazard government, they would necessarily run the country on the lines of a _pretty distinctly undemocratic Socialism_.

"The process went even farther than secretiveness in its reaction from the _large rhetorical forms of revolutionary Socialism_. There arose even a _repudiation of 'principles' of action_, and a type of worker which proclaimed itself 'Opportunist-Socialist.' This conception of indifference to the forms of government, of accepting whatever governing bodies existed and using them to create officials and '_get something done_,' was at once immediately fruitful in many directions, and presently productive of many very grave difficulties in the path of advancing Socialism." (Italics mine.)[132]

Besides the obvious absurdities of such tactics, Mr. Wells points out that they ignored entirely that reconstruction of legislative and local government machinery which is very often an indispensable preliminary to Socialization. He is speaking of such Socialism when he says:--

"Socialism has concerned itself only with the material reorganization of Society and its social consequences, with economic changes and the reaction of these changes on administrative work; it has either accepted existing intellectual conditions and political inst.i.tutions as beyond its control or a.s.sumed that they will obediently modify as economic and administrative necessity dictates.... Achieve your expropriation, said the early Fabians, get your network of skilled experts over the country, and your political forms, your public opinion, your collective soul will not trouble you."[133]

Here Mr. Wells shows that, while the practical difficulties of making collectivism serve all the people were ignored on the one hand, the first need of the people, political education, was neglected on the other. It is true that during the first few years of its existence the Fabian Society made a great and successful effort to educate public opinion in a Socialist direction, but soon its leading members deserted all such larger work, to support various administrative "experiments."

Mr. Wells referred to this same type of Socialism in his "Misery of Boots":--

"Let us be clear about one thing: that Socialism means revolution, and that it means a change in the everyday texture of life. It _may_ be a very gradual change, but it will be a very complete one.

You cannot change the world, and at the same time not change the world. You will find Socialists about, or at any rate men calling themselves Socialists, who will pretend that this is not so, who will a.s.sure you that some odd little jobbing about munic.i.p.al gas and water is Socialism, and backstairs intervention between Conservative and Liberal the way to the millennium.... Socialism aims to change, not only the boots on people's feet, but the clothes they wear, the houses they inhabit, the work they do, the education they get, their places, their honors, and all their possessions. Socialism aims to make a new world out of the old. It can only be attained by the intelligent, outspoken, courageous resolve of a great mult.i.tude of men and women. You must get absolutely clear in your mind that Socialism means a _complete change, a break with history_, with much that is picturesque; _whole cla.s.ses will vanish_. The world will be vastly different, with different sorts of houses, different sorts of people. All the different trades and industries will be changed, the medical profession will be carried on under different conditions, engineering, science, the theatrical trade, the clerical trade, schools, hotels, almost every trade, will have to undergo as complete an internal change as a caterpillar does when it becomes a moth ... a change as profound as the abolition of private property in slaves would have been in ancient Rome or Athens." (The italics are mine.)

Here is the exact opposite view to that which has been taught for many years by the Fabian Society to no small audience of educated Englishmen (and Americans). For there are comparatively few who have neither read any of the Fabian pamphlets nor seen or read any of Bernard Shaw's plays in which the same standpoint is represented.

Mr. John A. Hobson cla.s.ses the Socialist and non-Socialist reformers of Great Britain together as regards their opportunism. Though a Liberal himself, he objects that some Socialists are not radical enough, and that "the milder and more opportunist brand suffer from excessive vagueness." Of the prevailing tendency towards opportunism, Mr. Hobson writes:--

"This revolt against ideas is carried so far that able men have come seriously to look upon progress as a matter for the manipulation of wirepullers, something to be 'jobbed' in committee by sophistical motions or other clever trickery. Great national issues really turn, according to this judgment, upon the arts of political management, the play of the adroit tactician and the complete canva.s.ser. This is the 'work' that tells; elections, the sane expression of the national will, are won by these and by no other means.

"_Nowhere has this mechanical conception of progress worked more disastrously than in the movement towards Collectivism._ Suppose that the mechanism of reform were perfected, that each little clique of specialists and wirepullers were placed at its proper point in the machinery of public life, will this machinery grind out progress? Every student of industrial history knows that the application of a powerful 'motor' is of vastly greater importance than the invention of a special machine. Now, what provision is made for generating the motor power of progress in Collectivism?

Will it come of its own accord? Our mechanical reformer apparently thinks it will. The attraction of some present obvious gain, the suppression of some scandalous abuse of monopolist power by a private company, some needed enlargement of existing Munic.i.p.al or State enterprise by lateral expansion--such are the sole springs of action. In this way the Munic.i.p.alization of public services, increased a.s.sertion of State control over mines, railways, and factories, the a.s.sumption under State control of large departments of transport trade, proceed without any recognition of the guidance of general principles. Everywhere the pressure of special concrete interests, nowhere the conscious play of organized human intelligence!...

"My object here is to justify the practical utility of 'theory' and 'principle' in the movement of Collectivism by showing that reformers who distrust the guidance of Utopia, or even the application of economic first principles, are not thrown back entirely upon that crude empiricism which insists that each case is to be judged separately and exclusively on its own individual merits."

Mr. Hobson then proposes his collectivist program, which he rightly considers to be not Socialist but Liberal merely--and we find it more collectivistic, radical, and democratic than that of many so-called Socialists. Moreover it expresses the views of a large and growing proportion of the present Liberal Party. Then he concludes as follows:--

"If practical workers for social and industrial reforms continue to ignore principles, the inevitable logic of events will nevertheless drive them along the path of Collectivism here indicated. But they will have to pay the price which shortsighted empiricism always pays; with slow, hesitant, and staggering steps, with innumerable false starts and backslidings, they will move in the dark along an unseen track towards an unseen goal. Social development may be conscious or unconscious. It has been mostly unconscious in the past, and therefore slow, wasteful, and dangerous. If we desire it to be swifter, safer, and more effective in the future, it must become the conscious expression of the trained and organized will of a people not despising theory as unpractical, but using it to furnish economy in action."[134]

Practically all "State Socialists" hold a similar view to that of Shaw and Webb. Mr. Wells even, in his "First and Last Things," has a lengthy attack on what he calls democracy, when he tells us that its true name is "insubordination," and that it is base because "it dreams that its leaders are its delegates." His view of democracy is strictly consistent with his att.i.tude toward the common man, whom he regards as "a gregarious animal, collectively rather like a sheep, emotional, hasty, and shallow."[135] Democracy can only mean, Mr. Wells concludes, that power will be put into the hands of "rich newspaper proprietors, advertising producers, and the energetic wealthy generally, as the source flooding the collective mind freely with the suggestions on which it acts."

The _New Age_, representing the younger Fabians, also despairs of democracy and advocates compromise, because "the democratic party have failed so far to be indorsed and inforced by popular consent." It acknowledges that the power of the Crown is "great and even temporarily overwhelming," but discourages opposition to monarchy for the reason that monarchy rests on the ignorance and weakness of the people and not on sheer physical coercion.[136] The _New Age_ opposes those democratic proposals, the referendum and proportional representation, considers that the representative may so thoroughly embody the ideals and interests of the community as to become "a spiritual sum of them all,"

and admits that this ideal of a "really representative body of men"

might be brought about under an extremely undemocratic franchise.[137]

"Outside of a parish or hamlet the Referendum," it says, "is impossible.

To an Empire it is fatal."[138] And finally, this Socialist organ is perfectly ready to grant another fifty million pounds for the navy, provided the money is drawn from the rich, as it finds that "a good, thumping provision for an increased navy would do a great deal to sweeten a drastic budget for the rich, as well as strengthen the appeal of the party which professes to be advancing the cause of the poor."

Imperialism and militarism, which in most countries const.i.tute the chief form in which capitalism is being fought by Socialists, are actually considered as of secondary importance, on the ground that through acquiescing in them it becomes possible to hasten a few reforms, such as have already been granted by the capitalists of several other countries without any Socialist surrender and even without Socialist pressure of any kind.

The recent appeal of the _New Age_, for "a hundred gentlemen of ability"

to save England, its regret that no truly intelligent and benevolent "governing cla.s.s" or "Platonic guardians" are to be found, and its weekly disparagement of democracy do not offer much promise that it will soon turn in the radical direction. On the contrary it predicts that the firm possession of political power by the wealthy cla.s.ses is foredoomed to result, as in the Roman Empire, in the creation of two main cla.s.ses, each of which must become corrupt, "the one by wealth and the other by poverty," and that finally the latter must become incapable of corporate resistance. The familiar and scientifically demonstrated fact of the physical and moral degeneration of a considerable part of the British working people doubtless suggests to many persons such pessimistic conclusions. "It is hopeless in our view," the _New Age_ concludes, "to expect that the poor and ignorant, however desperate and however numerous, will ever succeed in displacing their wealthy rulers. No slave revolt in the history of the world has ever succeeded by its own power.

In these days, moreover, the chances of success are even smaller. One machine gun is equal to a mob."[139]

Indeed the distrust of democracy is so universal among British Socialists that Belloc, Chesterton and other Liberals accuse them plausibly, but unjustly, of actually representing an aristocratic standpoint. In an article ent.i.tled "Why I Am Not A Socialist," Mr.

Chesterton expresses a belief, which he says is almost unknown among the Socialists of England, namely, a belief "in the ma.s.ses of the common people."[140] Mr. Belloc, in a debate against Bernard Shaw, predicted that Socialism, if it comes in England, will probably be simply "another of the infinite and perpetually renewed dodges of the English aristocracy."

It may be well doubted if any of the more important of the world's conservative, aristocratic, or reactionary forces (except the doctrinaire Liberals) are opposed to Socialism as defined by the Fabian Society, _i.e._ a gradual movement in the direction of collectivism. Not only Czar and Kaiser but even the Catholic Church may be claimed as Socialistic by this standard. Mr. Hubert Bland, one of the original Fabian Essayists and a very influential member of the Society, himself a Catholic, actually a.s.serts that the Church never has attacked Fabian or true Socialism. In view of the fact that the Church is at war with the Socialist Parties of Italy, France, Belgium, Austria, Germany, the United States, and every country where both the Church and the Socialists are a political power, in view of the wholesale and most explicit denunciations by Popes and high ecclesiastics, and the war being waged against the Socialist Parties at every point, Mr. Eland's argument has some interest.

Having defined Socialism as "the increase of State rights" and "the tendency to limit the proprietary rights of the individual and to widen the proprietary rights and activities of the community" or as the "control of property by the State and munic.i.p.ality," Mr. Bland has, of course, no difficulty in showing that the Catholic Church has never opposed it--though many individualistic Catholics have done so.

"No fewer than two Popes," writes Mr. Bland, "are said to have condemned Socialism in authoritative utterances, but when I examine and a.n.a.lyze these condemnations, I find it is not Socialism in the sense I have defined it here, that is condemned."[141] It is indeed true that few of the most bitter and persistent enemies of the Socialist movement condemn "Socialism" as defined by Mr. Bland and his "State Socialist"

a.s.sociates.

This capitalistic collectivism promoted by the Fabian Society has embodied itself practically in the movement towards "munic.i.p.al Socialism" of which so much was heard some years ago, first in Great Britain and later in other countries. It is now from ten to twenty years since many British cities, notably Glasgow, began munic.i.p.al experiments on a large scale that were branded by Socialists and non-Socialists alike, as munic.i.p.al Socialism. The first of these experiments included not only the munic.i.p.alization of street railways, electric light and current, and so on, but even the provision of munic.i.p.al slaughter houses, bathing establishments, and outdoor amus.e.m.e.nts. The later stages have developed in a somewhat different direction. The chief reforms under discussion everywhere seem now to be the proposals that the munic.i.p.alities should provide housing accommodations for the poorer elements of the population, and that the health of the children should be looked after, even to the extent of providing free lunches in public schools. If less had been heard of "munic.i.p.al Socialism" in the last year or two, this is merely because reforms on a national scale have for the moment received the greater share of public attention. This does not necessarily mean that the national reforms are more important than the munic.i.p.al, but only that the latter came first because they were easier to inaugurate, though perhaps more difficult to carry to a successful conclusion.

But the first popularity of the munic.i.p.al reform movement, both in Great Britain and in other countries, has received at least a temporary setback as the relations between this "munic.i.p.al Socialism" and taxation were recognized. Both the non-taxpaying working people and the small taxpaying middle cla.s.s saw that the profits of the new munic.i.p.al enterprises went to a considerable extent towards decreasing the taxation of the well-to-do instead of conferring benefits on the majority. This might appear strange, since under universal suffrage the non-taxpaying and non-landowning majority would be expected to dominate.

But in Great Britain, as well as elsewhere, central governments, in the firm control of taxpayers and landowners, exercise a strict control over the munic.i.p.alities, so that this kind of reform will prove advantageous chiefly to the landlords, by enabling them to raise rents in proportion to the benefits gained by tenants; and to the taxpaying minority, by making it possible to use the profits of munic.i.p.al undertakings for the purpose of reducing taxes.

The tendency toward the extension of munic.i.p.al enterprises to be noted in all the important cities of the world, is hastened by the public belief that there is no other possible means of preventing the exploitation of all cla.s.ses, and consequent widespread injury to trade, building, and industry in general, by public service corporations. But it must be observed that whatever munic.i.p.alization there is will continue to be under the control of the taxpayers, landowners, and business men and largely in their interest as long as national governments remain in capitalist hands.

The national social reform administrations that are coming into power in so many countries are encouraging various forms of taxpayers' "munic.i.p.al Socialism." The ultraconservative governments of Germany, Austria, and Belgium all permit the cities to engage even in the public feeding of school children, while the reactionary national government of Hungary has undertaken to provide for the housing of 25,000 working people at Budapest. The conservative _London Daily Mail_ cries out that the Hungarian minister, Dr. Wekerle has "stolen a march on the Socialists,"

but that it is the "right sort of Socialism," and that "it has been left to the leader of the privileged Parliament [the Hungarian Parliament representing not the small capitalists, but the landed n.o.bility and gentry] to make the first start." And there is little doubt that both the provision of houses for the working people and the public feeding of school children rest on precisely the same principles as the social reforms now being undertaken by national governments, such as that of Great Britain, and are, indeed, the "right sort of Socialism" from the capitalist standpoint.

Taking the munic.i.p.al reformer as a type of the so-called Socialist, Mr.

Belloc, a prominent Liberal Member of Parliament and an anti-Socialist, says that "in the atmosphere in which he works and as regards the susceptibilities which he fears to offend," that the munic.i.p.al Socialist is entirely of the capitalist cla.s.s. "You cannot make revolutions without revolutionaries," he continues, "and anything less revolutionary than your munic.i.p.al reformer never trod the earth. The very conception is alien to this cla.s.s of persons; usually he is desperately frightened as well. Yet it is quite certain that so vast a change as Socialism presupposes cannot be carried out without hitting. When one sees it verbally advocated (and in practice shirked) by men who have never hit anything in their lives, and who are even afraid of a scene with a waiter in a restaurant, one is not inclined to believe in the reality of the creed." Mr. Belloc concludes finally that all that this kind of Socialism has done during its moments of greatest activity has tended merely to recognize the capitalist more and more and to stereotype the gulf between him and the other cla.s.ses.[142]

And just as Mr. Belloc has reproached the Socialists for their conservatism, so the _New Age_ and other mouthpieces of Socialism condemn the non-Socialist radicals who const.i.tute one of the chief elements among the supporters of the present government (including Mr.

Belloc) as being too radical. In the literature of the Fabian Society also, the accusation against the Liberals of being too revolutionary is quite frequent. Years ago Mr. Sidney Webb accused them of having "the revolutionary tradition in their bones," of conceiving society as "a struggle of warring interests," and said that they would reform _nothing_ "unless it be done at the expense of their enemies." While this latter accusation is scarcely true, either of the British Liberals or of the revolutionary Socialists of the Continent, it is obvious that the _most important_ reforms of the Socialists, those to which greatest efforts must necessarily be given, those which alone must be fought for, are precisely the ones that must be brought about "at the expense of the enemy."

In no other country has public opinion either within the Socialist movement or outside of it so completely despaired of democracy and the people. In none has the spirit of popular revolt and militant radicalism been so long dormant. Yet, there can be little doubt that the British ma.s.ses, encouraged by those of France, Germany, and other countries, will one day recover that self-confidence and self-a.s.sertion they seem to have lost since the times of the "Levellers" of the Commonwealth, two hundred and fifty years ago. It may take years before this new revolutionary movement gains the momentum it already possesses in Germany and France. But the great strikes of 1910, 1911, and 1912 (see Part III, Chapter VI) and the changes in politics that have accompanied these strikes show that this movement has already begun. There is already a strong division of opinion within the Socialistic "Independent Labour Party," and this organization has also taken issue on several important matters with the non-Socialist Labour Party, of which, however, it is still a part.

After the unsatisfactory results of the elections of 1910 the conflict within the Independent Labour Party became more acute than ever. Mr.

Barnes, then chairman of the Labour Party itself, and Mr. Keir Hardie, the chief figure in its Socialistic (_Independent Labour Party_) section, criticized severely the tactics that had been followed by the majority, _led also by two members of the same "Socialistic" section_, Mr. MacDonald and Mr. Snowden. It is true that the difference was not very fundamental, but it is interesting to note that MacDonald and Snowden and their avowed non-Socialist trade-union allies were accused of giving so much to the Liberals as even to weaken the position of the Labour Party itself to say nothing of the still greater inconsistency of such compromises with anything approaching Socialism. Mr. Barnes and Mr. Hardie pointed out that the timid tactics pursued had endangered not only the fight against the House of Lords, but also the effort to keep down the naval budget and the proposed solution of the unemployment question that was to have acknowledged "the right to work." That is, Mr.

MacDonald and Mr. Snowden had been so anxious to please the Liberal government, that they had risked even these moderate reforms, which were favored by many anti-Socialistic Radicals.

At the "Independents'" 1911 conference at Birmingham, again, a motion was proposed by the radical element, Hall, MacLachlan, and others, which demanded that this Party should cease voting perpetually for the government merely because the government claimed that every question required a vote of confidence, and that they should put their own issues in the foreground, and vote on all others according to their merits.

This very consistent resolution, in complete accord with the position of Socialist Parties the world over, was however voted down by the "Independents," as it had been shortly previously at the conference of the non-Socialist Labour Party of which they are a section. The executive committee brought in an amendment in the contrary sense to that of the radical resolution, and this amendment was ably supported by MacDonald. Hardie and Barnes, however, persuaded the Congress to vote down both resolution and amendment on the ground that the "Independents"

in Parliament _ought to support the Liberal and Radical government, except in certain crises_--as ill.u.s.trations of which Barnes mentioned the Labourites' opposition to armaments and their demand for the right to work. Keir Hardie also declared that he was not satisfied with the conduct of the Labour Party in Parliament; his motion condemning the government's action in the Welsh coal strike, for example, had secured only seventeen of their forty votes. He claimed that the influence of the Liberals over the party was due, not to their social reform program, but to their pa.s.sing of the trade-union law permitting picketing after the elections of 1906, and that he feared them more than he did the Conservatives. However, he thought that this Liberal influence was now on the decline, and said that if the Liberals attempted to strengthen the House of Lords, as suggested in the preamble to their resolution, abolishing its veto power, the Labour Party would be ready to vote against the government.