Page:James Ramsay MacDonald - The Socialist Movement.pdf/126

This page has been proofread, but needs to be validated.
122
THE SOCIALIST MOVEMENT

CHAPTER VII

WHAT SOCIALISM IS NOT

An examination of some of the objections urged against, and the fears entertained regarding, Socialism will enable me to explain its principles and elucidate its methods and point of view still more clearly.

1. Anarchism and Communism.

First of all I shall deal with the relation of Socialism as a system of political and economic thought to other systems with which it is often confused—particularly with Communism and Anarchism.

Communism presupposes a common store of wealth which is to be drawn upon by the individual consumer, not in accordance with services rendered, but in response to "a human right to sustenance." It may be in accordance with Communist principles to make this right to consume depend upon the duty of helping to produce, and to exile from the economic community every one who declines to fulfil that duty. Some Communists insist that one of the certain results of their system will be the creation of so much moral robustness that in practice this question will never arise for actual answer. But be that as it may, the distributive philosophy of Communism is as I have stated, and it contains the difference between that system and Socialism. "From all according to