CHAPTER I
SOCIALISM
A great logician once said that if we would only define our terms well there would be no need to argue. Whether this be strictly true or not, it is quite certain that much bitterness and stupid misunderstanding might be spared, and many differences removed, if the meaning of the terms used in any discussion were made perfectly clear one to another by the disputants.
Around the word Socialism has formed an obscuring cloud of ignorance and prejudice, which the strongest searchlights of truth and of eloquence are scarcely able to dispel.
We have already travelled far along the road which leads to Socialism. Each day sees some fresh application or extended application of its principles, Our most admirable and wonderful organisations are those which are conducted on Socialist lines. Socialist enterprise is the most distinguishing feature of the last fifty years. Men and women are thinking Socialism, speaking Socialism, acting Socialism, in their daily occupations, in their municipal life, and in their national undertakings. Socialism is the spirit of the age; a compelling spirit over which individuals have no control, and which is forcing them, consciously or unconsciously, towards the consummation of the Socialist hope.
Yet, in spite of all this, the grossest misconceptions of Socialism amongst large masses of the people still prevail. To the minds of many, even in these supposed enlightened days, the Socialist is a robber, an idle vagabond, who is seeking to steal from the thrifty their hard–earned store, or to take from the rich their rightly–inherited wealth. To some others Socialism is the negation of God and of religion. It would destroy the sacred ties of marriage, institute free love, give licence to immorality, pillage the churches and put to flight the anointed servants of the Most High. Another misconception of Socialism is that which associates it with wild anarchy. Use the word Socialism in the hearing of these people, and visions of bombs and dynamite, cruel assassinations and horrid explosions, maimed and mangled limbs and tortured bodies appear before their terrified eyes. Equally uninformed are those individuals who think that Socialism means an equal division amongst its inhabitants of the world's wealth; or that it involves the destruction of private property.
Socialism means none of these things. Not one of these is a part of the Socialist programme. Far from aiming at the destruction of private property its object is to increase private property amongst those whose property is so limited that they have a difficulty in keeping themselves alive. Not the sub-division of wealth but the sharing of it is the desire of the Socialist. A beautiful picture can be shared by all who look upon it, but its value is gone if it be cut up and divided amongst a number. A bloody revolution is not necessary for the advent of Socialism, nor will its coming mean the destruction of religion and the reign of lust and licence.
False and ignorant as are these conceptions of Socialism there is some justification for their existence. Socialists themselves are not a little to blame for their origin. Such amazing errors have been committed, such crimes of tongue and pen been perpetrated in the name of Socialism by those of its advocates whose hearts are better than their heads that the wonder would have been had no misunderstanding occurred. A prominent Socialist was, to a certain extent, quite right when he said that "Socialism would be all right if it were not for the Socialists!" But a cause is always better than its supporters, a principle greater than many of those who profess it.
Again, although Socialism is not atheism nor confiscation, not division nor revolution, it has something to say upon all these questions and a thousand questions besides.
Socialism is a principle, the co-operative principle. Belief in that principle is bound to affect our opinion upon every other subject. The Socialist need not be an atheist, but his Socialism will not permit him to look at matters of religious import in precisely the same way as does his individualist friend. There is nothing new in this idea. It applies to every ideal which fills the breasts of men. The ideal may be lofty or low, but it will colour the world for the idealist. Our gods are what we make them, and we are the servants of self-chosen masters.
Should the main idea in life be the making of money, every activity will be subordinated to that purpose. Religion, morality, education, politics, habits, friends—all will be looked at from the point of view of their usefulness. Will it pay to belong to that party? Is it profitable to attend that church?
Likewise a belief in Socialism, in the great principle of co-operative ownership and control as opposed to private monopoly and extortion, throws new light upon a hundred problems read before "through a glass darkly," and but dimly understood.
Socialism protests against an order of society which permits the few to live in idleness and luxury whilst the many toil in hopeless and degrading poverty. Socialists claim to have discovered the cause of the painful inequalities of our modern civilisation in the fact that land and capital, upon which the very lives of the people depend, are in the hands of a comparatively small number of people. By reason of their monopoly of the means of life the few are able to dictate to the many the terms upon which they shall live. A veritable slavery of the workers is the result; economic bondage of the many to the possessing few.
The purpose of Socialism is to destroy this bondage; and this it is proposed to do by making the tillers of the soil and the workers of the tools the owners of the machines they work and the land they cultivate. State or municipal management is to supersede private management, and national or civic ownership to take the place of private monopoly of the land, and of all the wealth produced by the land in return for the energy expended upon it. Under such a State everybody will be provided with the necessaries of life in proportion to his need, and in return for service rendered according to his ability. Production will be for the use of all and not for the profit of the enterprising few. All will be found employment, and each will have every opportunity for the development of his individual powers and peculiar genius.
Nor to the attainment for all of material prosperity alone does the true Socialist consecrate his life. This, he realises, is but a means to an end, and not an end in itself. He wants the people to be lifted out of their intellectual poverty, and is anxious for material benefits because he knows that where one is strong enough to master his circumstances a thousand are conquered by them and perish miserably. But he knows better than he can be told that the nationalisation of the land and capital of the country is not the last word in progress; that without the social spirit, the socialisation of men and women, our condition under Socialism might be little better than our present lot. If "Each for all and all for each" be nothing more than a text for a banner or a motto for a wall; if its truth has not captured the hearts and minds of men and women in that new society, we shall be an official-ridden people, with our eye on the best posts in the State for ourselves or our sons; and we shall be as pitiable in our spiritual deformity as we are in our economic bondage.
For the purposes of this book it is necessary to make one other point clear. Not only is it possible to conceive of the workers being little better off under a Socialist régime than under a Capitalist system, unless they be animated with something nobler than a fretful discontent with the existing order of things, but it is necessary to point out, and to emphasise the fact, that the position of women would actually be worse under a so-called Socialist system which neglected to give them political and economic equality with men. It is necessary to be strong on this point, since, to many calling themselves Socialist, the enfranchisement of women is unnecessary, or of so little importance that it can be postponed until all other reforms have been accomplished.
This is a colossal error. A Socialist system which does not represent the feminine point of view as recorded at the ballot-box is no Socialism at all. It is the dreariest shadow of Socialism for men, and for women it is additional degradation. For it is simply the strengthening of masculine authority and masculine privileges to the more thorough and complete enslavement of women.
Women of the present will, if they be wise, withhold their support from any man calling himself Socialist who is not willing to concede to their sex what he claims for his own, and that immediately. He has grasped neither the principle nor the spirit of Socialism if he would defer their political emancipation until liberty has been won for all men. His method of salvation is a wrong one. His gospel of salvation is not sound. If, as the story of the apple teaches us, the temptations of men come through women, so shall their victories and their glories be won. "A nation," says Professor Ramsay, "can never rise permanently above the level of its women."