A Critical Examination of Socialism

The more educated socialists of to-day, when the matter is put plainly before them, admit that the argument of the preceding chapters is correct, and repudiate the doctrine of Marx that "labour" is the sole producer.

Examples of this admission on the part of American socialists.

The socialism of Marx, however, still remains the socialism of the more ignorant classes, and also of the popular agitator.

It is, moreover, still used as an instrument of agitation by many who personally repudiate it. The case of Mr. Hillquit.

The doctrine of Marx, therefore, still requires exposure.

Further, it is necessary to understand this earlier form of socialistic theory in order to understand the later.

The more educated socialists of to-day, besides virtually accepting the argument of the preceding chapters with regard to labour, virtually accept the argument set forth in them with regard to capital.

Mr. Sidney Webb, for example, recognises it as an implement of direction, the only alternative to which is a system of legal coercion.

Other socialists advocate the continued use of wage-capital as the implement of direction, but they imagine that the situation would be radically changed by making the "state" the sole capitalist.

But the "state," as some of them are beginning to realise, would be merely the private men of ability--the existing employers--turned into state officials, and deprived of most of their present inducements to exert themselves.

A socialistic state theoretically could always command labour, for labour can be exacted by force; but the exercise of ability must be voluntary, and can only be secured by a system of adequate rewards and inducements.

Two problems with which modern socialism is confronted: How would it test its able men so as to select the best of them for places of power? What rewards could it offer them which would induce them systematically to develop, and be willing to exercise, their exceptional faculties?

The fusion of all private capitals into a single state capital would make this solution impossible, and would provide no other. The only machinery by which the more efficient directors of labour could be discriminated from the less efficient would be broken. Case of the London County Council's steamboats.

Two forms which the industrial state under socialism might conceivably take: The official directors of industry might be either an autocratic bureaucracy, or they might else be subject to elected politicians representing the knowledge and opinions prevalent among the majority.

Estimate of the results which would arise in the former case. Illustrations from actual bureaucratic enterprise.

Estimate of the results which would arise in the latter case. The state, as representing the average opinion of the masses, brought to bear on scientific industrial enterprise. Illustrations.

The state as sole printer and publisher. State capitalism would destroy the machinery of industrial progress just as it would destroy the machinery by which thought and knowledge develop.

But behind the question of whether socialism could provide ability with the conditions or the machinery requisite for its exercise is the question of whether it could provide it with any adequate stimulus.

The Ultimate Difficulty. Speculative Attempts to Minimise It

Mr. Sidney Webb, and most modern socialists of the higher kind, recognise that this problem of motive underlies all others.

They approach it indirectly by sociological arguments borrowed from other philosophers, and directly by a psychology peculiar to themselves.

The sociological arguments by which socialists seek to minimise the claims of the able man.

These founded on a specific confusion of thought, which vitiated the evolutionary sociology of that second half of the nineteenth century. Illustrations from Herbert Spencer, Macaulay, Mr. Kidd, and recent socialists.

The confusion in question a confusion between speculative truth and practical.

The individual importance of the able man, untouched by the speculative conclusions of the sociological evolutionists, as may be seen by the examples adduced in a contrary sense by Herbert Spencer. This is partially perceived by Spencer himself. Illustrations from his works.

Ludicrous attempts, on the part of socialistic writers, to apply the speculative generalisations of sociology to the practical position of individual men.

The climax of absurdity reached by Mr. Sidney Webb.

They abandon their sociological ineptitudes altogether, and betake themselves to a psychology which they declare to be scientific, but which is based on no analysis of facts, and consists really of loose assumptions and false analogies.

Their treatment of the motives of the artist, the thinker, the religious enthusiast, and the soldier.

Their unscientific treatment of the soldier's motive, and their fantastic proposal based on it to transfer this motive from the domain of war to that of industry.

The socialists as their own critics when they denounce the actual motives of the able man as he is and as they say he always has been. They attack the typically able man of all periods as a monster of congenital selfishness, and it is men of this special type whom they propose to transform suddenly into monsters of self-abnegation.

Their want of faith in the efficacy of their own moral suasion and their proposal to supplement this by the ballot.

This writer maintains that the money rewards of ability can be determined by the opinion of the majority expressing itself through votes and statutes.

The writer's typical error. A governing body might enact any laws, but they would not be obeyed unless consonant with human nature.

Laws are obliged to conform to the propensities of human nature which it is their office to regulate.

Elaborate but unconscious admission of this fact by the writer here quoted himself.