VIEWS OF THE SOCIALISTS
There are those who take the extreme position that government should manage practically everything for us. Such are the Socialists, who believe that the unequal distribution of wealth and the resulting inequalities in opportunity to satisfy wants are due to the control of industry by a small and essentially selfish capitalistic class. They believe that all natural resources and all capital should belong to the people jointly, and that the people's government should control both the production and the distribution of wealth.
It has been objected to the socialist scheme that, since government would still be in the hands of imperfect human beings, it would not be wise enough to accomplish the desired result; that political motives would enter into government management, as they do in government enterprises to-day, and would prevent the achievement of the desired results; and that, the opportunity for private initiative and enterprise having been removed, there would be lacking one of the chief inducements to human progress.
Socialism has made considerable progress in some nations of the world, but it is by no means popular in the United States, although it has many advocates. We adhere in the main to the principle that government should do things for us only when they could not be so well done by private enterprise, and should control our conduct only so far as to secure equality of personal freedom. The fact remains, however, that an increasing amount of service is being performed for us by government, and an increasing control exercised by it over private enterprise.
ORGANIZATION FOR SERVICE AND FOR CONTROL
Insofar as government performs service for us, it must have an organization for that purpose, with competent leadership. And if it is not to interfere unduly with freedom of action or personal liberty, the people must have an organization by which to maintain control over it. Thus there must be an organization to ensure efficient SERVICE, and there must be an organization to ensure democracy, or POPULAR CONTROL. If both organizations are effective, we have an EFFICIENT DEMOCRACY, toward which we have been striving through all our history, but which we have not yet completely attained.
A government may be efficient in performing service for the people without being democratic. In fact, it may be easier to get efficient service under an autocratic government. Germany before the war illustrated this. But we believe that a government may be both efficient and democratic. This depends upon competent leadership and popular control; and both of these depend upon education (Chapter XIX).
In the remaining pages of this book we shall consider both the organization of our government for service and that for popular control. In this chapter we shall examine some of the methods by which we seek to control government, or to be SELF-governing.
DIRECT SELF-GOVERNMENT
The people of a community may govern themselves by direct action or indirectly through representatives, just as a group of farmers may build their own schoolhouse or church, or employ someone to do it for them. When English colonists settled New England, geographical conditions and other reasons led them to form small, compact communities, in which it was easy to assemble frequently at the meetinghouse to discuss matters of community concern and to agree upon, rules, or laws, to regulate them. This local government by "town meeting" has persisted in many New England "towns," or "townships," to the present day.