Some modern socialists have argued from de Vries's mutation theory in biology that in social evolution we must expect mutations also, and that, therefore, the great changes in human society are normally accomplished by means of revolution. But this argument rests wholly on analogy, and arguments from analogy in science are practically worthless. It may be asserted, on the other hand, that all the great changes in human society which have been desirable have come about only after prolonged preparation and after a series of gradual steps which led up to the final change. The Greco-Roman world, for example, was becoming ripe for Christianity before Christianity finally appeared and became triumphant. The centuries from the fourteenth to the sixteenth had prepared for the protestant reformation in the countries of modern Europe before the reformation became an established fact.
Thus, radical reconstruction of the social life by means of revolution is scarcely possible. The instincts and habits of individual human nature upon which the social order rests cannot be easily changed by revolutionary programs in legislation or in institutions. The only probable result of such an attempt would be the collapse of the new social order, because it would have insufficient foundations in individual character upon which to rest. The idea of ushering in the social millennium through some vast social revolution is therefore chimerical.
It is not the place in this book to take up the practical objections to economic socialism. These practical objections are for the most part of a political and economic nature, and they accordingly can be better dealt with in treatises on politics and economics than in one on sociology. It is perhaps sufficient to say that the political and economic objections to socialism are not less weighty than the sociological objections. Government, for example, exists in human society to regulate, and not to carry on directly, all social activities. If the state were in its various forms called upon to own and manage all productive wealth in society, it is extremely probable that such an experiment would break down of its own weight, since the state would be attempting that which, in the nature of things, as the chief regulative institution of society, it is not fitted to do. But it is not our purpose, as has just been said, to go into the political and economic objections to economic or Marxian socialism. To understand these the student must consult the leading works on economic and political science.
Substitutes for Economic Socialism.—Certain steps sociology and all social sciences already indicate as necessary for larger collective control over the conditions of social existence. These steps, however, aim not at instituting a new social order, but at removing certain demonstrated causes of social maladjustment which exist in present society; and as in the solution of special social problems we have seen reason to reject "short-cuts" and "cure-alls," so in a scientific reconstruction of human society we have good reason to reject the social revolution which the followers of Marx advocate, and to offer as a substitute in its stead some social reforms which will make more nearly possible a normal social life.
Perhaps the necessary steps for bringing about such a normal social life have never been better summed up than by Professor Devine in his book on Misery and its Causes. Rather than offer a program of our own we shall, therefore, give a brief resume of the conditions which Professor Devine names as essential to normal social life, believing that these offer a program upon which all sane social workers and reformers can unite. Professor Devine names ten conditions essential to a normal social life: (1) the securing of a sound physical heredity, that is, a good birth for every child, by a rational system of eugenics; (2) the securing of a protected childhood, which will assure the normal development of the child, and of a protected motherhood, which will assure the proper care of the child; (3) a system of education which shall be adapted to social needs, inspired by the ideals of rational living and social service; (4) the securing of freedom from preventable disease; (5) the elimination of professional vice and crime; (6) the securing of a prolonged working period for both men and women; (7) a general system of insurance against the ordinary contingencies of life which now cause poverty or dependence; (8) a liberal relief system which will meet the material needs of those who become accidentally dependent; (9) a standard of living sufficiently high to insure full nourishment, reasonable recreation, proper housing, and the other elementary necessities of life; (10) a social religion which shall make the service of humanity the highest aim of all individuals.
It is sufficient to say, in closing this chapter, that if these ten essentials of a normal social life could be realized—and there is no reason why they cannot be—there would be no need to try the social revolution which Marxian socialism advocates.
There can be no question that the ultimate aim of the social sciences is to provide society with the knowledge necessary for collective control over its own life processes. Sociology and the special social sciences are aiming, therefore, in an indirect way to accomplish the same thing which political socialism aims at accomplishing through economic revolution. There would seem to be no danger in trusting science to work out this problem of collective control over the conditions of existence. There are no risks to run by the scientific method, for it proceeds step by step, adequately testing theories by facts as it goes along. The thing to do, therefore, for those who wish to see "a humanity adjusted to the requirements of its existence" is to encourage scientific social research along all lines. With a fuller knowledge of human nature and human society it will be possible to indicate sane and safe reconstructions in the social order, so that ultimately humanity will control its social environment and its own human nature even more completely than it now controls the forces of physical nature. But the ultimate reliance in all such reconstruction, as we will try to show in the next chapter, must be, not revolution, nor even legislation, but education.
SELECT REFERENCES
For brief reading:
ELY, Socialism and Social Reform.
SPARGO, Socialism. Revised edition.
GILMAN, Socialism and the American Spirit.