In the chapters on the Scientific and Ethical Aspects of Socialism, an effort will be made to show why the competitive system is essentially bad and must remain bad so long as acquisitiveness is deliberately made the dominating motive of human activity; and how by modifying economic conditions we can secure all the benefits of a tempered acquisitiveness without the appalling results of an acquisitiveness that knows no bounds. This argument belongs, however, to the constructive argument for Socialism, and we have not yet completed the destructive argument against existing conditions. For there are two further illustrations furnished by recent efforts to curb competition which not only tend to demonstrate the hopelessness of the task, but throw light upon existing conditions and impending dangers. I refer to the rate law and legislation tending to control monopolies—to the inevitable tyrannies of the trust and the trade unions and the irreconcilable conflict between the two.
§ 3. Possible Transitional Measures
I shall describe the coöperative commonwealth on the theory that it is to come gradually, not because I consider this the only way for Socialism to come, but one of the possible ways and the one most intelligible to the bourgeois mind.
Morris Hillquit and John Spargo have given good sketches of the Socialist state.[157] I shall adhere closely to their views, emphasizing and detailing them; and I am the more glad to adopt this plan because both are members of the National Executive Committee of the Socialist party and will not be accused of taking the bourgeois view of Socialism; whereas because I have been a bourgeois, I am likely to be accused of this.
Mr. Spargo begins by repudiating the idea of the Socialist state as a "great bureaucracy" and declares the Socialist ideal to be a "form of social organization in which every individual will enjoy the greatest possible amount of freedom for self-development and expression; and in which social authority will be reduced to the minimum necessary for the preservation and insurance of that right to all individuals."
The rights of the individual Mr. Spargo summarizes as follows:
"There must be perfect freedom of movement, including the right to withdraw from the domain of the government, to migrate at will to other territories; immunity from arrest, except for infringing others' rights, with compensation for improper arrest; respect of the privacy of domicile and correspondence; full liberty of dress, subject to decency; freedom of utterance, whether by speech or publication, subject only to the protection of others from insult, injury, or interference with their equal liberties. Absolute freedom of the individual in all that pertains to art, science, philosophy, and religion, and their teaching, or propaganda, is essential. The state can rightly have nothing to do with these matters; they belong to the personal life alone. Art, science, philosophy, and religion cannot be protected by any authority, nor is such protection needed."
On the other hand, he summarizes the functions of the state as follows:
"The state has the right and the power to organize and control the economic system, comprehending in that term the production and distribution of all social wealth wherever private enterprise is dangerous to the social well-being, or is inefficient; the defence of the community from invasion, from fire, flood, famine, or disease; the relations with other states, such as trade agreements, boundary treaties, and the like; the maintenance of order, including the judicial and police systems in all their branches; and public education in all its departments."
The state, according to Mr. Spargo, is not to own all sources of production (this is state Socialism); but is to have the right and power to organize and control the economic system. There is between these two statements all that distinguishes the crude Socialism of the nineteenth century from the practical Socialism of to-day. This is emphasized by Mr. Spargo when he states that "Socialism by no means involves the suppression of all private property and industry"; and the further recognition that the "Socialist state will not be static"; that is to say, it will not once for all decide that certain industries must be socialized and certain other industries be left to individual initiative.