Twentieth Century Socialism: What It Is Not; What It Is: How It May Come

by Edmond Kelly

But society, though not itself an organism, is an association of organisms. And although human society seems to resemble a machine more than an organism, the legislator cannot for a moment afford to forget that the parts of his machine are not inanimate inorganic matter, but organic living beings, endowed with the faculties of consciousness and will—and above all alive to pleasure and sensitive to pain. Nor can he afford to forget that the efficacy of all laws depends ultimately upon the consent of those upon whom they are to operate; and that therefore no law can be effectual that is not supported by public opinion. Now, public opinion is the result of all the forces acting in the social field, unconscious as well as conscious; so that while the aim of the legislator should be to replace unconscious growth so far as is possible by conscious construction, he commits a fatal error if he fails to recognize that men and women are to-day actuated as to nine-tenths of their thoughts and deeds by habit, and many—perhaps the majority of them—incapable of conscious deliberate self-restraint at all. Legislation therefore that seeks suddenly to exact of the public a greater capacity for self-restraint than it is capable of, cannot but prove ineffectual; and ineffectual legislation is bad, because it tends to bring legislation into contempt. Prohibition furnishes a good illustration of this principle: in those States in which Prohibition is supported by public opinion it operates advantageously; where it is not so supported it operates only as an instrument of blackmail. Obviously Prohibition has diminished crime and improved social conditions in some States, whereas every attempt to force it or anything approaching to it upon the city of New York has resulted in the corruption of the police engaged in enforcing it, or in prompt punishment for the political party responsible for its enactment. The helplessness of mere laws to eradicate defects of temperament is one of the facts which tend to support the theory of laissez faire; but the argument that because under certain conditions legislation is inadequate, therefore legislation is always inadequate, is too obviously illogical to need refutation. It could hardly have received a moment's consideration had it not been bolstered by pseudo-scientific conclusions drawn from an alleged identity between society and organisms. But even if society were an organism, this argument would still be incorrect; just as incorrect as though it were contended that because under certain conditions medicine is inadequate, medicines must always be avoided. Were society as subtle and difficult to treat as the human bodies of which it is composed, it would still be the duty of the legislator to study the one, just as the physician studies the other, with a view to determining the limits as well as the extent of his resources.

But society is not an organism; on the contrary, the more human and civilized it is, the less it conforms to unconscious growth and the more it yields to intelligent purpose. That it is composed of organisms, however, sets a limit to the wisdom of interference which it is of paramount importance that we should carefully define.

These limits seem roughly to be marked out by two essential factors: one is the purpose of legislation—or justice, the other is the obstacles to legislation—or national character. Government in aiming at justice has to recognize defects of character. The justice which can be attained in one community could not be attempted in another; that which could be attained in one community in one stage of its development, it would have been folly to attempt at an earlier one. The approach to perfection in social conditions depends essentially upon the approach to perfection attained by the individuals of which the society is composed.

How nearly a government can attain perfection depends, then, upon the individual character of those subject to it; and how nearly the individual character can attain perfection depends to a great extent upon the government to which it is subjected. These two factors cannot be treated apart; one is a function of the other. Just as a physician has in treating a patient to consider the hygienic conditions which surround him, and the peculiarities of constitution which may make a sudden change of these conditions injurious, so a legislator in framing laws for a community and thus changing the conditions of its environment, has to consider the temperament of the community and its fitness to undergo the proposed change. This is one of the limits that Nature puts to legislation, and it is upon a just apprehension of it that the wisdom of legislation depends.

Although the extent to which legislation can modify nature depends largely upon the individuals who compose the community, there are, nevertheless, certain rules that can be laid down applicable by and large, to the whole community.

When a trainer desires to subdue a wild beast, the first thing he does is to diminish his rations. So long as the carnivorous passions of the lion are kept whetted all attempt to control him fails. Or to use a more homely illustration, when we want to break a high-spirited colt, his supply of oats is lowered. To give such an animal an unlimited amount of oats and then to seek to control him with a powerful harness would be a mistake. If the harness left him free to move at all, he would kick the harness to pieces. Every trainer knows that if a horse is refractory, the first thing to be done to give him habits of docility is to reduce his rations of grain and to feed him on a less stimulating diet.

This simple and universally admitted principle is, however, singularly neglected in our social and political institutions. These proceed upon the opposite plan; that is to say, they whet the appetite of man to the utmost by offering the largest rewards to the most crafty, the most greedy, the most dishonest, and the most merciless of men, and then legislatures, for the most part elected by these very men, are expected to control their craft, greed, dishonesty, and mercilessness.

Thus while the competitive system, by making money the main object of human existence, drives men to gambling and crime, we maintain an elaborate system of police courts, penitentiaries, and prisons for suppressing these things, although the experience of all recorded history demonstrates that these methods are totally ineffectual. By overworking our wage-earners, we give them an insatiable thirst for drink; we entrust the sale of liquor to private individuals; we give these last the keenest motive for forcing the sale of liquor on a community alas, too eager to buy it, and then we attempt by the license system to control drunkenness. We leave our currency, which is the lifeblood of our industrial system, in the hands of men entitled under our law to consider this currency a mere method of increasing their private wealth; we offer to these men monopolies of transportation, of water, of gas, from which they can make gigantic fortunes and through which they can control our politics, and then we expect the very legislatures they control, the very legislators they elect, and the very officers they appoint, to control them. Obviously, if we begin by putting our legislature into the hands of the men whose interest it is to use that legislature to exploit us, we ought not to be surprised if the laws enacted by these legislatures fail to "change human nature."

If, however, these appetites were never awakened, or if they were only sufficiently tolerated to produce healthy activity; if the "brotherhood of man" ceased to be a formula and became a fact; if men were educated from the cradle to believe that coöperation resulted in more economy, liberty, and happiness than competition; if coöperative habits were created so that men instinctively coöperated with one another instead of fighting with one another, can it be doubted that the laws enacted to produce this change in our human conditions would have a profound effect upon human nature?

The natural environment has produced the lion, the tiger, and the ape. The artificial or human environment has produced man. But man is still a competitive animal. The next step that we have to take is still further so to modify our artificial environment as to make him a coöperative animal; to suppress the excessive competition that to-day promotes hatred, leaving enough to spur activity; to introduce enough coöperation to create habits of mutual helpfulness, yet not so much as to suppress individual initiative.