Theoretically, the development of man might have taken a totally different direction. The master minds of the period (such as that, for example, of Mr. W.H. Mallock) might have so organized the able as to constitute an aristocracy strong enough to keep the rest of the community in a state of ignorant servitude, so that while Mr. Mallock was enjoying the necessary leisure to discuss the "New Republic" amid the luxury of his English country home, all the work of the world would be accomplished by human automata with no desires beyond that of the immediate gratification of their appetites. Unfortunately, however, Mr. Mallock has come too late upon the scene. Some years before he was born, the die was cast. Workingmen were given a voice in public affairs and have been educated, so that they constitute a power with which government has to reckon. Here is a fact against which it is useless for millionaires to break their heads. No one can ignore the power exercised by such men as Bebel in Germany, Jaurès and Guesde in France, Vandervelde in Belgium, Keir Hardie and MacDonald in England, Gompers and John Mitchell in America. These men are all engaged in organizing the workingmen's vote with extraordinary efficacy in Europe, and with extraordinary inefficacy in the United States. But the days of Gompers and Mitchell are drawing to a close, and in this country as well as in Europe, Organized Labor will grow to understand the inevitable truth that it is only by political action and with the Socialist program that it can defeat the power of capital. So that whether Mr. Mallock be right or not, the day of aristocracy is over and the day of solidarity has dawned. The question for us to decide is whether we should recognize this fact and modify our institutions to conform to the new era, or whether we should continue to ignore the fact until we break our heads against it.
The point which Mr. Mallock and his school have failed to understand is that the very greed which creates aristocracy unfits the aristocrat for the coöperation indispensable to its survival. This condemns him, as it does all the highest types of carnivora, created by the competitive system to isolation. For it is out of the jealousy and struggles of the aristocrats with one another that the people are at last getting to their own. It was because the king, the noble, and the church could not agree in the division of spoils that their perpetual altercations left room for the organization of the Communes in France at the end of the eleventh century. It was because the church, the noble and the king would not give a fair share of the honors and spoils of the state to the wealthy bourgeoisie, that the bourgeois was obliged to associate himself with the people in 1789; it was because of the conflict between the Whigs and the Tories that the franchise was gradually extended to the workingmen in England; and it is because the Republicans can put no limit to their greed that workingmen in America will find themselves eventually compelled to organize politically their at present disunited multitudes. It is, therefore, extremely improbable that, even if Mr. Mallock had lived in an earlier age, he could have prevented the inevitable progress of the great principle of solidarity which has determined the direction of human development ever since it began to differ from that of other animals.
If now we run through all the differences between the natural environment and the environment created by Man, we shall see that they practically all proceed upon the theory that men must develop no longer as individuals but as a unit. All our customs and laws proceed upon the theory of liberty and justice; and upon that theory is based the original principle of property that assures to all men the product of their toil. Now if all men are to be assured the product of their toil, there must be an end to the system which puts a few millionaires at one end of the social scale and millions of paupers at the other.
Again, for centuries the so-called struggle for life has ceased to be a struggle for life, but has become a struggle for wealth, power, and consideration. It is no longer only the fit that survive; the unfit also survive; and if the unfit are to survive, we all have a common interest in taking the necessary steps to prevent the unfit from proving too heavy a burden upon the community.
Again, all isolating vices such as lust, ferocity, craft, fear, and selfishness—vices which characterize the carnivora and condemn them to lives of isolation—are being tempered by the necessities of common life—by the fundamental fact of the solidarity of Man. Thus, lust is tempered and in part replaced by love and mercy; ferocity is tempered and in part replaced by courage and patience; fear is tempered and in part replaced by respect and reverence; selfishness is tempered and in part replaced by unselfishness.
And all this advantage which humanity has attained over the lower animals is due to its ability to mould its own environment, and deliberately undertake the task of justice; namely, to "eliminate from our social conditions the effects of the inequalities of Nature upon the happiness and advancement of Man, and particularly to create an artificial environment which shall serve the individual as well as the race, and tend to perpetuate noble types rather than those which are base."
It is true that so far our efforts to attain justice have lamentably failed; but they have failed mainly because we have not yet sufficiently limited the scope of competition. The day we limit competition as suggested in the chapter on the Economic Structure of Socialism,[228] that day we shall have removed the lion from our path. And as stated in the Preface, the development of Man will then proceed upon the theory that all are perfectible and that it is through the improvement of all that every individual will attain his best freedom, his best happiness, and the fullest opportunities for promoting the happiness of all around him.
This is the ideal to attain which the environment described in the Chapter on the Economic Construction of the Coöperative Commonwealth has been conceived. It is the ideal which furnishes the most economical method of production and distribution and, therefore, the most leisure and liberty; that creates the environment fitted to perpetuate the noble rather than the base type; to promote virtue and discourage vice and, in a word, creates conditions under which we can practise the morality preached by every religion, whether it be that of Moses, of Mohammed, or of Christ.