The existing great inequalities in the distribution of wealth have revived doctrines the object of which is to redress such injustice. For more than a century, different forms of socialism have claimed to formulate rules for the amelioration of mankind. They agree in a verdict against existing conditions, but follow different paths in their proposals for the reformation of society. The varieties of socialism are so numerous that it is difficult even to define the word. Although collectivist theories have lost much of their early thoroughness, they are still far from admitting the just claims of the individuals constituting the society. At socialist assemblies and congresses the resolutions adopted frequently proclaim aggressively the sacrifice of the rights of the individual. The members of one socialist party have been seen refusing the collaboration of newspapers which are not the official organs of the party, or declining any co-operation with a government they have proscribed. In strikes organised by socialists, work is forbidden to men who ardently desire it. Recently printers have refused to set up newspapers the opinions of which they did not share, and even doctors have been known to decline to treat those belonging to another political party.
It is no new charge against collectivists that they would encroach too much on individual liberty. They reply that “in social-democratic society of the future, tyranny and oppression will be impossible. The secret of the bond will reside in a discipline totally different from the inanimate obedience of the soldier, a discipline depending on a willing submission of the individual to the group because of the common object.”[170] But such discipline and submission may go so far that the conscience of the individual is seriously offended. And so amongst the socialists themselves there has arisen a small group which declines to accept this submergence of the individual in the whole. This group is composed of anarchists, who, in the name of liberty and the individual, attack the property and sometimes the lives of their opponents.
It appears that there has been a notable evolution of collectivist theories in the century or more in which the abolition of human misery has been an accepted problem. Whilst there was formerly advocated the total abolition of private property and the establishment of phalansteries for communal life, at the present time the demand is limited to the nationalisation of the means of production, leaving housing and food to be provided by individual property.[171]
Through a publication, of M. Kautsky, one of their best known representatives, the social democrats have announced that “the nationalisation of the land does not necessarily bring with it the abolition of private dwellings. The customary attachment of the dwelling to agricultural employment will cease, but there is no reason why the peasants’ houses should become collective property.” “Modern socialism does not exclude individual property in food. One of the most important, perhaps the most important factor, in making human life happy and adding to its pleasures is the possible attainment of a private house. Collective ownership of the land does not exclude this.” It is very difficult to separate house and garden, especially from the point of view of considering the pleasures of life. A garden furnishes the opportunity for endless improvements, many of which cannot be separated from the idea of individual property. The concessions which collectivists have been compelled to make show conclusively the importance of private property.
Notwithstanding such modifications, many voices have been raised against the prospect of the socialisation of the means of production and the concomitant limitations of individual enterprise. The great English philosopher, Herbert Spencer,[172] against whom narrowness of view or conservatism could be urged, energetically attacked collectivist doctrines as tending to reduce human individuality to a dead level. By a series of cogent instances, he showed the evil results of the best intentioned efforts to equalise opportunities and to abolish poverty. He foretold that slavery would be the real outcome if the State interfered too much in spheres that ought to be left to individual enterprise. He believed that the institution of a collectivist State would bring great dangers.
Nietzsche has attacked socialism with his customary exaggeration. “Socialism,”[173] he wrote, “is the fanatical younger brother of dying despotism, whose goods he wishes to inherit; his efforts are, in the deepest sense of the word, reactionary. He wishes a wealth of power in the State greater than despotism ever enjoyed, but he goes beyond all the past inasmuch as he strives absolutely to stifle the individual; for him the individual is a useless efflorescence of nature to be tamed into a useful organ of the community.” Further, “Socialism at least teaches brutally and convincingly the danger of concentrating power in the State, for it is a covert attack on the State itself. When its harsh voice raises the war-cry ‘Let the State control as much as possible,’ the cry will at first become louder; but soon another phrase will grow equally clamant, ‘Let the State control as little as possible.’”
It is most probable that no shade of socialism will be able to solve the problem of social life with a sufficient respect for the maintenance of individual liberty. None the less the progress of human knowledge will inevitably bring about a great levelling of human fortunes. Intellectual culture will lead men to give up many things that are superfluous or even harmful, and that are still thought indispensable by most people. The conceptions that the greatest good fortune consists in the complete evolution of the normal cycle of human life and that this goal can be reached most easily by plain and sober habits will convince men of the folly of much of the luxury that now shortens human existence. Whilst the rich will choose a simpler mode of life and the poor will be able to live better, none the less, private property, acquired or inherited, may be maintained. Evolution must be gradual and much effort and new knowledge is required. Sociology, a new-born science, must learn of biology, her older sister. Biology teaches us that in proportion that the organisation becomes more complex, the consciousness of individuality develops, until a point is reached at which individuality cannot be sacrificed to the community. Amongst low creatures such as Myxomycetes and Siphonophora, the individuals disappear wholly or almost wholly in the community; but the sacrifice is small, as in these creatures the consciousness of individuality has not appeared. Social insects are in a stage intermediate between that of the lower animals and man. It is only in man that the individual has definitely acquired consciousness, and for that reason a satisfactory social organisation cannot sacrifice it on pretext of the common good. To this conclusion the study of the social evolution of living beings leads me.
It is plain that the study of human individuality is a necessary step in the organisation of the social life of human beings.