"The State of to-day, nationally and locally, is only the agent of the possessing class."[1122] "Mere nationalisation or mere municipalisation of any industry is not Socialism or Collectivism; it may be only the substitution of corporate for private administration; the social idea and purpose with which Collectivism is concerned may be completely absent."[1123] "Mere Statification, as we may term it, does not mean Socialism. The State of to-day is mainly an agent of the possessing classes, and industrial or commercial undertakings run to-day by Governmental bodies are largely run in the interests of these classes. Their aim in all cases is to show a profit, in the same way as ordinary capitalistic enterprises. This profit accrues to the possessing classes in the form of relief of imperial or local taxation, mainly paid by them, interests on loans, &c. In other words, these industrial undertakings are run for profit and not for use, and their employees are little, if at all, better off than those of private employers."[1124] "The modern State is but the organisation which capitalist society gives itself in order to maintain the external conditions of capitalist production against the attacks both of the workmen and of individual capitalists. The modern State, whatever its form, is essentially a capitalist machine."[1125] "State administration is very far from being the same as a Socialistic administration, as is sometimes erroneously supposed. The State administration is just as much a system of capitalistic exploitation as if the institutions in question were in the hands of private undertakers."[1126] "A bureaucracy—that is, a body of permanent officials, entrenched in Government departments, according to whose piping ministers themselves have willingly or unwillingly to dance—is totally incompatible with the very elementary conditions of Socialistic administration."[1127] "Bismarckian State control is brusque and baneful, and is certainly not the desire of the true Socialist."[1128]
"State ownership, State tyranny, State interference exist to-day. We have to bear them now; we have to submit to them now; we have to pay for them now. The people, as such, own nothing. And the Socialists demand that the people shall own everything. Not the 'State,' the 'People.' So great is the difference between the word 'State' and the word 'people.'"[1129] "Do you propose that all these means of production which are now owned by individuals, by this class, as you say, should be made the property of the Government, like the Post Office and the telegraph system are in this country, and the railways as well in some others, or that they should be owned by municipal bodies, as waterworks, tramways, gasworks, and so on, are in many cases already?—No. Socialism does not mean mere Governmental ownership or management. The State of to-day, nationally or locally, is only the agent of the possessing class; the Post Office and the other State-owned businesses are run for profit just as other businesses are; and the Government, as the agent of the possessing class, has, in the interests of its employers, to treat the employees just as other employees are treated. The organised democratic society contemplated by Socialists is a very different thing from the class State of to-day. When society is organised for the control of its own business, and has acquired the possession of its own means of production, its officers will not be the agents of a class, and production will be carried on for the use of all and not for the profit of a few."[1130] "The Post Office to-day is an organised sweating-den. The Government get the largest possible amount of work for the lowest possible wages. That is capitalist wage-slavery under Government control."[1131] "The country postman has to walk excessive distances for miserable wages in order that the profit on the Post Office may be filched from the employees and from the public by the Chancellor of the Exchequer."[1132]
The Fabians, on the other hand, advocate State Socialism, but they are a small minority. "The Socialism advocated by the Fabian Society is State Socialism exclusively."[1133] Some Socialists would welcome State Socialism in the hope that it would prepare the way for free Communism. Mr. Keir Hardie, for instance, says: "State Socialism with all its drawbacks, and these I frankly admit, will prepare the way for free Communism, in which the rule, not merely the law of the State, but the rule of life will be—From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs."[1134]
"Socialists only believe in the fraternal State. Paternal State Socialism all Socialists unanimously oppose."[1135]
FOOTNOTES:
[1122] Bax and Quelch, A New Catechism of Socialism, p. 8.
[1123] Ball, The Moral Aspects of Socialism, p. 9.
[1124] Bax, Essays in Socialism, p. 7.
[1125] Engels, Development of Socialism from Utopia to Science, p. 71.