Socialism claims to be the normal and prevalent type of organisation in the future. The methods of production, distribution, and exchange will be under social control. This being so, it may surely be regarded as a special instance of the arbitrariness and absoluteness of the current socialism, when it maintains that all capital must pass out of individual ownership. It may safely be maintained that such a condition of things is not possible, and that, if it were possible, it is entirely undesirable, because most likely to repress individual freedom, and affording indefinite scope for social tyranny. Under any conceivable system of society the free development of man is likely to be promoted by the possession of reasonable private means. The only objection that can be rationally alleged against private property is when it involves injustice to others—a possibility which, under socialism, is amply provided against by the prevalence of social control over economic processes.
The views just stated are not unwarranted by the historic socialism. Amidst much that is most extravagant, Fourier has the merit at least of offering the strongest safeguards for individual and local freedom. Fourier provided that every worker should have the opportunity of gaining and maintaining a capital of his own, but under such social regulation that it would no longer involve wrong to others; and further, he arranged that the owner should have perfect freedom to transfer his services and his capital from one association to another. These are features of Fourier’s system which have been too much neglected by scientific socialists so called; and in these respects he is much less utopian than his critics.
In no question is the arbitrariness of the historic socialism more apparent than in the artificial attempts made to formulate a just method of distribution or remuneration. We have in previous chapters indicated the different methods proposed in the schools of Saint-Simon, Fourier, and Louis Blanc. Nothing has so much tended to give a utopian air to socialistic speculation. Our ideas of justice cannot well be expressed in a single formula, however comprehensive. It has been the endeavour more or less of all moralists and legislators since the origin of human society to elucidate it and reduce it to some kind of reasonable form, but with only very imperfect results; and socialists are not now likely to succeed in a task which is really impracticable. Progress in the realising of justice can be attained only through the collective enlightenment and moral experience of the race; and it will always fall short of our ideals, for our ideals rise as we approximate towards a realisation of them, and so ever leave us behind in the race after perfection.
We need not say, however, that it is an obvious implicate in every equitable theory of distribution that remuneration must generally depend on work or desert. The normal income of the future must be based on service rendered to society by all able members. Regard will be had to the needs of the disabled.
It should be emphasised, moreover, that socialism must assert the supremacy of morality over all the economic processes—production and exchange as well as distribution. Production should be rational and systematic. Above all, distribution should be equitable. In these respects socialism is fundamentally opposed to the one-sided conception of competition which has been so prevalent. It seeks to supersede the existing competitive system of industry by a new order, in which reason and equity shall prevail.
It should also be clear that socialism supplies the much-needed complement and corrective of the principle of natural liberty advocated by Adam Smith. The principle of natural liberty had a great historical value, and when rightly understood must always be regarded as a prime factor in every theory of social progress. But it can be applied only under obvious limits, prescribed by reason and morality. The natural liberty of struggling individuals would, if unchecked, land us in social chaos. The true freedom of human beings is a rational and ethical freedom. Such principles ought to prevail in the commercial relations of nations with each other, as well as in every other department of our industrial and social life.
Socialism, then, simply means that the normal social organisation of the future will and should be an associated or co-operative one. It means that industry should be carried on by free associated workers. The development of socialism will follow the development of the large industry; and it will rationally, scientifically, and systematically use the mechanical appliances evolved during the industrial revolution for the promotion of a higher life among the masses of the people.
It is a new type of industry and economic organisation the practicability of which must be decided by the test of experience. It cannot be introduced mechanically. We cannot force or improvise such a change in the constitution of society. No revolutionary violence can avail to carry through a transformation which runs counter to the fundamental laws of human nature or the great prevailing tendencies of social evolution. This will be especially manifest when we consider that its realisation will above all things depend on the ethical advance of the mass of the people. Character cannot be improved by magic; it can be substantially ameliorated only by an organic change, external circumstances co-operating with an inward moral spirit. The present competitive system must therefore be regarded as holding the field until socialism has given adequate proof of the practicability of the theory which it offers.
| [1] | Mill’s Political Economy, People’s Edition, p. 465. |