A history of socialism

by Thomas Kirkup

In the foregoing pages we have discussed the State as a possible engine of social amelioration. But we should not forget that the most hopeful movement of recent times, the co-operative movement, owes little to the State. The State has very great power, but it has no magical power. And it is a grave mistake to regard it too much as the pivot of social evolution. The State itself is only a phase of social evolution. We can trace its rise and progress in history, and its record has not been a good one. While it has been a decisive element of strength in the struggle for existence, it has also too long and too much been an organ for the exploiting of the mass of the people by the ruling minority.

Recent English socialism has given excessive prominence to the State; to the prejudice of the question, and for two reasons. The State means compulsion, and it suggests the official. Socialism carried out by the State suggests bureaucracy, and is opposed to freedom. Such a conception of the subject is most misleading and in the highest degree prejudicial to progress.

In its propaganda the Fabian Society has too often interpreted socialism in terms of the State and the municipality. Though most important, the State and the municipality are only historic phases of deeper principles and forces. It may be a way to make the subject intelligible. But this convenience is more than counterbalanced by the tactical disadvantage that orators on the other side find an easy way of ‘confuting’ socialism, by asking how the State or municipality can grapple with the vast complexity of modern industry, and how freedom could be conserved under the compulsory action of the State and its officials.

The proposal in the Fabian Basis to transfer industrial capital to the community ‘without compensation’ is open to still wider and more serious objection. The claim of socialism to be the future form of industrial organisation rests on its superior efficiency. It claims to prevail because it is best, and it needs no arbitrary exercise of power to carry it through. Theoretically and practically, from an economic and political, social, and moral point of view, it lays claim to superior competence to do the best for mankind by giving fuller scope to the free, many-sided development of the highest human life. In this and in other points the language of the Fabian Basis is too suggestive of the rigid and abstract collectivism set forth in the prevalent socialism.

If we are to understand the true inwardness of our subject we must go behind the State. Rightly understood, socialism is concerned with principles and tendencies which are more fundamental than the State. As I have said in another place, ‘Socialism is a new type of social and economic organisation, the aim and tendency of which are to reform the existing society, the State included. It is a principle of social change which goes beyond and behind the existing State, which will modify the State, but does not depend upon it for its realisation.’[^[1]] To be more precise, socialism is a principle of economic organisation, with the correlated social and ethical principles constituting a great ideal, to which the State must be made to conform. How far the State may in this way need to be transformed is a question which hardly concerns us at present.

In the chapter on the Purified Socialism I attempted to show how ‘the true meaning of socialism is given in the dominating tendencies of social evolution.’[^[2]] Through the fog of controversy we should clearly see that the fundamental principle of socialism is marked by extreme simplicity. The keynote of socialism is the principle of association. Only by associating for the ownership and control of land and capital can the people protect themselves against the evils of competition and monopoly. Only by association can they control and utilise the large industry for the general good. It means that industry should be carried on by free associated workers utilising a joint capital with a view to an equitable system of distribution. And in the political organisation of society it has for complement a like ideal, namely, that the old methods of force, subjection, and exploitation should give place to the principle of free association. Through the application and development of the principle of free association it seeks to transform State, municipality, and industry in all their departments.

Socialism rests on the great ideals of freedom and justice, of brotherhood and mutual service. It may well claim to be the heir of the great ideals of the greatest races. The Hebrew ideal of truth, righteousness, and mercy, which on its ethical side was widened and deepened into the Christian ideals of love, brotherhood, and mutual service, and the Greek ideal of the true, the good, and the beautiful, all may and should be accepted by socialism, and they should be supplemented by the Roman conceptions of law, order, and continuity, but with far wider aims and meanings. In its law of mutual service, by which it at once asserted the interdependence of the members of the social organism and a profound conception of social duty, Christianity went deeper, both in philosophy and practice, than the French Revolution with its watchwords of liberty, equality, and fraternity. All these ideals, though not seldom abused and discredited in the rough school of human experience, are in their essence profoundly true and real, and they all meet and are summed up in a worthy conception of the great socialistic ideal.

These ideals, it will be seen, go together; and it should be specially observed that freedom for the mass of mankind can be won and maintained only by association. In the competitive struggle the victors are few; the many are defeated and become subject. It is a delusion to suppose that freedom and competition are really compatible.

This truth has received striking exemplification in the recent history of America. In the course of a single generation the country has passed under a system of competition from industrial freedom to what looks very like industrial oligarchy. The men who could best adapt themselves to the conditions of competition have won; and the trusts which they have organised are the natural results. The oligarchy appears to be the very unwelcome but very natural result of the free struggle for success which has been the accepted system and the ideal of the American people.

Rightly understood, socialism will thus be seen to embody the highest conceptions of life, ancient and modern, and the highest aspirations of Christian ethics interpreted and applied by the experience of centuries. The failures which we have experienced in realising our ideals are no excuse for lowering them. They are far-reaching; they are limited by obvious natural facts, and cannot be realised in a day. But we should remember that every step forward brings us nearer to the goal.