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SOCIALISM
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SOCIALISM , a See also:term loosely formed from the Latin See also:adjective socialis (socius, a comrade), and first used of certain doctrines of See also:Robert See also:Owen (q.v.) . " Socialist " occurs in a discussion between Robert Owen and the Rev . J . H . See also:Roebuck at See also:Manchester (publ . See also:Heywood, Manchester, 1837), pp . 27, 133 . From the context it seems a See also:nickname . But the See also:title " Owenist " was disliked by many supporters (see Co-operative See also:Magazine, 1826, p . 28) and " Co-operator " was acquiring a different sense . The new term was used in 1838 in See also:France (by See also:Pierre See also:Leroux), and figures in 184o in See also:Reybaud's Socialistes moderns . See also:Definition.—Socialism is that policy or theory which aims at securing by the See also:action of the central democratic authority a better See also:distribution, and in due subordination thereunto a better See also:production, of See also:wealth than now prevails .
This definition may not entirely See also:cover the See also:ancient and See also:medieval theories to which the name has been given by See also:modern writers
(see also See also:ANARCHISM, See also:COMMUNISM, CO-OPERATION)
.
It hardly
covers the schemes of Robert Owen himself
.
But just as See also:chemistry is not See also:alchemy, or See also:astronomy See also:astrology, modern socialism is not to be identified with Utopian fancies, and need not be so defined as to embrace them
.
For a like See also:reason it need not be so defined as to include every tenet of leading socialistic writers
.
We must disentangle their socialism from what is superadded to it and not involved in the socialistic See also:idea
.
The word began in the days of Owen; but, as there were utilitarians before See also: When See also:Aristotle tells us that " See also:man is by nature a See also:political See also:animal " (Politics, i . I), the adjective is ambiguous . But the individual and the state are not confused; they are even, by the Cynics, too far separated . State and individual were also well apart in See also:Rome, under the See also:Roman See also:system of legal rights—public, private, real, and See also:personal . There were socialistic See also:measures in Rome, panis et circenses; and there were agrarian, to say nothing of See also:usury laws . But See also:trade and See also:industry were not usually regarded as worthy subjects for the state and the statesman to See also:touch at all . There are instances of municipal socialism in See also:Italy and the provinces under the Roman See also:Empire (S . See also:Dill, Roman Society from See also:Nero to See also:Marcus Aurelius, 1905, pp . 218, 220, 222) . In the See also:middle ages See also:feudalism was more akin to paternal See also:government than to See also:individualism; but it was, politically, too undemocratic to approach a true socialism . On its decadence something like a de facto municipal socialism made its See also:appearance . The See also:gilds of the See also:great cities, imperium in imperio, regulated production and incidentally distribution . They did not prevent the existence of millionaires like the Fuggers, but they brought even these See also:rich men under their rules . The equality was greater than the See also:liberty, though neither was See also:complete, to modern notions . With the breaking up of the gilds came what is commonly called individualism . Thenceforward over against the See also:control-See also:ling government of the monarch or the See also:commonwealth was to stand the commercial competition of See also:free individuals . It is oneof our modern problems to determine whether this individualism is doomed or not . It has never existed pure and unmixed . Between the See also:time of the gilds and the time of the trade unions lies the time, say in See also:England in the 16th and 17th centuries, 'when there were enterprising trade and busy industry, with enough of See also:power surviving in the old organizations to prevent See also:absolute anarchy . As invention followed invention in the 18th See also:century, industry changed its See also:form and became great instead of small . That is to say, it tended to become more and more an affair of large See also:capital and large workshops, and, instead of the See also:industrial individualism of small masters and See also:independent " manufacturers," who were still " See also:hand " -workers, there was appearing the industrial See also:collectivism of the factory system, where manufacture was nothing without its machinery, its See also:colossal See also:division of labour and its strict technical discipline and See also:drill . There was a See also:short See also:period in England when employers were allowed to draw See also:advantage from the See also:change without any hindrance from the state . But in no greater time than one See also:generation the regulation of factories began, the period of anarchy ended, and the commercial competition of free individuals began to be surrounded with safeguards, more or less effective . Modern socialism, as defined above, is (a) opposed to the policy of laissez faire, which aims at the least possible interference with industrial competition between private persons or See also:groups of persons, and (b) suspicious of a policy of See also:mere regulation, which aims at See also:close surveillance and control of the proceedings of industrial competitors, but would avoid See also:direct initiative in production and direct attempts to level the in-equalities of wealth . The leading idea of the socialist is to convert into See also:general benefit what is now the gain of a few . He shares this idea with the anarchist, the positivist, the co-operator and other reformers; but, unlike them, to secure his end he would employ the compulsory See also:powers of the See also:sovereign state, or the powers of the See also:municipality delegated by the sovereign . In the former See also:case we have state socialism, in the latter municipal . Where there is direction or diversion of industry by the public force mainly for the benefit of a few, this is hardly socialism . It employs the same machinery, the public force; and it secures a See also:revenue which may possibly be used for the general benefit, as in the case of protective duties . But in such cases the general benefit is only a possible incident . So far (for example) as See also:protection succeeds in keeping out the See also:foreign competitors, the main result is the assured gain or prevented loss of a few among the citizens . Socialism by intention and definition would secure benefits not for a few, a minority, or even a See also:majority, but for all citizens . Communism has the same end in view; and socialism and communism (q.v.) are often confused in popular thought . But the communist need not be a socialist; he may be an anarchist, an opponent of all government; while the socialist need not be a communist . The socialists of the loth century rarely, if ever, demand that all wealth be held in See also:common, but only that the See also:land, and the large workshops, and the materials and means of production on a large See also:scale shall be owned by the state, or its delegate the municipality . The despotism of gilds would not now be tolerated . The strictest public regulation of trade and industry will probably continue to be that of the state, rather than of the municipality, for See also:local rules can be evaded by See also:migration, the state's only by See also:emigration . But the smaller bodies are likely to display more adventurous initiative; and it is significant that they appear in the See also:imagination nearer to the individual than the state even of a small people can ever appear to its own citizens . Yet it is not the smallest unit, the See also:parish, that has shown most activity in England, but the See also:county, a unit arithmetically nearer to the state than to the individual . It might be plausibly argued that the See also:movement of modern events has been rather towards a See also:kind of anarchism (q.v.) than a kind of socialism, if it were not for the See also:element of compulsion (quite contrary to anarchism) . Even the See also:English poor See also:law, universally called socialistic, is administered locally and the degree of socialism varies with the parishes . When the state's regulation went further and further in a See also:succession of Irish Land Acts (1870, 1881, 1903), it assumed a socialistic See also:character; the See also:face of agricultural industry was transformed for the benefit of the majority, if hardly of the whole, by the action of the state . But the result has been a state-aided individualism . The See also:attempt to transform all See also:industries by protection has not been made by the English state in these days . It remains broadly' true that, since the English state became more democratic (Reform Acts of 1832, 1867, 1884), its socialism has become more and more of the municipal character . The end in view having more to do with See also:economics than with politics, it mattered little theoretically whether the power exercised was that of the central authority acting directly or the delegated power in the hands of the smaller public bodies . This has been the course of events in England with little conscious theory or principle on the See also:part of the people or even of its leaders . It is certainly a partial fulfilment of the aspirations of those whose theory or principle is socialism . The most important form of modern socialism, which may be called for convenience " social democratic " socialism, is founded on economic theory more or less clearly understood; it is therefore often described as economic or scientific socialism . Many men have become socialists less from See also:logic than from sympathy with suffering . But modern socialism without disowning sentiment knows the need of facts and See also:sound reasoning better than its predecessors, whom it calls Utopian . While among civilized peoples the suffering has on the whole grown less, the See also:influence of socialism has grown greater; and this is largely owing to the efforts made by the best socialists to reason faithfully and collect facts honestly . The remarkable See also:extension of socialism in See also:Germany may be traced in great part to the See also:special circumstances which have made social See also:democracy the See also:chief effective organizer of working men in that See also:country . But modern socialism is not a purely See also:German product . To scientific socialism England, France and Germany have all made contribution . Its theoretical basis came, in two curiously different ways, from See also:practical England . The idea that the underpaid labour of the poor is the main source of the wealth of the rich is to be found not only in See also:Godwin and Owen but in the See also:minor English land-reformers and revolutionary writers of the 18th and See also:early rgth centuries, such as T . See also:Spence, W . See also:Ogilvie, T . Hodgskin, S . Read, W . See also:Thompson . The positions of See also:Ricardo that value is due to labour and that profits vary inversely as See also:wages were taken by See also:Marx (without Ricardo's modifications) as established doctrines of orthodox political See also:economy . It was declared to be a scientific truth that under modern industrial conditions the " exploitation " of the labourer is inevitable . In the theory of See also:rent the exploitation of the See also:tenant by the landlord was already admitted by most economists . It was for the socialists to show that the salvation both of tenant and labourer See also:lay in the hands of the central authority, acting as the socialists would have it See also:act . France had been prepared for socialism by St See also:Simon and See also:Fourier . The revolutions of 183o and 1848, though on the whole unsuccessful in directly organizing labour, made socialistic ideas circulate widely in See also:Europe . Men began to conceive of a political revolution which should be also a social revolution, or of a social and industrial revolution which should be also political . We may say broadly that the socialism of 1910 was either inspired by the ideas of that time or is coloured by them . Modern scientific socialism. was thus about fifty years old towards the end of the first See also:decade of the loth century . It would have little claim to be scientific if it had undergone no change in that time; but the change was not greater than the change in orthodox economic See also:doctrine, which indeed it had followed .
Its adherents may be classified (1) according to theory and (2) according to policy, though, as scientific socialism is really both theory and policy, being a political claim founded on an economic See also:argument, the distinction is sometimes a See also:matter of emphasis
.
There are theorists who find the exploitation of the tenant by the landlord to be the main evil whether it involves the degradation of the labourer or not
.
As some theologians confine their See also:criticism to the Old Testament, so See also: The political See also:history of scientific socialism is to a large extent the history of its attempts to avoid, to effect and to utilize the compromise . There is, of course, a large See also:body of socialists outside any organization . Partly from the teachings of socialists and partly from See also:literary descriptions of the aims and reasons of socialism, there are multitudes who think socialistically without defining their own position with the exactness of the scientific socialist . It is often these amateurs who fall readily into Utopias and who confound the boundaries between socialism and communism . This is done for example by such writers as H . G . See also:Wells and Upton See also:Sinclair . The temptation is evident . The borderland between large production and small may be sometimes debate-able; and, as soon as the socialistic nationalizing of large production is extended to small, the way is open to the Utopias of communism . Communism is an idea far more utopian than socialism . Like the idea of a See also:kingdom of See also:heaven or a See also:millennium, it springs often from a spiritual See also:enthusiasm that feels sure of its end and, at first at least, reeks little of the means . The enthusiasm may See also:spring from a real See also:conversion of the sort described in the Republic of Plato (vii . 516) . Even scientific socialism, depending theoretically on close adherence to economic principles, depends practically on this conversion . It is as with See also:Christianity, which depends on its See also:theology but also on its change of See also:heart; till we have refuted both we have not refuted Christianity . So a change of heart, which is also a change of view, is to socialism, as a See also:religion, what economic and political theory is to it as a creed . All that is best in anarchism shares this spiritual feature with socialism . It is of a higher type than the human sympathy which went with utopian socialism; it includes that sympathy and more . It requires a See also:mental somersault of the kind taken by See also:Hegel's metaphysician and (analogically) by See also:Dante at the See also:earth's centre . The observer begins to see the See also:world of men all over again, throwing from him all the See also:prejudice of his class and abstracting from all classes . This See also:abstraction may be less hard for those who belong to a class that has little., than for those of a class that has much, as religious conversion is held to be easier for the poor . But it is not really easy for any . The observer tries to conceive what is at bottom the difference between rich and poor . Casuists can show that the See also:line is a vanishing one, and that there are large groups of cases where the distinction is unsubstantial . Such borderlands are still the sporting ground of economists and philosophers and biologists . We could hardly contend, however, that no distinctions are true which break down at the border . It seems unsafe to say there is no See also:war of classes, because at their nearest extremities the classes pass into each other . At the utmost we might infer that the best way to bring the war to an end was to See also:crowd the nearest extremities . At See also:present, taking the contrast not at its least or greatest but at its mean, we find it no See also:fancy . The features that make the See also:lower as distinguished from the higher are of different quality and kind, not merely of amount . They are described perhaps most fully by See also:Tolstoy in Que faire ?, but they are brought to the See also:ken of every one of the rich who can overhear the daily talk of the poor, enter into their daily cares and put himself in their See also:place . If " We are all Socialists now." He meant no more than that we are all social reformers who will use the aid of the state without See also:scruple if it seems necessary . He did not mean that the English people had adopted a general principle of socialism . Except in the case of free trade, it is hard to discover a general principle in English politics . The English people See also:judge each case on the merits, and as if no general principle ever affected the merits . Regulation and not initiative is the prevailing feature of the action of government even now .
The See also:railways are still in private hands
.
The state railways, canals and forests of See also:India, though See also: Municipal socialism in See also:Britain finds many critics; it has the drawbacks of all democratic self-government . It is sometimes wasteful; but it is seldom corrupt; and there is no general See also:desire for a return to a less adventurous policy . In the country districts democracy is still imperfectly conscious of its own power . There are acts on the See also:statute See also:book that would well equip a parochial socialism; but socialists seem to be able to do little more than accelerate slightly what seems to be the inevitably slow See also:pace of political reform in England . Whether the extension of the See also:franchise to See also:women will quicken the See also:rate of reform is uncertain . With every See also:allowance, the change in English politics has been real, and it has been due in a great measure to the growth of organization among working men . The old trade unionism passed out of its dark ages by the aid of legislation (in 1871), which was for See also:thirty years (till the Taff Vale decision in 1901, the older view being restored by the Trades Disputes Act 1906) considered to give to the trade unions the advantages of a See also:corporation without the drawbacks . At the same time, through a better law of small partnerships (Industrial and Provident See also:Societies Acts 1852, 1862, 1876), the co-operative societies were making rapid progress . Compulsory See also:education (187o) increased the intelligence of the labouring classes and therewith their power to use their opportunities . Labour legislation, removing See also:truck, making inspection and regulation of factories more stringent (see the consolidating Act of 1878 and the Factory and Workshop Act 1901) and providing See also:compensation for accidents (rgo6), was forwarded by both political parties . This was not socialism but regulation . The old unionists were he makes the somersault and is " converted," all the little and great privileges of the rich seem now to have as many presumptions against them as were before in their favour . Why should he have so much comfort and they so little? why should he he secure when they live from hand to mouth? why should See also:art and See also:science and refinement be thrown in his own way and be hardly within their reach at all ? Such and similar ponderings are not far from a revolt against inequality, whether the revolt takes the shape of anarchism or of socialism . It carries us beyond the paternal socialism of See also:Carlyle and See also:Ruskin or even of the author of Sybil, relying as Disraeli did on the " proud control " of the old English state, which was occasionally and spasmodic-ally constructive as well as controlling, but was always actuated by a feeling like that of a chief to his clansmen . The exponents of paternal socialism have no clear consciousness of the change in the state itself . They think they can still use the old tools . They see that the people have changed, but they do not see that if the past cannot be revived for a people neither can it be revived for a state . The idea of lordship (as distinguished from leadership) is becoming intolerable; and this restiveness may contain a safeguard against one of the worst risks of socialism, bureaucracy . Before the governing bureaucracy had destroyed all originality and eccentricity, the sovereign people would have discovered for itself that " tyranny is a poor provider." Great Britain—In England a certain See also:academic See also:interest in socialism was created by Mill's discussions on the subject in his Political Economy (1848) and a more practical interest by the appearance of the See also:Christian Socialists . " The red See also:fool-fury of the See also:Seine " caused prejudice even against such harmless enthusiasts . The People's See also:Charter (in the 'thirties) had no socialistic element in it . Socialism first showed signs of becoming a popular movement in England after the lecturing tour of Henry George (1881–1882) in advocacy of the nationalizing of the land . About that very time (188o) the Democratic (afterwards in 1883 the Social Democratic) Federation was formed by See also:advocates of the whole socialistic See also:programme .
A See also:secession took place in 1884 when See also:
See also:April) some years before See also:household See also:suffrage (1867)
.
In The Man versus the State (1885) he demonstrates that liberal legislation which once meant the removal of obstacles now meant the See also:coercion of the individual
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Though a large part of the coercive measures enumerated by Spencer are rather regulation than socialism, undoubtedly there is here and there a socialistic See also:provision
.
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