no policy. Indeed, the crisis of the war and post-war periods has involved Socialism itself in a crisis.
The very creation of new republics and democracies proves that the war stimulated rather than weakened the striving for social and economic justice. Democratic equality admits of no social nobility; but, as I said in speaking of Russian Bolshevism, I do not think Communism an ideal solution of the problem of economic equality. In the present stage of its evolution, democracy is seeking to get rid of misery and of the most glaring disparities of wealth. Yet, even in the economic domain, it must not merely level down. It must differentiate. The productive aspects of Capitalism are less open to criticism than its effects in enabling unproductive, non-earning, idle men to appropriate the fruit of others’ hard and honest work.
The theorists of political economy, from Adam Smith onwards, deduce economic activity from selfishness, which is assuredly a potent motive. But they forget the human desire to exercise special aptitudes and faculties in various kinds of work and production. Inventors and men of enterprise are not merely selfish. The best of them are interested in their undertakings and inventions. They organize, direct and perfect the making of things. The social and economic anarchy, of which Marx rightly complains, arises in part because the right men are not put in the right places or given work, economic and other, according to their talents. Whether Socialism would mend matters remains to be seen. I am not opposed to the socialization of a number of undertakings—socialization, not merely nationalization or State control—such as railways, canals, coal mines and means of communication. I can imagine a gradual, evolutionary socialization for which the ground would be prepared by the education of workmen and of leaders in trade and industry. To this end well-ordered State finances will be needed and closer and apter control of the whole financial system, including the banks; and, above all, better social legislation, and unemployment insurance in particular.
One of our special problems is land reform. All parties demanded it before the war. During the Counter-Reformation the covetous Hapsburgs and their alien nobles built up huge estates by means of confiscation. Our country is rich and the social and economic task of our democracy is correspondingly great. It has also to care for the physical and mental health of the nation. Not in Czechoslovakia alone but in all belligerent
