The Socialist Movement/Chapter 6

by James Ramsay MacDonald

CHAPTER VI

SOCIALIST METHOD

Hitherto I have been detailing the Socialist criticism of the existing order, and I must now turn my attention to the constructive side of the movement. As a preliminary it is necessary to understand what the Socialist method is.

 

1. Utopianism.

The Socialist movement, as conceived by the pre-Marxian Socialist, was not an incident in a social evolution in which the whole of society was to play a part; reason and moral affection were to bring the change as an act of individual will. Thus Fourier, Robert Owen and others had no idea of effecting a great Socialist transformation by organic change brought about, in the first instance at any rate, by political action, but they spent their energies in attempting to found ideal communities wherein righteousness was to dwell, and from which enlightenment was to beam all over the world. By the success of these communities, kings and rulers and the misery-haunted common folk were to be converted to the New Harmony, and the nations were to give up their old ways and pursue the better path. These were the days before the historical spirit had been awakened into life by the idea of evolution. Man was assumed to be a fixed entity of desires and modes of action, and not an organism subject to historical change. The utopian method was, therefore, not organic progress but mechanical renovation. The early Socialists hardly grasped the fact that society and its various forms of organisation had historical roots; that social habits and relationships could not be thrown off like an old garment when fashions change, but that they constituted a systematic whole, balanced in its relationship, intricate in its interdependence, and linked by vital bonds to the past.

We call this phase of the Socialist movement the utopian phase, meaning by that the pre-scientific phase, when Socialism added to a perfectly sound criticism of the present and a pretty clear insight into the future, methods of reconstruction which were inadequate and unsuitable to society. So if you go to-day to places like Heronsville, near the London suburb of Chorley Wood, you will find no trace of the O'Connellsville settlement which was the origin of the village, and which was meant to be the origin of a new world. It has been lost sight of, and the people who live there now have never even heard its name. All the other similar experiments have died too, not because, as their hostile critics are so fond of assuring us, human nature could not stand them, but because their sociological method was wrong.

There is another difference between the two phases of the Socialist movement, which is an aspect of the one I have been explaining. The old, with the exception of Saint-Simonianism, saw social regeneration coming through the commune, the new sees it coming through the state. In this respect, all the error is not with the old. We shall have no Fourier Phalansteries, but no Socialist movement can now exist without a programme of municipalisation. The state is not only the government at Whitehall. It is the city, the town, the village, the family as well. That part of utopian Socialism is being refitted into the modern movement.

The weakness of the utopian method became very evident to a generation engaged in political conflict. Both France and Germany had to deal with unpopular governments, and England had to go through the long Reform agitation so that democracy might take the place of Family rule. Only America, with its wide unsettled plains, its slack social organisation and untrammelled freedom, was in a position to offer even a temporary success to utopianism. The political movement in Europe impinged upon the Socialist movement, changed its character, hardened its will, and, for the time being, narrowed its vision. What was to have been a movement joined by all classes of society led by sweet reason and austere justice, became an agitation of the suffering proletariat^[1] class, conscious of its wrongs and clamant for its rights, determined to exercise its power. The utopian method of example and of a spick-and-span order in a doll's house Phalanstery or a New Harmony was set aside, and the method of capturing the political power of the state was inaugurated. Some Socialists have mourned that the idealism of the utopian stage was trampled down by the new leadership. They do right in regretting it, but it was inevitable. "Socialism," as Louis Blane said, ‘"can be fructified only by the breath of politics"—"proletarian politics," Marx added. This is known as the scientific phase of the Socialist movement.

Like all revulsions against old conceptions, it starts at a point too far away from the old error to be itself an expression of the real truth, for in all such circumstances wisdom consists in the combination of two extreme positions, which when held separately are two mistakes. But the political method, in so far as it recognises that society can never change its relationships except in an organic and all round way, is true to the facts; in so far as it is a recognition that the social will which directs change within society must operate through the political state, it is again true to the facts; and finally, in so far as it recognises that no social alteration can be permanent unless it is begun by a change in the general public outlook on political and social rights, it is again true to the facts. Further, in so far as scientific Socialism began by uniting the working classes in a political movement and in centring that movement round certain abstractions in political and economic theory, it only followed the method that every other movement has ever followed or can ever follow. Thus Socialism towards the middle of the nineteeth century became a political movement. Its growth since then has been the growth of a political movement, and what prospects it has at the present moment of succeeding are due to the fact that it is a political movement.

 

2. Revolution.

Thus it will be seen that the talk of revolution as a Socialist method is wrong. Revolution can never bring Socialism, because the change which Socialists contemplate is one which will affect every fibre of society, and which must therefore be an organic process. Changes in the superficial things of government, for instance whether there is to be a republic or a monarchy, or whether the people are to be allowed political power or to be kept in political slavery, may be effected by an appeal to the sword, but a change which is to readjust the processes of wealth production and of national and international exchange, which is to establish some system of justice in settling the relations between services and reward, and which is to end the economic organization which produces too much wealth on the one side and too much poverty on the other, is not the kind of change to which revolutions can contribute anything. It is to be regretted that, in order to keep up an honoured but antiquated phraseology, some Socialists still use the word revolution to indicate what they have in mind. It must be observed, therefore, that they use the word in a very special way. They simply mean to indicate by it, that when Socialism has come the change will be so great as to be fundamental, and that the state of society which then will have been evolved will be so different from that from which the evolution sprung, that it will not be the same kind of society at all. That being so, those Socialists consider that they are justified in speaking of "revolutionary Socialism." They only add to the difficulties of those who are trying to understand them. Revolution does not mean a big change, but a sudden and violent change. Even the expression "the Industrial Revolution" always conveys the idea that the change was effected rapidly, and that it disorganised for the time being the existing order. It must therefore be understood that when Socialists use the term "Social Revolution," in connection with Socialism, they wish to indicate the completeness of the change which they contemplate, not the methods by which they propose to bring about the change. Revolution is the end, not the means to the end.^[2]

 

3. The Experimental Method.

Every state has the capacity through legislation and administration to fix in society certain social relationships and habits which have been proved by experiment to be good for the community and which are approved by the greater part of the public. This fact determines the modern Socialist method. When the state is democratically governed and laws are made and applied under the guidance of common experience, the part played by legislation and administration becomes more and more important. When a class is in power which, owing to its economic resources, can protect itself, the legislature will not do much work. It may be an enticing debating place, but its volume of legislation will be small. Indeed, the state of the dominant political mind at such a time is such that the generally accepted theory of government is that the state should be as passive as possible, doing little beyond military and police service, and that its relation to the citizens is best expressed in the antithesis: the man versus the state.

But when enfranchisement reaches the stratum where the common man is found; the legislature meets with a new influence altogether. The elector, the creator of parliamentary majorities, is now a man who is not in an economic position to protect himself. Indeed, he is the victim of his economic weakness, and he has to depend on his political power to adjust the balance in his favour. The state becomes his ally not his rival. An opposition between the man and the state is not present to the minds of the majority. Liberty to the possessing classes is a right to use property, to the labouring classes it is a right to be protected against the abuse of property; as an absolute ideal to the possessing classes, it is the drawing up of every stake that limits action except the action of property-holders, as an absolute ideal to the labouring classes, it is the limitation of the exercise of certain powers of action for the purpose of securing the greatest protection and freedom for the greatest number.

This is the fundamental change in the political intelligence which comes with the enfranchisement of the common folk, and which makes democracy something more than "a form of government." The relation between the state and the individual is revolutionised. For when men think of the state as an authority which says—"Let us do this together," instead of one which says—"You must not do this," the whole standpoint from which they survey the future is changed. Progress becomes a matter of mutual aid, instead of the result of the struggle for life. Education, culture, morality, idealism—and not economic power—become the creative forces in society, and the social mind is bent upon producing a congenial social environment through which these can work.

In other words, the spirit of constructive Socialism arises from political democracy. With the approach of the sun to the earth in spring, the breeze warms and the wayside bursts out into colour. Life is the companion of the hours of spring. So is Socialism the companion of democracy. The people become accustomed to Socialist axioms. Even when they imagine they are shunning Socialism they are following it. It is said of a certain Indian state that it has a make-believe parliament. Men meet together and discuss and pass resolutions and the Rajah proceeds forthwith to tear them up and throw them to the winds. And when one was asked why he continued to sit in such a parliament, he smiled and said that their resolutions were first of all torn up but in a short time they were acted upon by the Rajah, because even he was but a spill floating on the currents of public opinion. Thus the Socialist spirit and point of view may be the subject of violent hostile propaganda, but all parties in the state have to accept its guidance and form their legislation accordingly. Whether, in a coming time, the drift of the current is to change its direction or not, is a matter of speculation which only idle men will spend much time in discussing. To-day, it is running clear and strong, not because men believe in Socialism but because Socialism is a consequence of democracy.

 

4. The Parliamentary Method.

The political policy of Socialism presents many difficult problems which are not the same in any two countries, and which are more complicated in Great Britain than in any other land of the globe.

A comparison between German political conditions and our own will enable me to make this clear. The German Reichstag is not a parliament. When Bismarck drafted the constitution, which with but few amendments was accepted for the German Empire, he had two leading purposes in his mind. He determined to create a legislature based on the most democratic franchise, but devoid of every particle of real power, and at the same time to repose the real legislative and executive authority of the confederation in a Bundesrath which was to be so constituted as to be a fortress of the most extreme kind of conservatism. The Reichstag is therefore little more than a debating society, wherein, however, serious affairs of state are discussed and public opinion expressed in such a way that the responsible authorities cannot afford to overlook it. It has been described as the weakest lower house of parliament in the world, whilst the Bundesrath has been described as the strongest upper house. If there were to be a redistribution of seats and the towns were adequately represented, the flood of Radical and Socialist representation that would follow would swamp the Bismarck constitution. But I am not dealing with the future, I am dealing with what is. The parties constituting an assembly of debate which is not an assembly of authority must be subject to a very different set of influences from that which plays upon our British political parties. A Chamber responsible to public opinion for its acts and free constitutionally to make its will effective, must keep in touch with every phase of the public mind and must make itself responsible for every step in national evolution. The parties in such a Chamber have to pay far more attention to method and immediate programmes than to abstract principles, though they must find principles necessary as the mould in which to fashion programmes, and as the lamps by which to guide their steps. They will be far less able to take purely negative attitudes, and they will have far fewer opportunities to vote on separate measures without reference to the complete work of sessions and to the governments that are in power. The consequences of their action upon the general political situation, the relation which every question bears to the larger programmes and to the advantage or disadvantage of other parties must be ever in their minds. In other words, whilst the eyes of the parties in an irresponsible legislature like the Reichstag are fixed upon the horizon, those of the parties in a responsible legislature like our own House of Commons are fixed at their feet. To-day and to-morrow are of relatively small consequence under the former conditions; they are of the greatest importance under the latter conditions. Under the former conditions hard and fast lines can be drawn between parties; under the latter there are transition groups which blur the great divisions. Hence, when Socialism as a movement arises in a state which is governed autocratically like Germany, it does not influence legislation from day to day. It frightens rulers and in that way gets certain things done, as Bismarck was compelled to pass Socialistic legislation in his attempt to cut off at its source the discontent from which the Socialist movement was recruited. But that is a different thing from influencing the creative opinion of a nation and making that opinion more and more sympathetic and more and more friendly in all its actions. Under a democracy every Socialist advance tinges with red the opinions of the other parties. They compete with it for votes, and consequently if it succeeds in changing opinion it also changes parties. A dogmatic Liberal or Conservative party finding a habitation in the ancient creeds of individualism or of aristocratic privilege, is just as impossible under British conditions as is a similar Socialist party dwelling in a fairyland of economic justice. The practical results of the Socialist agitation in Germany and Great Britain may be the same, but the methods are quite different.^[3]

These differences do not depend upon some fixed differences in national characteristics, but upon political systems, and consequently the granting of real democratic liberty to the German parliament would bring the German Socialists face to face with exactly the same problems in political policy as the British Socialists have now to meet. The method of Socialism under democracy can never be cataclysmic, because changed opinions and outlooks will have a steady and uninterrupted influence on administration and legislation. What cannot be done at a ballot box in a democracy cannot be done at a barricade. Like cordite burning in the open, old conditions will be harmlessly transformed; they will not, like cordite burning in a confined place, become explosive. Social organisation will be changed here and there just as the makers of a fabric of elaborate pattern complete its design by adding this and that patch of colour in obedience to the complete artistic idea they are working out. Or perhaps an even better analogy for the change is that which takes place in an organism which is moving from one set of vital conditions to another. Its muscles, its digestive organs, its temperament alter in obedience to the subtile change of environment which is going on around it.

Every objection to Socialism based on the contention that no one can foresee all the details of the change which it involves and that, in consequence, there will be chaos the morrow after the first Socialist sun sets; that no one has produced a scheme for securing a supply of bottlewashers, navvies, newspaper editors, poets, and that therefore Socialism will break down for lack of variety in social functionaries—all these objections fail because they do not touch reality. The Socialist method avoids such disasters. The approach to Socialism is by the parliamentary method. Step by step we shall go experiencing every incident on the way and deciding stage by stage where the next day's journey leads, and whether the inducements and expectations point our way. The problems will be solved as they arise.

The characteristics of the method can best be understood by an examination of one of the conundrums put to us regarding the working of some of the details of the perfect Socialist state. The criticism proceeds in this way: Your Socialism assumes this and that (very often, be it noted, it does nothing of the kind), but men will never tolerate such a this and that, therefore your Socialism is impossible. Let us take as an example the question as to whether under Socialism there will be equal pay for all work. As a question of practical importance, nothing is more certain than that a Socialist state can yield a vast amount of benefit to its citizens whilst unequal incomes are paid to service givers. But there are some Socialist critics who insist upon imparting to Socialism a moral symmetry which, undoubtedly, could it be maintained in working, would have valuable social results of an idealistic kind. How does the Socialist approach the question? He may admit that generally speaking the effort of, say, a first-class surgeon is not any more than that of an efficient navvy, though the skill of the former is far rarer than that of the latter, and is therefore rewarded to some extent as a landowner who can exact rent is rewarded.^[4] He may further admit that it is quite conceivable that the attractions of the former calling are so great to certain types of mind, that they will be content to consider the mere opportunities to exercise their skill as themselves a precious reward, just as a healthy athlete requires no fee or prize-money to induce him to go a long walk. But if he is wise, he will content himself, so far as dogmatising about Socialism is concerned, with the contention that this question cannot be settled now, and therefore cannot be discussed ape except as a speculative exercise. We cannot measure the motives which will be in full play in the Socialist era. We know that to-day the desire to accumulate wealth is predominant in most professions; on the other hand, we also know that there are in every profession men who give service without a thought of how much it will bring into their pockets. Again, we know that under commercialism material reward is regarded as the only tangible reward, that its amplitude is the public sign of success, and that men are taught to pursue it primarily. Further, we know that as the standard of ability is raised all round, the rent of ability will fall, just as the rent of land falls when the monopoly of land is broken. We are also justified in assuming that as the struggle for the necessities of life is ended, the motives for energy will become more moral and spiritual. That is about all we know. Therefore, when we have approached nearer to Socialism than we are now, different combinations of motives from those with which we have to deal will animate men, and so proposals regarding pay and reward which would be laughed at now as utopian may in the course of time become severely practical.

This also is the answer to such objections as that Socialism is impossible till human nature changes. Human nature is always changing, not in the sense of becoming new as when one puts off one suit of clothes and puts on another, but in the sense that the complex instincts, habits, opinions and motives of which it is composed, change their relative importance and produce different resultants in consequence. The Socialist method is that of moving out step by step and of walking by sight and by faith at the same time.

 

5. The Scientific Method.

The scientific method employs the processes of both induction and deduction. It groups its facts, it marshals its particulars, it pieces together its hypotheses; then assuming its hypotheses and its systems, it explains its facts and its particulars by them. Galileo's experiments with falling bodies from which he arrived at the laws governing the rate at which a body falls through space, consisted of a grouping of ascertained facts; he enunciated the fact that a projectile travels on a parabolic path by a grouping of a more complicated set of facts; on the other hand, Darwin's work consisted not so much in proving the theory of evolution from a series of grouped facts (though he did that more than any of his predecessors), but in using that theory to explain facts, and so to this day we hear oceasional disputes as to whether the Darwinian method was inductive or deductive, whereas, as a matter of fact, it was a scientific blending of both.

The Socialist method is the Darwinian method. It begins with social phenomena, with the rational desire to group them in systems, and with the equally rational desire to discover their causes and visualise their complete fulfilment. Its interest consists in the whence and whither of society.

What are the facts in which it is interested to begin with? They may be grouped under the generic term of poverty. I have shown that the source of this poverty is not only in personal shortcomings. If that were so, the interest which is the origin of the Socialist movement would only have raised a moral and an educational problem. The source of poverty being largely social, being a recurring breakdown of the productive and distributive machinery of society, has created a sociological problem with economic, political and moral aspects. In short, the Socialist sees a machine that will not work, an engine which is always slowing up and breaking down, and he studies its mechanism to discover its faults. He finds that its parts do not work together, that its driving force is not properly distributed, that it generates an enormous amount of friction, and that all this arises because the machine has been thrown together by minds which had no conception of the complete plan of the mechanism, but which made a cylinder, and a wheel, and a piston separately and apart, and then tried to beat and hammer them all together into something like co-operative action. Such a machine cannot work, and such is modern industrial society.

The next step follows naturally upon the first. I have been using mechanical similes, but they are imperfect when applied to society, because they do not reflect that social characteristic of steady and consistent adaptation which is rather organic than mechanical in its likeness. In society, the Socialist discovers this tendency of readjustment to secure economy in the expenditure of energy. The law of readjustment pervades all life. The deaf develop the faculty of quick vision or sensitive touch, the blind of keen hearing. The plant in new surroundings, either by adaptation or by natural selection, changes its leaves; its flower, its fruit, its roots, so as to protect its life. The animal bows to the same necessity. This adaptation may be the result of something akin to what we call consciousness, it may be merely a mechanical adjustment between thing and circumstance; but the result is the same—variations which are economies in life. So, superfluous organs atrophy and disappear. No organism can flourish hampered by useless or clumsy organs.

Now, when the Socialist searches society for evidence of the operations of this law of adjustment he discovers it all round him in the form of gropings after more co-operation and more organisation. He finds law controlling economic power and imposing social responsibilities upon individual ownership. He finds the common will and the common well-being putting a bridle on the neck of the individual will and the individual interest. Thus he sees society beginning to assert itself again as a personality of all the persons, absorbing and transforming individual advantage into common advantage. The weak are no longer left unprotected against the strong. Children are educated, and steps are being taken to vindicate their right to food, clothing, medical attendance, play. These steps are hesitating and they have not been well considered; but they indicate the existence of a social will working for a common advantage. The same is true regarding women, whose physiology and psychology make them economically weaker than men; it is true of the aged; it is becoming true of the unemployed. From this investigation the Socialist rises with a clear conception of the social will and conscience becoming active in establishing a system of protection of the unequally circumstanced, which will secure to each individual an adequate measure of individual development and freedom. He believes that that is to continue. What is now merely sympathetic, will become rational; what is detached will become systematic. The rights of children, for instance, will soon have to be related not only to the convenience of the state but to the responsibilities of parents, and the responsibilities of parents will in turn have to be set in a system of family organisation far stronger than what can ever be experienced under capitalism. All this the Socialist works out from what he sees going on round about him. He completes "the broken arc"’; he carries on in idea the tendency which he sees beginning to operate now; from the walls of the temple so far built, he can anticipate the architect's idea, continue the lines, and form some conception of the completed fabric.

The same thing is true regarding the capitalist control of industry. The law of economy is at work here too. Concentration is going on. The individual capitalist gave birth to the joint stock company, the joint stock company gave birth to the trust. The village market was merged in the national market, and that in turn was merged in the world's market. Separate businesses in related processes of production and distribution were united, and after that more kindred businesses were added and all controlled from one centre. Thus concentration and co-ordination proceed apace. Still, there are great gaps in the growing order. Land, labour and capital are far from harmoniously co-operating in the production of wealth. And the Socialist, seeing what has been done, and discovering the rational principle upon which it has proceeded, can project into the future the further embodiments of this principle, and from what is going on make the most effective preparations for the completion of the work.

Similarly, regarding what is really the crux of the whole problem: What interests are to control the new order? The whole community or a class?—the Socialist pursues the same process of inquiry. He finds that the control of the land is beginning to pass into the hands of the community. This is particularly noticeable in new settlements, like Australia, where forethought is determining legislation, and where that forethought is not hampered by deeply-rooted vested interests. But the pressure of circumstances is also compelling older states like Germany and ourselves to act in the same way. He also finds that many services, like the supply of gas, water, trams and trains, are being taken from private management and provided by the municipality or the central government. These services are monopolies for the establishment of which the public consent is required, and they are being municipalised for reasons of public convenience and profit. Another group of services is passing under public control for reasons of general health and well-being. The erection of working-class dwellings and the supply of milk by municipalities are typical of this kind of service, and the medical inspection of school children lies in the same category. In this movement towards municipalisation we have a proof that the community, as an organised whole, is to control in its own interests those forms of capital, the use of which is vital to its own well-being, and is making itself responsible for services, the qualities of which must be kept high, but which competition and private interests lower. Control by inspectors is the first stage, but in the end responsibility for direct service is being accepted by the more enlightened and progressive municipalities of the world.

"This is not Socialism," reply many critics. It is not, but it is the earnest of Socialism. For the Socialist sees that many forms of capital and many public services are assuming, with time, the characteristics of those which with an all but common consent are passing under public management. In Great Britain, the very same reasons which justified the municipalisation of trams exist to justify the nationalisation of canals and railways; we are on the verge of a great revolution in the care of public health, which will bring us near to some form of nationalisation of the medical service; in countries like America where the trust has firmly established itself and has already shown its full social results of good and evil, the cry is being raised: "Let the nation own the trusts."

Such is the Socialist survey not merely of things as they have been and now are, but of the drift of things. The oceanographer puts out his little floats and the currents carry them hither and thither; thus the investigator knows whither the waters run, and he maps the path of the drifting streams until he has mastered the circulating system of the sea. The naturalist gets his bone or his tooth, and from it he can build up, limb upon limb, muscle upon muscle, organ upon organ, the unknown animal of which these things were parts. The student of human nature from a casual remark, a glimpse of a man’s library, his poise in walking, can tell what manner of man he has met and his life lies open to the observing eye like a book. So the sociologist, by studying the social changes going on around him can map the drift of progress; by noting the motives and the assumptions upon which men act, can trace the course of history through some part of the misty future; by discovering the dream cities which men have built in their hearts as abiding places for their souls, can tell what social fabrics they are to raise by legislation and administration as dwelling-places for their reason.

 

1. This clumsy word has no euphonious equivalent in English. It indicates the class without land or reserve of capital of any kind—the wage-earner pure and simple.
2. This is illustrated by an incident in the life of Marx, In 1850, he resigned from the executive of the Communist League on the ground that his fellow-members were substituting "revolutionary phrases for revolutionary evolution."
3. Although the difference I am pointing out is real, it Must not be exaggerated. For instance, the German Social Democrats, as well as ourselves, discriminate between parties, and at the second ballots when they have no candidate of their own surviving, they do not, as a rule, abstain from voting, but support the party which comes nearest to themselves. In the Prussian State Elections they have even made official overtures to the Liberals.
4. The wages of ability are partly of the nature of rent, because they are the share claimed by a holder of a monopoly.