Great Britain -- Politics and government -- 1837-1901; Liberalism -- Great Britain
that the construction of Utopias is not a sound method of social
science; that this particular Utopia makes insufficient provision for
liberty, movement, and growth; and that in order to bring his ideals
into the region of practical discussion, what the Socialist needs is to
formulate not a system to be substituted as a whole for our present
arrangements but a principle to guide statesmanship in the practical
work of reforming what is amiss and developing what is good in the
actual fabric of industry. A principle so applied grows if it has seeds
of good in it, and so in particular the collective control of industry
will be extended in proportion as it is found in practice to yield good
results. The fancied clearness of Utopian vision is illusory, because
its objects are artificial ideas and not living facts. The "system" of
the world of books must be reconstructed as a principle that can be
applied to the railway, the mine, the workshop, and the office that we
know, before it can even be sensibly discussed. The evolution of
Socialism as a practical force in politics has, in point of fact,
proceeded by such a reconstruction, and this change carries with it the
end of the materialistic Utopia.
Official Socialism is a creed of different brand. Beginning with a
contempt for ideals of liberty based on a confusion between liberty and
competition, it proceeds to a measure of contempt for average humanity
in general. It conceives mankind as in the mass a helpless and feeble
race, which it is its duty to treat kindly. True kindness, of course,
must be combined with firmness, and the life of the average man must be
organized for his own good. He need not know that he is being organized.
The socialistic organization will work in the background, and there will
be wheels within wheels, or rather wires pulling wires. Ostensibly there
will be a class of the elect, an aristocracy of character and intellect
which will fill the civil services and do the practical work of
administration. Behind these will be committees of union and progress
who will direct operations, and behind the committees again one or more
master minds from whom will emanate the ideas that are to direct the
world. The play of democratic government will go on for a time, but the
idea of a common will that should actually undertake the organization of
social life is held the most childish of illusions. The master minds can
for the moment work more easily through democratic forms, because they
are here, and to destroy them would cause an upheaval. But the essence
of government lies in the method of capture. The ostensible leaders of
democracy are ignorant creatures who can with a little management be set
to walk in the way in which they should go, and whom the crowd will
follow like sheep. The art of governing consists in making men do what
you wish without knowing what they are doing, to lead them on without
showing them whither until it is too late for them to retrace their
steps.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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