Dr. Proser-Toady then explained how Prince Bludiron outwitted the
disloyal elements among the people by securing the reality of power
to the organised centralised State, whilst leaving the semblance of
control to the representative bodies. He quoted a Foreign Observer, at
the end of Prince Bludiron's career, who declared that the institutions
set up by him enabled the State to wield the maximum of power with
the minimum of opposition. Strangely enough, said the Professor, the
very movement that threatened to undo all his work was in reality
of the greatest service. He referred to the movement of Meccanian
Socialism or Social Democracy which owed its peculiar character to a
certain demagogue named Spotts. The career and influence of Spotts
was for a time almost as remarkable as Prince Bludiron's. Spotts
persuaded his followers that the economic tendencies of modern life
must inevitably create the Socialist State. The people need only
wait until these tendencies had worked themselves out and then seize
the power of the State, which would drop into their hands like ripe
fruit. He saw in the existing State nothing but organised Capitalism.
Consequently he encouraged his followers to take no part in the actual
Government, but to maintain themselves in permanent opposition until
the inevitable revolution came about, when they were to assume the
whole control. Spottsian Socialism became the universal doctrine of the
Meccanian proletariat of those days. They talked about the economic
interpretation of history, about economic forces, about economic
revolutions, mixed with vague notions of Liberty and Equality. But in
reality they cared not a straw for Liberty; what they sought was Power.
Yet by standing in permanent opposition to every other element in the
State they played into Prince Bludiron's hands. Whilst they waited for
the inevitable revolution, he had accustomed the people to prosperity;
and had raised the prestige of the State at home and abroad. He had
gained the support of all the strongest elements in society, had
trained an efficient bureaucracy and an efficient military aristocracy.
And yet at his death the followers of Spotts went on waiting for the
economic revolution!
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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