Moral Philosophy: Ethics, Deontology and Natural LawRickaby, Joseph
Philosophy
Moral Philosophy: Ethics, Deontology and Natural Law
Rickaby, Joseph
Ethics
Meanwhile men do work hard, to the
advantage of the community, for the ignobler prize of family affluence
and ease. Socialists are going to take away the good boy's cake and
give him a sunflower.
11. The second reason for leaving capital in private, even
unproductive hands, begins from the consideration, that the highest
end of man on earth is not production, just as it is not consumption,
of the necessaries and luxuries of life. Aristotle bids us, as much as
possible in this life, "to play the immortal ([Greek: athanatizein]),
and do our utmost to live by the best element in our nature," that is,
the intellect. (_Ethics_, c. ii., s. ii., n. 7, p. 9.) There is the
intellectual life of the statesman in the practical order: and in the
speculative order, that of the poet, of the artist, of the scholar, of
the devout contemplative--the outcome of learned and pious leisure,
and freedom from vulgar cares. One man ascending into this higher and
better region helps his neighbour to follow. The neighbour can follow,
even though he be not free from productive cares, but the leader ought
to be free, if he is to soar a high, sustained and powerful flight,
and guide others aloft. These unproductive capitalist families then
form what we may call, by a figure which rhetoricians call _oxymoron_,
something which comes very near a bull,--we may call them an _endowed
lay-clergy_: they are told off from the rest of men to lead the way in
doing, and causing to be done, the highest work of humanity. The
absence of the First Class of Workers would render the Socialist
Utopia a very vulgar place.
12. Nature's ideal is: _To all, plenty: to some, superabundance_. The
superabundance of some is not necessarily incompatible with all having
plenty: nay it is a positive furtherance of that and of still higher
ends, as has been shown. But it is a position of advantage that may be
abused, and is abused most wantonly: hence there comes to be question
of Socialism.
13. The Socialism above described is of the old sort, called
Collectivism. A new variety has appeared, Syndicalism. Syndicalism is
opposed to nationalisation and centralisation of capital and power: it
would convert workers into owners in each separate department of
labour,--colliers to own the coal, railwaymen the lines and
rolling-stock, agricultural labourers the land, and so on.
Collectivism might conceivably be put in practice, given a
sufficiently high standard of social virtue, a quality which
Socialists are not in the way to get. As for Syndicalism in practice,
I leave that to the reader to imagine. Syndicalism stigmatises
Collectivism as a gross tyranny. Thus divided into two irreconcilable
factions, the Socialists are not a happy family.
_Readings_.--_The Creed of Socialism_, by Joseph Rickaby
(Anti-socialist Union, Victoria Street, Westminster).
SECTION III.--_Of Landed Property_.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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