New worlds for old: A plain account of modern socialismWells, H. G. (Herbert George)
General
New worlds for old: A plain account of modern socialism
Wells, H. G. (Herbert George)
Socialism
But this writing of servants brings me now to another possibility, and
that is that perhaps you are, dear reader, one of that small number of
fortunate people, rich and well placed in the world, who even under
existing conditions seem to possess all that life can offer a human
being. You live beautifully in a great London house, waited upon by
companies of servants, you have country seats with parks about them
and fine gardens, you can travel luxuriously to any part of the
civilized world and live sumptuously there. All things are done for
you, all ways are made smooth for you. A skilled maid or valet saves
you even the petty care of your person; skilled physicians, wonderful
specialists intervene at any threat of illness or discomfort; you keep
ten years younger in appearance than your poorer contemporaries and
twice as splendid. And above all you have an immense sense of downward
perspectives, of being special and apart and above the common herd of
mankind.
Now frankly Socialism will be incompatible with this patrician style.
You must contemplate the end of all that. You may still be healthy,
refined, free, beautifully clothed and housed; but you will not have
either the space or the service or the sense of superiority you enjoy
now, under Socialism. You would have to take your place among the
multitude again. Only a moiety of your property will remain to your
sort of person if any revolution is achieved. The rents upon which you
live, the investments that yield the income that makes the employment
of that army of butlers and footmen, estate workers and underlings
possible, that buys your dresses, your jewels, your motorcars, your
splendid furnishings and equipments, will for the most part be public
property, yielding revenue to some national or municipal treasury. You
will have to give up much of that. There is no way out of it, your way
to Socialism is through "the needle's eye." From your rare class and
from your class alone does Socialism require a real material
sacrifice. You must indeed give up much coarse pride. There is no help
for it, you must face that if you face Socialism at all. You must come
down to a simpler and, in many material aspects, less distinguished
way of living.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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