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
FIRST, and most important, is the primary intellectual
process, the elaboration, criticism, discussion, enrichment
and enlargement of the project of Socialism. This includes all
sorts of sociological and economic research, the critical
literature of Socialism, and every possible way--the drama,
poetry, painting, music--of expressing and refining its
spirit, its attitudes and conceptions. It includes, too, all
sorts of experiments in living and association. In its widest
sense it includes all science, literature and invention.
SECONDLY, comes the propaganda; the publication, distribution,
repetition, discussion and explanation of this growing body of
ideas, until this conception of a real civilized State as
being in the making, becomes the common intellectual property
of all intelligent people in the world; until the laws and
social injustices that now seem, to the ordinary man, as much
parts of life as the east wind and influenza, will seem
irrational, unnatural and absurd. This educational task is at
the present time the main work that the mass of Socialists
have before them. Most other possibilities wait upon that
enlargement of the general circle of ideas. It is a work that
every one can help forward in some measure, by talk and
discussion, by the distribution of literature, by writing and
speaking in public, by subscribing to propagandist
organizations.
And THIRDLY, there is the actual changing of practical things
in the direction of the coming Socialized State, the actual
socialization, bit by bit and more and more completely, of the
land, of the means of production, of education and child
welfare, of insurance and the food supply, the realization, in
fact, of that great design which the intellectual process of
Socialism is continually making more beautiful, attractive and
worthy. Now this third group of activities is necessarily
various and divergent, and at every point the conscious and
confessed Socialist will find himself co-operating with
partial or unintentional Socialists, with statesmen and
officials, with opportunist philanthropists, with trade
unionists, with religious bodies and religious teachers, with
educationists, with scientific and medical specialists, with
every sort of public-spirited person. He should never lose an
opportunity of explaining to such people how necessarily they
are Socialists, but he should never hesitate to work with them
because they refuse the label. For in the house of Socialism
as in the house of God, there are many mansions.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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