Socialism as it is : $b a survey of the world-wide revolutionary movementWalling, William English
History
Socialism as it is : $b a survey of the world-wide revolutionary movement
Walling, William English
Socialism
The proposed industrial advance is to be secured largely at the expense
of capital, but for its ultimate profit. The capitalists are to pay the
initial cost. Mr. Lloyd George is very careful to remind them that even
if the present income tax were doubled, five years of the phenomenal yet
steady growth of the income of the rich and well-to-do who pay this tax,
would leave them as well off as they were before. He proposes to leave
the total capital in private hands intact on the pretext that it is
needed as "an available reserve for national emergencies." And as an
evidence of this he refused to increase the existing rate of inheritance
tax levied against the very largest estates (15 per cent on estates of
more than L3,000,000). Though up to this point he graduated this tax
more steeply than before, and nothing could be more widely popular than
a special attack on such colossal estates, Mr. Lloyd George draws the
line at 15 per cent, on the ground that a large part of the income from
such estates goes into investments, and more confiscatory legislation
might seriously affect the normal increase of the capital and "the
available reserves of taxation" of the country.[22]
Mr. Lloyd George does not fail to guarantee to capital as a whole,
"honest capital," that it will suffer no loss from his reforms. "I am
not one of those who advocate confiscation," he said several years ago,
"and at any rate as far as I am concerned _honest_ capital, capital put
in honest industries for the development of the industry, the trade,
the commerce, of this country will have nothing to fear from any
proposal I shall ever be responsible for submitting to the Parliament of
this realm." (My italics.)[23]
Mr. Lloyd George is well justified, then, in ridiculing the idea that he
is waging war against industry or property or trying to destroy riches.
He not only disproves this accusation by pointing to the capitalist
character of his collectivist program, but boasts that the richest men
in the House of Commons are on the Liberal side, together with hundreds
of thousands of the men who are building up trade and business.
And the attitude of the Radicals of the present British government is
the same as that of capitalist collectivists elsewhere. However certain
vested interests may suffer, there is nowhere any tendency to weaken
capitalism as a whole. Capitalism is to be the chief beneficiary of the
new movement.
There are many differences of opinion, however, as to the _ultimate_
effect of the collectivist program. In Great Britain, which gives us our
best illustration, there are Liberals who claim that it is Socialistic
and others who deny that it has anything to do with Socialism;
Conservatives who accept part of the program, and others who reject the
whole as being Socialistic; Socialists, who claim that their ideas have
been incorporated in the last two Budgets, and other Socialists who deny
that either had anything in common with their principles.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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