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
Mr. Snowden declared that it was the intention of the Socialists to make
the rich poorer and the poor richer, that they were going to use the
power of taxation for that purpose, and that the Budget marked the
beginning of the new era, an opinion in strange contrast with Premier
Asquith's statement _concerning the same Budget, for which he was
responsible_, that one of its chief purposes was "_to increase the
stability and security of property_."
Indeed the word "Socialism" has been extended in England to include
measures far less radical than those contemplated by the present
government. The Fabian Society, the chief advocate of "municipal
Socialism" and a professed and recognized Socialist organization,
considers even the post office and factory legislation as being
installments of Socialism, while the Labour Party would restrict the
term to the nationalization or municipalization of industries--but the
difference is not of very great importance. The latter class of reform
will undoubtedly mark a revolution in the policy of the British
government, but, as Kautsky says, this revolution may only serve "to
Prussianize it," _i.e._ to introduce "State Socialism."
"The best government," says Mr. Webb, "is no longer 'that which governs
least,' but 'that which can safely and advantageously administer most.'"
"Wherever rent and interest are being absorbed under public control
for public purposes, wherever the collective organization of the
community is being employed in place of individual efforts,
wherever in the public interest, the free use of private land or
capital is being further restrained--there one more step toward the
complete realization of the Socialist Ideal is being taken."
The fight of the British Socialists has thus been directed from the
first almost exclusively against the abstraction, "individualism," and
not against the concrete thing, the capitalist class. John Morley had
said that the early Liberals, Cobden, Bright, and others, were
systematic and constructive, because they "surveyed society and
institutions as a whole," because they "connected their advocacy of
political and legal changes with theories of human nature," because they
"considered the great art of government in connection with the character
of man, his proper education, his potential capacities," and could
explain "in the large dialect of a definite scheme what were their aims
and whither they were going."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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