The Century Illustrated Monthly Magazine, October, 1913: Vol. LXXXVI. New Series: Vol. LXIV. May to October, 1913Various
General
The Century Illustrated Monthly Magazine, October, 1913: Vol. LXXXVI. New Series: Vol. LXIV. May to October, 1913
Various
Periodicals
In other words, the multiplication of activities in a highly civilized
and complex community is such that the enormous increase in collective
activity is really obtained not as a substitute for, but as an
addition to, an almost similar increase in the sphere of individual
initiative and activity. There are, of course, cases of substitution;
but, speaking roughly and on the whole, the statement as above made
is accurate. The increase of collective activity for social and
industrial purposes does not mean in any shape or way a deadening
of individual character and initiative such as would follow on the
effort virtually to apply the doctrines of the Marxian socialists;
for “socialist” is a term so vague, and includes so many men working
wisely for justice, that it is necessary to qualify it in order to
define it. We are striving in good faith to produce conditions in
which there shall be a more general division of material well-being,
to produce conditions under which it shall be difficult for the
very rich to become so very rich, and easier for the men without
capital, but with the right type of character, to lead a life of
self-respecting and hard-working well-being. The goal is a long way
off, but we are striving toward it; and the goal is not socialism, but
so much of socialism as will best permit the building thereon of a
sanely altruistic individualism, an individualism where self-respect
is combined with a lively sense of consideration for and duty toward
others, and where full recognition of the increased need of collective
action goes hand in hand with a developed instead of an atrophied power
of individual action.
Now, it is fairly easy to gain a more or less half-hearted acceptance
of these views as right in the abstract. All that the Progressive party
is endeavoring to do is to apply them in the concrete.
THE REPUBLICAN DIFFERENCE
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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