Political Ideals

by Bertrand Russell

Styled by LimpidSoft

Contents

Chapter I 1

Chapter II 36I . . . 37II . . 55III . . 61

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Chapter III 70I . . . 71II . . 78III . . 87IV . . 94

Chapter IV 102I . . . 103II . . 114III . . 122IV . . 131

Chapter V 142

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Chapter I

POLITICAL IDEALS

IN DARK DAYS, men need a clear faith anda well-grounded hope; and as the outcome ofthese, the calm courage which takes no accountof hardships by the way. The times through

CHAPTER I

which we are passing have afforded to manyof us a confirmation of our faith. We see thatthe things we had thought evil are really evil,and we know more definitely than we ever didbefore the directions in which men must moveif a better world is to arise on the ruins of theone which is now hurling itself into destruc-tion. We see that men’s political dealings withone another are based on wholly wrong ideals,and can only be saved by quite different ide-als from continuing to be a source of suffering,devastation, and sin.

Political ideals must be based upon ideals forthe individual life. The aim of politics shouldbe to make the lives of individuals as good aspossible. There is nothing for the politicianto consider outside or above the various men,women, and children who compose the world.

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The problem of politics is to adjust the relationsof human beings in such a way that each sever-ally may have as much of good in his existenceas possible. And this problem requires that weshould first consider what it is that we thinkgood in the individual life.

To begin with, we do not want all men tobe alike. We do not want to lay down a pat-tern or type to which men of all sorts are tobe made by some means or another to approx-imate. This is the ideal of the impatient admin-istrator. A bad teacher will aim at imposing hisopinion, and turning out a set of pupils all ofwhom will give the same definite answer ona doubtful point. Mr. Bernard Shaw is saidto hold that Troilus and Cressida is the best ofShakespeare’s plays. Although I disagree withthis opinion, I should welcome it in a pupil as a

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sign of individuality; but most teachers wouldnot tolerate such a heterodox view. Not onlyteachers, but all commonplace persons in au-thority, desire in their subordinates that kindof uniformity which makes their actions eas-ily predictable and never inconvenient. The re-sult is that they crush initiative and individual-ity when they can, and when they cannot, theyquarrel with it.

It is not one ideal for all men, but a separateideal for each separate man, that has to be real-ized if possible. Every man has it in his beingto develop into something good or bad: thereis a best possible for him, and a worst possible.His circumstances will determine whether hiscapacities for good are developed or crushed,and whether his bad impulses are strengthenedor gradually diverted into better channels.

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But although we cannot set up in any de-tail an ideal of character which is to be univer-sally applicable–although we cannot say, for in-stance, that all men ought to be industrious,or self-sacrificing, or fond of music–there aresome broad principles which can be used toguide our estimates as to what is possible ordesirable.

We may distinguish two sorts of goods, andtwo corresponding sorts of impulses. There aregoods in regard to which individual possessionis possible, and there are goods in which all canshare alike. The food and clothing of one manis not the food and clothing of another; if thesupply is insufficient, what one man has is ob-tained at the expense of some other man. Thisapplies to material goods generally, and there-fore to the greater part of the present economic

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life of the world. On the other hand, mentaland spiritual goods do not belong to one manto the exclusion of another. If one man knowsa science, that does not prevent others fromknowing it; on the contrary, it helps them toacquire the knowledge. If one man is a greatartist or poet, that does not prevent others frompainting pictures or writing poems, but helpsto create the atmosphere in which such thingsare possible. If one man is full of good-willtoward others, that does not mean that thereis less good-will to be shared among the rest;the more good-will one man has, the more heis likely to create among others. In such mat-ters there is no possession, because there is nota definite amount to be shared; any increaseanywhere tends to produce an increase every-where.

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There are two kinds of impulses, corre-sponding to the two kinds of goods. Thereare possessive impulses, which aim at acquir-ing or retaining private goods that cannot beshared; these center in the impulse of property.And there are creative or constructive impulses,which aim at bringing into the world or mak-ing available for use the kind of goods in whichthere is no privacy and no possession.

The best life is the one in which the creativeimpulses play the largest part and the posses-sive impulses the smallest. This is no new dis-covery. The Gospel says: “Take no thought,saying, What shall we eat? or What shall wedrink? or, Wherewithal shall we be clothed?”The thought we give to these things is takenaway from matters of more importance. Andwhat is worse, the habit of mind engendered by

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thinking of these things is a bad one; it leads tocompetition, envy, domination, cruelty, and al-most all the moral evils that infest the world. Inparticular, it leads to the predatory use of force.Material possessions can be taken by force andenjoyed by the robber. Spiritual possessionscannot be taken in this way. You may kill anartist or a thinker, but you cannot acquire hisart or his thought. You may put a man to deathbecause he loves his fellow-men, but you willnot by so doing acquire the love which madehis happiness. Force is impotent in such mat-ters; it is only as regards material goods that itis effective. For this reason the men who be-lieve in force are the men whose thoughts anddesires are preoccupied with material goods.

The possessive impulses, when they arestrong, infect activities which ought to be

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purely creative. A man who has made somevaluable discovery may be filled with jealousyof a rival discoverer. If one man has founda cure for cancer and another has found acure for consumption, one of them may be de-lighted if the other man’s discovery turns outa mistake, instead of regretting the sufferingof patients which would otherwise have beenavoided. In such cases, instead of desiringknowledge for its own sake, or for the sake ofits usefulness, a man is desiring it as a meansto reputation. Every creative impulse is shad-owed by a possessive impulse; even the aspi-rant to saintliness may be jealous of the moresuccessful saint. Most affection is accompaniedby some tinge of jealousy, which is a posses-sive impulse intruding into the creative region.Worst of all, in this direction, is the sheer envyof those who have missed everything worth

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having in life, and who are instinctively benton preventing others from enjoying what theyhave not had. There is often much of this in theattitude of the old toward the young.

There is in human beings, as in plants andanimals, a certain natural impulse of growth,and this is just as true of mental as of phys-ical development. Physical development ishelped by air and nourishment and exercise,and may be hindered by the sort of treatmentwhich made Chinese women’s feet small. Injust the same way mental development maybe helped or hindered by outside influences.The outside influences that help are those thatmerely provide encouragement or mental foodor opportunities for exercising mental faculties.The influences that hinder are those that in-terfere with growth by applying any kind of

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force, whether discipline or authority or fear orthe tyranny of public opinion or the necessityof engaging in some totally incongenial occu-pation. Worst of all influences are those thatthwart or twist a man’s fundamental impulse,which is what shows itself as conscience in themoral sphere; such influences are likely to doa man an inward danger from which he willnever recover.

Those who realize the harm that can be doneto others by any use of force against them, andthe worthlessness of the goods that can be ac-quired by force, will be very full of respectfor the liberty of others; they will not try tobind them or fetter them; they will be slowto judge and swift to sympathize; they willtreat every human being with a kind of ten-derness, because the principle of good in him

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is at once fragile and infinitely precious. Theywill not condemn those who are unlike them-selves; they will know and feel that individu-ality brings differences and uniformity meansdeath. They will wish each human being tobe as much a living thing and as little a me-chanical product as it is possible to be; they willcherish in each one just those things which theharsh usage of a ruthless world would destroy.In one word, all their dealings with others willbe inspired by a deep impulse of reverence.

What we shall desire for individuals is nowclear: strong creative impulses, overpoweringand absorbing the instinct of possession; rev-erence for others; respect for the fundamentalcreative impulse in ourselves. A certain kindof self-respect or native pride is necessary to agood life; a man must not have a sense of ut-

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ter inward defeat if he is to remain whole, butmust feel the courage and the hope and the willto live by the best that is in him, whatever out-ward or inward obstacles it may encounter. Sofar as it lies in a man’s own power, his life willrealize its best possibilities if it has three things:creative rather than possessive impulses, rever-ence for others, and respect for the fundamen-tal impulse in himself.

Political and social institutions are to bejudged by the good or harm that they do toindividuals. Do they encourage creativenessrather than possessiveness? Do they embodyor promote a spirit of reverence between hu-man beings? Do they preserve self-respect?

In all these ways the institutions underwhich we live are very far indeed from whatthey ought to be.

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Institutions, and especially economic sys-tems, have a profound influence in moldingthe characters of men and women. They mayencourage adventure and hope, or timidityand the pursuit of safety. They may openmen’s minds to great possibilities, or closethem against everything but the risk of obscuremisfortune. They may make a man’s happinessdepend upon what he adds to the general pos-sessions of the world, or upon what he can se-cure for himself of the private goods in whichothers cannot share. Modern capitalism forcesthe wrong decision of these alternatives uponall who are not heroic or exceptionally fortu-nate.

Men’s impulses are molded, partly by theirnative disposition, partly by opportunity andenvironment, especially early environment.

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Direct preaching can do very little to changeimpulses, though it can lead people to restrainthe direct expression of them, often with theresult that the impulses go underground andcome to the surface again in some contortedform. When we have discovered what kindsof impulse we desire, we must not rest con-tent with preaching, or with trying to producethe outward manifestation without the innerspring; we must try rather to alter institutionsin the way that will, of itself, modify the life ofimpulse in the desired direction.

At present our institutions rest upon twothings: property and power. Both of these arevery unjustly distributed; both, in the actualworld, are of great importance to the happinessof the individual. Both are possessive goods;yet without them many of the goods in which

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all might share are hard to acquire as things arenow.

Without property, as things are, a man has nofreedom, and no security for the necessities of atolerable life; without power, he has no oppor-tunity for initiative. If men are to have free playfor their creative impulses, they must be liber-ated from sordid cares by a certain measure ofsecurity, and they must have a sufficient shareof power to be able to exercise initiative as re-gards the course and conditions of their lives.

Few men can succeed in being creativerather than possessive in a world which iswholly built on competition, where the greatmajority would fall into utter destitution if theybecame careless as to the acquisition of ma-terial goods, where honor and power and re-spect are given to wealth rather than to wis-

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dom, where the law embodies and consecratesthe injustice of those who have toward thosewho have not. In such an environment eventhose whom nature has endowed with greatcreative gifts become infected with the poisonof competition. Men combine in groups to at-tain more strength in the scramble for materialgoods, and loyalty to the group spreads a haloof quasi-idealism round the central impulse ofgreed. Trade-unions and the Labor party are nomore exempt from this vice than other partiesand other sections of society; though they arelargely inspired by the hope of a radically bet-ter world. They are too often led astray by theimmediate object of securing for themselves alarge share of material goods. That this desireis in accordance with justice, it is impossible todeny; but something larger and more construc-tive is needed as a political ideal, if the victors

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of to-morrow are not to become the oppressorsof the day after. The inspiration and outcomeof a reforming movement ought to be freedomand a generous spirit, not niggling restrictionsand regulations.

The present economic system concentratesinitiative in the hands of a small number ofvery rich men. Those who are not capitalistshave, almost always, very little choice as totheir activities when once they have selecteda trade or profession; they are not part of thepower that moves the mechanism, but onlya passive portion of the machinery. Despitepolitical democracy, there is still an extraordi-nary degree of difference in the power of self-direction belonging to a capitalist and to a manwho has to earn his living. Economic affairstouch men’s lives, at most times, much more

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intimately than political questions. At presentthe man who has no capital usually has to sellhimself to some large organization, such as arailway company, for example. He has no voicein its management, and no liberty in politics ex-cept what his trade-union can secure for him. Ifhe happens to desire a form of liberty which isnot thought important by his trade-union, he ispowerless; he must submit or starve.

Exactly the same thing happens to profes-sional men. Probably a majority of journal-ists are engaged in writing for newspaperswhose politics they disagree with; only a manof wealth can own a large newspaper, and onlyan accident can enable the point of view or theinterests of those who are not wealthy to findexpression in a newspaper. A large part ofthe best brains of the country are in the civil

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service, where the condition of their employ-ment is silence about the evils which cannot beconcealed from them. A Nonconformist min-ister loses his livelihood if his views displeasehis congregation; a member of Parliament loseshis seat if he is not sufficiently supple or suffi-ciently stupid to follow or share all the turnsand twists of public opinion. In every walkof life, independence of mind is punished byfailure, more and more as economic organiza-tions grow larger and more rigid. Is it surpris-ing that men become increasingly docile, in-creasingly ready to submit to dictation and toforego the right of thinking for themselves? Yetalong such lines civilization can only sink intoa Byzantine immobility.

Fear of destitution is not a motive out ofwhich a free creative life can grow, yet it is the

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chief motive which inspires the daily work ofmost wage-earners. The hope of possessingmore wealth and power than any man oughtto have, which is the corresponding motive ofthe rich, is quite as bad in its effects; it compelsmen to close their minds against justice, andto prevent themselves from thinking honestlyon social questions while in the depths of theirhearts they uneasily feel that their pleasures arebought by the miseries of others. The injusticesof destitution and wealth alike ought to be ren-dered impossible. Then a great fear would beremoved from the lives of the many, and hopewould have to take on a better form in the livesof the few.

But security and liberty are only the nega-tive conditions for good political institutions.When they have been won, we need also the

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positive condition: encouragement of creativeenergy. Security alone might produce a smugand stationary society; it demands creative-ness as its counterpart, in order to keep alivethe adventure and interest of life, and themovement toward perpetually new and betterthings. There can be no final goal for human in-stitutions; the best are those that most encour-age progress toward others still better. Withouteffort and change, human life cannot remaingood. It is not a finished Utopia that we oughtto desire, but a world where imagination andhope are alive and active.

It is a sad evidence of the weariness mankindhas suffered from excessive toil that his heav-ens have usually been places where nothingever happened or changed. Fatigue producesthe illusion that only rest is needed for hap-

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piness; but when men have rested for a time,boredom drives them to renewed activity. Forthis reason, a happy life must be one in whichthere is activity. If it is also to be a useful life,the activity ought to be as far as possible cre-ative, not merely predatory or defensive. Butcreative activity requires imagination and orig-inality, which are apt to be subversive of thestatus quo. At present, those who have powerdread a disturbance of the status quo, lest theirunjust privileges should be taken away. Incombination with the instinct for convention-ality,1 which man shares with the other gregar-ious animals, those who profit by the existingorder have established a system which pun-ishes originality and starves imagination fromthe moment of first going to school down to

1In England this is called “a sense of humor.”

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the time of death and burial. The whole spiritin which education is conducted needs to bechanged, in order that children may be encour-aged to think and feel for themselves, not toacquiesce passively in the thoughts and feel-ings of others. It is not rewards after the eventthat will produce initiative, but a certain men-tal atmosphere. There have been times whensuch an atmosphere existed: the great days ofGreece, and Elizabethan England, may serveas examples. But in our own day the tyrannyof vast machine-like organizations, governedfrom above by men who know and care lit-tle for the lives of those whom they control,is killing individuality and freedom of mind,and forcing men more and more to conform toa uniform pattern.

Vast organizations are an inevitable element

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in modern life, and it is useless to aim at theirabolition, as has been done by some reformers,for instance, William Morris. It is true that theymake the preservation of individuality moredifficult, but what is needed is a way of com-bining them with the greatest possible scopefor individual initiative.

One very important step toward this endwould be to render democratic the governmentof every organization. At present, our legisla-tive institutions are more or less democratic,except for the important fact that women areexcluded. But our administration is still purelybureaucratic, and our economic organizationsare monarchical or oligarchic. Every limited li-ability company is run by a small number ofself-appointed or coöpted directors. There canbe no real freedom or democracy until the men

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who do the work in a business also control itsmanagement.

Another measure which would do much toincrease liberty would be an increase of self-government for subordinate groups, whethergeographical or economic or defined by somecommon belief, like religious sects. A modernstate is so vast and its machinery is so little un-derstood that even when a man has a vote hedoes not feel himself any effective part of theforce which determines its policy. Except inmatters where he can act in conjunction with anexceptionally powerful group, he feels himselfalmost impotent, and the government remainsa remote impersonal circumstance, which mustbe simply endured, like the weather. By a sharein the control of smaller bodies, a man mightregain some of that sense of personal opportu-

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nity and responsibility which belonged to thecitizen of a city-state in ancient Greece or me-dieval Italy.

When any group of men has a strong corpo-rate consciousness–such as belongs, for exam-ple, to a nation or a trade or a religious body–liberty demands that it should be free to de-cide for itself all matters which are of great im-portance to the outside world. This is the ba-sis of the universal claim for national indepen-dence. But nations are by no means the onlygroups which ought to have self-governmentfor their internal concerns. And nations, likeother groups, ought not to have complete lib-erty of action in matters which are of equal con-cern to foreign nations. Liberty demands self-government, but not the right to interfere withothers. The greatest degree of liberty is not se-

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cured by anarchy. The reconciliation of libertywith government is a difficult problem, but it isone which any political theory must face.

The essence of government is the use of forcein accordance with law to secure certain endswhich the holders of power consider desirable.The coercion of an individual or a group byforce is always in itself more or less harmful.But if there were no government, the resultwould not be an absence of force in men’s rela-tions to each other; it would merely be the ex-ercise of force by those who had strong preda-tory instincts, necessitating either slavery or aperpetual readiness to repel force with force onthe part of those whose instincts were less vio-lent. This is the state of affairs at present in in-ternational relations, owing to the fact that nointernational government exists. The results of

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anarchy between states should suffice to per-suade us that anarchism has no solution to of-fer for the evils of the world.

There is probably one purpose, and only one,for which the use of force by a governmentis beneficent, and that is to diminish the totalamount of force used m the world. It is clear,for example, that the legal prohibition of mur-der diminishes the total amount of violence inthe world. And no one would maintain thatparents should have unlimited freedom to ill-treat their children. So long as some men wishto do violence to others, there cannot be com-plete liberty, for either the wish to do violencemust be restrained, or the victims must be leftto suffer. For this reason, although individualsand societies should have the utmost freedomas regards their own affairs, they ought not to

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have complete freedom as regards their deal-ings with others. To give freedom to the strongto oppress the weak is not the way to securethe greatest possible amount of freedom in theworld. This is the basis of the socialist revoltagainst the kind of freedom which used to beadvocated by laissez-faire economists.

Democracy is a device–the best so farinvented–for diminishing as much as possiblethe interference of governments with liberty. Ifa nation is divided into two sections which can-not both have their way, democracy theoreti-cally insures that the majority shall have theirway. But democracy is not at all an adequatedevice unless it is accompanied by a very greatamount of devolution. Love of uniformity, orthe mere pleasure of interfering, or dislike ofdiffering tastes and temperaments, may often

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lead a majority to control a minority in matterswhich do not really concern the majority. Weshould none of us like to have the internal af-fairs of Great Britain settled by a parliament ofthe world, if ever such a body came into ex-istence. Nevertheless, there are matters whichsuch a body could settle much better than anyexisting instrument of government.

The theory of the legitimate use of forcein human affairs, where a government exists,seems clear. Force should only be used againstthose who attempt to use force against others,or against those who will not respect the lawin cases where a common decision is necessaryand a minority are opposed to the action of themajority. These seem legitimate occasions forthe use of force; and they should be legitimateoccasions in international affairs, if an interna-

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tional government existed. The problem of thelegitimate occasions for the use of force in theabsence of a government is a different one, withwhich we are not at present concerned.

Although a government must have thepower to use force, and may on occasion useit legitimately, the aim of the reformers to havesuch institutions as will diminish the need foractual coercion will be found to have this ef-fect. Most of us abstain, for instance, fromtheft, not because it is illegal, but because wefeel no desire to steal. The more men learn tolive creatively rather than possessively, the lesstheir wishes will lead them to thwart others orto attempt violent interference with their lib-erty. Most of the conflicts of interests, whichlead individuals or organizations into disputes,are purely imaginary, and would be seen to be

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so if men aimed more at the goods in whichall can share, and less at those private posses-sions that are the source of strife. In propor-tion as men live creatively, they cease to wishto interfere with others by force. Very manymatters in which, at present, common actionis thought indispensable, might well be left toindividual decision. It used to be thought ab-solutely necessary that all the inhabitants of acountry should have the same religion, but wenow know that there is no such necessity. Inlike manner it will be found, as men grow moretolerant in their instincts, that many uniformi-ties now insisted upon are useless and evenharmful.

Good political institutions would weakenthe impulse toward force and domination intwo ways: first, by increasing the opportunities

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for the creative impulses, and by shaping edu-cation so as to strengthen these impulses; sec-ondly, by diminishing the outlets for the pos-sessive instincts. The diffusion of power, bothin the political and the economic sphere, in-stead of its concentration in the hands of of-ficials and captains of industry, would greatlydiminish the opportunities for acquiring thehabit of command, out of which the desire forexercising tyranny is apt to spring. Autonomy,both for districts and for organizations, wouldleave fewer occasions when governments werecalled upon to make decisions as to other peo-ple’s concerns. And the abolition of capitalismand the wage system would remove the chiefincentive to fear and greed, those correlativepassions by which all free life is choked andgagged.

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Few men seem to realize how many of theevils from which we suffer are wholly unnec-essary, and that they could be abolished by aunited effort within a few years. If a major-ity in every civilized country so desired, wecould, within twenty years, abolish all abjectpoverty, quite half the illness in the world,the whole economic slavery which binds downnine tenths of our population; we could fill theworld with beauty and joy, and secure the reignof universal peace. It is only because men areapathetic that this is not achieved, only becauseimagination is sluggish, and what always hasbeen is regarded as what always must be. Withgood-will, generosity, intelligence, these thingscould be brought about.

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Chapter II

CAPITALISM AND THE WAGESYSTEM

I

THE WORLD IS full of preventible evils whichmost men would be glad to see prevented.

Nevertheless, these evils persist, and noth-ing effective is done toward abolishing them.

This paradox produces astonishment in in-experienced reformers, and too often producesdisillusionment in those who have come toknow the difficulty of changing human insti-tutions.

War is recognized as an evil by an immensemajority in every civilized country; but thisrecognition does not prevent war.

The unjust distribution of wealth must be ob-viously an evil to those who are not prosper-ous, and they are nine tenths of the population.Nevertheless it continues unabated.

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The tyranny of the holders of power is asource of needless suffering and misfortune tovery large sections of mankind; but power re-mains in few hands, and tends, if anything, togrow more concentrated.

I wish first to study the evils of our presentinstitutions, and the causes of the very limitedsuccess of reformers in the past, and then tosuggest reasons for the hope of a more lastingand permanent success in the near future.

The war has come as a challenge to all whodesire a better world. The system which cannotsave mankind from such an appalling disasteris at fault somewhere, and cannot be amendedin any lasting way unless the danger of greatwars in the future can be made very small.

But war is only the final flower of an eviltree. Even in times of peace, most men live

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lives of monotonous labor, most women arecondemned to a drudgery which almost killsthe possibility of happiness before youth ispast, most children are allowed to grow upin ignorance of all that would enlarge theirthoughts or stimulate their imagination. Thefew who are more fortunate are rendered illib-eral by their unjust privileges, and oppressivethrough fear of the awakening indignation ofthe masses. From the highest to the lowest,almost all men are absorbed in the economicstruggle: the struggle to acquire what is theirdue or to retain what is not their due. Mate-rial possessions, in fact or in desire, dominateour outlook, usually to the exclusion of all gen-erous and creative impulses. Possessiveness–the passion to have and to hold–is the ulti-mate source of war, and the foundation of allthe ills from which the political world is suf-

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fering. Only by diminishing the strength ofthis passion and its hold upon our daily livescan new institutions bring permanent benefitto mankind.

Institutions which will diminish the sway ofgreed are possible, but only through a completereconstruction of our whole economic system.Capitalism and the wage system must be abol-ished; they are twin monsters which are eatingup the life of the world. In place of them weneed a system which will hold in cheek men’spredatory impulses, and will diminish the eco-nomic injustice that allows some to be rich inidleness while others are poor in spite of un-remitting labor; but above all we need a sys-tem which will destroy the tyranny of the em-ployer, by making men at the same time secureagainst destitution and able to find scope for

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individual initiative in the control of the indus-try by which they live. A better system can doall these things, and can be established by thedemocracy whenever it grows weary of endur-ing evils which there is no reason to endure.

We may distinguish four purposes at whichan economic system may aim: first, it may aimat the greatest possible production of goodsand at facilitating technical progress; second, itmay aim at securing distributive justice; third,it may aim at giving security against destitu-tion; and, fourth, it may aim at liberating cre-ative impulses and diminishing possessive im-pulses.

Of these four purposes the last is the mostimportant. Security is chiefly important as ameans to it. State socialism, though it mightgive material security and more justice than we

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have at present, would probably fail to liberatecreative impulses or produce a progressive so-ciety.

Our present system fails in all four purposes.It is chiefly defended on the ground that itachieves the first of the four purposes, namely,the greatest possible production of materialgoods, but it only does this in a very short-sighted way, by methods which are wasteful inthe long run both of human material and of nat-ural resources.

Capitalistic enterprise involves a ruthless be-lief in the importance of increasing materialproduction to the utmost possible extent nowand in the immediate future. In obedience tothis belief, new portions of the earth’s surfaceare continually brought under the sway of in-dustrialism. Vast tracts of Africa become re-

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cruiting grounds for the labor required in thegold and diamond mines of the Rand, Rhode-sia, and Kimberley; for this purpose, the popu-lation is demoralized, taxed, driven into revolt,and exposed to the contamination of Europeanvice and disease. Healthy and vigorous racesfrom Southern Europe are tempted to America,where sweating and slum life reduce their vi-tality if they do not actually cause their death.What damage is done to our own urban popu-lations by the conditions under which they live,we all know. And what is true of the humanriches of the world is no less true of the phys-ical resources. The mines, forests, and wheat-fields of the world are all being exploited at arate which must practically exhaust them at nodistant date. On the side of material produc-tion, the world is living too fast; in a kind ofdelirium, almost all the energy of the world has

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rushed into the immediate production of some-thing, no matter what, and no matter at whatcost. And yet our present system is defendedon the ground that it safeguards progress!

It cannot be said that our present economicsystem is any more successful in regard to theother three objects which ought to be aimed at.Among the many obvious evils of capitalismand the wage system, none are more glaringthan that they encourage predatory instincts,that they allow economic injustice, and thatthey give great scope to the tyranny of the em-ployer.

As to predatory instincts, we may say,broadly speaking, that in a state of nature therewould be two ways of acquiring riches–one byproduction, the other by robbery. Under ourexisting system, although what is recognized

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as robbery is forbidden, there are neverthe-less many ways of becoming rich without con-tributing anything to the wealth of the commu-nity. Ownership of land or capital, whether ac-quired or inherited, gives a legal right to a per-manent income. Although most people haveto produce in order to live, a privileged mi-nority are able to live in luxury without pro-ducing anything at all. As these are the menwho are not only the most fortunate but alsothe most respected, there is a general desire toenter their ranks, and a widespread unwilling-ness to face the fact that there is no justifica-tion whatever for incomes derived in this way.And apart from the passive enjoyment of rentor interest, the methods of acquiring wealthare very largely predatory. It is not, as a rule,by means of useful inventions, or of any otheraction which increases the general wealth of

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the community, that men amass fortunes; it ismuch more often by skill in exploiting or cir-cumventing others. Nor is it only among therich that our present régime promotes a nar-rowly acquisitive spirit. The constant risk ofdestitution compels most men to fill a greatpart of their time and thought with the eco-nomic struggle. There is a theory that this in-creases the total output of wealth by the com-munity. But for reasons to which I shall returnlater, I believe this theory to be wholly mis-taken.

Economic injustice is perhaps the most ob-vious evil of our present system. It would beutterly absurd to maintain that the men whoinherit great wealth deserve better of the com-munity than those who have to work for theirliving. I am not prepared to maintain that eco-

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nomic justice requires an exactly equal incomefor everybody. Some kinds of work require alarger income for efficiency than others do; butthere is economic injustice as soon as a man hasmore than his share, unless it is because his ef-ficiency in his work requires it, or as a rewardfor some definite service. But this point is soobvious that it needs no elaboration.

The modern growth of monopolies in theshape of trusts, cartels, federations of employ-ers and so on has greatly increased the powerof the capitalist to levy toll on the commu-nity. This tendency will not cease of itself,but only through definite action on the partof those who do not profit by the capitalistrégime. Unfortunately the distinction betweenthe proletariat and the capitalist is not so sharpas it was in the minds of socialist theoriz-

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ers. Trade-unions have funds in various securi-ties; friendly societies are large capitalists; andmany individuals eke out their wages by in-vested savings. All this increases the difficultyof any clear-cut radical change in our economicsystem. But it does not diminish the desirabil-ity of such a change.

Such a system as that suggested by theFrench syndicalists, in which each trade wouldbe self-governing and completely indepen-dent, without the control of any central author-ity, would not secure economic justice. Sometrades are in a much stronger bargaining posi-tion than others. Coal and transport, for exam-ple, could paralyze the national life, and couldlevy blackmail by threatening to do so. On theother hand, such people as school teachers, forexample, could rouse very little terror by the

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threat of a strike and would be in a very weakbargaining position. Justice can never be se-cured by any system of unrestrained force ex-ercised by interested parties in their own inter-ests. For this reason the abolition of the state,which the syndicalists seem to desire, would bea measure not compatible with economic jus-tice.

The tyranny of the employer, which atpresent robs the greater part of most men’slives of all liberty and all initiative, is un-avoidable so long as the employer retains theright of dismissal with consequent loss of pay.This right is supposed to be essential in or-der that men may have an incentive to workthoroughly. But as men grow more civilized,incentives based on hope become increasinglypreferable to those that are based on fear. It

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would be far better that men should be re-warded for working well than that they shouldbe punished for working badly. This system isalready in operation in the civil service, wherea man is only dismissed for some exceptionaldegree of vice or virtue, such as murder or il-legal abstention from it. Sufficient pay to en-sure a livelihood ought to be given to everyperson who is willing to work, independentlyof the question whether the particular work atwhich he is skilled is wanted at the moment ornot. If it is not wanted, some new trade whichis wanted ought to be taught at the public ex-pense. Why, for example, should a hansom-cab driver be allowed to suffer on account ofthe introduction of taxies? He has not commit-ted any crime, and the fact that his work is nolonger wanted is due to causes entirely outsidehis control. Instead of being allowed to starve,

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he ought to be given instruction in motor driv-ing or in whatever other trade may seem mostsuitable. At present, owing to the fact that allindustrial changes tend to cause hardships tosome section of wage-earners, there is a ten-dency to technical conservatism on the part oflabor, a dislike of innovations, new processes,and new methods. But such changes, if theyare in the permanent interest of the community,ought to be carried out without allowing themto bring unmerited loss to those sections of thecommunity whose labor is no longer wanted inthe old form. The instinctive conservatism ofmankind is sure to make all processes of pro-duction change more slowly than they should.It is a pity to add to this by the avoidable con-servatism which is forced upon organized la-bor at present through the unjust workings of achange.

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It will be said that men will not work wellif the fear of dismissal does not spur them on.I think it is only a small percentage of whomthis would be true at present. And those ofwhom it would be true might easily becomeindustrious if they were given more congenialwork or a wiser training. The residue who can-not be coaxed into industry by any such meth-ods are probably to be regarded as patholog-ical cases, requiring medical rather than penaltreatment. And against this residue must be setthe very much larger number who are now ru-ined in health or in morale by the terrible un-certainty of their livelihood and the great irreg-ularity of their employment. To very many, se-curity would bring a quite new possibility ofphysical and moral health.

The most dangerous aspect of the tyranny

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of the employer is the power which it giveshim of interfering with men’s activities out-side their working hours. A man may be dis-missed because the employer dislikes his reli-gion or his politics, or chooses to think his pri-vate life immoral. He may be dismissed be-cause he tries to produce a spirit of indepen-dence among his fellow employees. He mayfail completely to find employment merely onthe ground that he is better educated than mostand therefore more dangerous. Such cases ac-tually occur at present. This evil would notbe remedied, but rather intensified, under statesocialism, because, where the State is the onlyemployer, there is no refuge from its prejudicessuch as may now accidentally arise through thediffering opinions of different men. The Statewould be able to enforce any system of beliefs ithappened to like, and it is almost certain that it

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would do so. Freedom of thought would be pe-nalized, and all independence of spirit woulddie out.

Any rigid system would involve this evil. Itis very necessary that there should be diversityand lack of complete systematization. Minori-ties must be able to live and develop their opin-ions freely. If this is not secured, the instinct ofpersecution and conformity will force all meninto one mold and make all vital progress im-possible.

For these reasons, no one ought to be al-lowed to suffer destitution so long as he orshe is willing to work. And no kind of in-quiry ought to be made into opinion or privatelife. It is only on this basis that it is possibleto build up an economic system not foundedupon tyranny and terror.

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II

THE POWER OF the economic reformer is lim-ited by the technical productivity of labor. Solong as it was necessary to the bare subsistenceof the human race that most men should workvery long hours for a pittance, so long no civi-lization was possible except an aristocratic one;if there were to be men with sufficient leisurefor any mental life, there had to be others whowere sacrificed for the good of the few. Butthe time when such a system was necessary haspassed away with the progress of machinery. Itwould be possible now, if we had a wise eco-nomic system, for all who have mental needsto find satisfaction for them. By a few hoursa day of manual work, a man can produce asmuch as is necessary for his own subsistence;

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and if he is willing to forgo luxuries, that is allthat the community has a right to demand ofhim. It ought to be open to all who so desireto do short hours of work for little pay, and de-vote their leisure to whatever pursuit happensto attract them. No doubt the great majority ofthose who chose this course would spend theirtime in mere amusement, as most of the richdo at present. But it could not be said, in such asociety, that they were parasites upon the laborof others. And there would be a minority whowould give their hours of nominal idleness toscience or art or literature, or some other pur-suit out of which fundamental progress maycome. In all such matters, organization andsystem can only do harm. The one thing thatcan be done is to provide opportunity, with-out repining at the waste that results from mostmen failing to make good use of the opportu-

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nity.

But except in cases of unusual laziness or ec-centric ambition, most men would elect to do afull day’s work for a full day’s pay. For these,who would form the immense majority, theimportant thing is that ordinary work should,as far as possible, afford interest and indepen-dence and scope for initiative. These thingsare more important than income, as soon as acertain minimum has been reached. They canbe secured by gild socialism, by industrial self-government subject to state control as regardsthe relations of a trade to the rest of the commu-nity. So far as I know, they cannot be secured inany other way.

Guild socialism, as advocated by Mr. Or-age and the “New Age,” is associated with apolemic against “political” action, and in favor

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of direct economic action by trade-unions. Itshares this with syndicalism, from which mostof what is new in it is derived. But I see noreason for this attitude; political and economicaction seem to me equally necessary, each inits own time and place. I think there is dan-ger in the attempt to use the machinery of thepresent capitalist state for socialistic purposes.But there is need of political action to transformthe machinery of the state, side by side withthe transformation which we hope to see ineconomic institutions. In this country, neithertransformation is likely to be brought about bya sudden revolution; we must expect each tocome step by step, if at all, and I doubt if eithercould or should advance very far without theother.

The economic system we should ultimately

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wish to see would be one in which the statewould be the sole recipient of economic rent,while private capitalistic enterprises shouldbe replaced by self-governing combinations ofthose who actually do the work. It oughtto be optional whether a man does a wholeday’s work for a whole day’s pay, or half aday’s work for half a day’s pay, except in caseswhere such an arrangement would cause prac-tical inconvenience. A man’s pay should notcease through the accident of his work being nolonger needed, but should continue so long ashe is willing to work, a new trade being taughthim at the public expense, if necessary. Unwill-ingness to work should be treated medically oreducationally, when it could not be overcomeby a change to some more congenial occupa-tion.

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The workers in a given industry should allbe combined in one autonomous unit, and theirwork should not be subject to any outside con-trol. The state should fix the price at which theyproduce, but should leave the industry self-governing in all other respects. In fixing prices,the state should, as far as possible, allow eachindustry to profit by any improvements whichit might introduce into its own processes, butshould endeavor to prevent undeserved lossor gain through changes in external economicconditions. In this way there would be ev-ery incentive to progress, with the least possi-ble danger of unmerited destitution. And al-though large economic organizations will con-tinue, as they are bound to do, there will bea diffusion of power which will take away thesense of individual impotence from which menand women suffer at present.

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SOME MEN, THOUGH they may admit thatsuch a system would be desirable, will arguethat it is impossible to bring it about, and thattherefore we must concentrate on more imme-diate objects.

I think it must be conceded that a politicalparty ought to have proximate aims, measureswhich it hopes to carry in the next session orthe next parliament, as well as a more distantgoal. Marxian socialism, as it existed in Ger-many, seemed to me to suffer in this way: al-though the party was numerically powerful, itwas politically weak, because it had no minormeasures to demand while waiting for the rev-olution. And when, at last, German socialismwas captured by those who desired a less im-

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practicable policy, the modification which oc-curred was of exactly the wrong kind: acqui-escence in bad policies, such as militarism andimperialism, rather than advocacy of partial re-forms which, however inadequate, would stillhave been steps in the right direction.

A similar defect was inherent in the policy ofFrench syndicalism as it existed before the war.Everything was to wait for the general strike;after adequate preparation, one day the wholeproletariat would unanimously refuse to work,the property owners would acknowledge theirdefeat, and agree to abandon all their privi-leges rather than starve. This is a dramatic con-ception; but love of drama is a great enemy oftrue vision. Men cannot be trained, except un-der very rare circumstances, to do somethingsuddenly which is very different from what

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they have been doing before. If the generalstrike were to succeed, the victors, despite theiranarchism, would be compelled at once to forman administration, to create a new police forceto prevent looting and wanton destruction, toestablish a provisional government issuing dic-tatorial orders to the various sections of revo-lutionaries. Now the syndicalists are opposedin principle to all political action; they wouldfeel that they were departing from their the-ory in taking the necessary practical steps, andthey would be without the required trainingbecause of their previous abstention from poli-tics. For these reasons it is likely that, even aftera syndicalist revolution, actual power wouldfall into the hands of men who were not reallysyndicalists.

Another objection to a program which is to

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be realized suddenly at some remote date bya revolution or a general strike is that enthusi-asm flags when there is nothing to do mean-while, and no partial success to lessen theweariness of waiting. The only sort of move-ment which can succeed by such methods isone where the sentiment and the program areboth very simple, as is the case in rebellionsof oppressed nations. But the line of demarca-tion between capitalist and wage-earner is notsharp, like the line between Turk and Arme-nian, or between an Englishman and a nativeof India. Those who have advocated the socialrevolution have been mistaken in their politi-cal methods, chiefly because they have not re-alized how many people there are in the com-munity whose sympathies and interests lie halfon the side of capital, half on the side of la-bor. These people make a clear-cut revolution-

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ary policy very difficult.

For these reasons, those who aim at an eco-nomic reconstruction which is not likely to becompleted to-morrow must, if they are to haveany hope of success, be able to approach theirgoal by degrees, through measures which areof some use in themselves, even if they shouldnot ultimately lead to the desired end. Theremust be activities which train men for thosethat they are ultimately to carry out, and theremust be possible achievements in the near fu-ture, not only a vague hope of a distant par-adise.

But although I believe that all this is true, Ibelieve no less firmly that really vital and radi-cal reform requires some vision beyond the im-mediate future, some realization of what hu-man beings might make of human life if they

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chose. Without some such hope, men will nothave the energy and enthusiasm necessary toovercome opposition, or the steadfastness topersist when their aims are for the moment un-popular. Every man who has really sincere de-sire for any great amelioration in the condi-tions of life has first to face ridicule, then per-secution, then cajolery and attempts at subtlecorruption. We know from painful experiencehow few pass unscathed through these threeordeals. The last especially, when the reformeris shown all the kingdoms of the earth, is diffi-cult, indeed almost impossible, except for thosewho have made their ultimate goal vivid tothemselves by clear and definite thought.

Economic systems are concerned essentiallywith the production and distribution of mate-rial goods. Our present system is wasteful on

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the production side, and unjust on the side ofdistribution. It involves a life of slavery to eco-nomic forces for the great majority of the com-munity, and for the minority a degree of powerover the lives of others which no man oughtto have. In a good community the produc-tion of the necessaries of existence would bea mere preliminary to the important and inter-esting part of life, except for those who find apleasure in some part of the work of produc-ing necessaries. It is not in the least necessarythat economic needs should dominate man asthey do at present. This is rendered necessaryat present, partly by the inequalities of wealth,partly by the fact that things of real value, suchas a good education, are difficult to acquire, ex-cept for the well-to-do.

Private ownership of land and capital is not

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defensible on grounds of justice, or on theground that it is an economical way of produc-ing what the community needs. But the chiefobjections to it are that it stunts the lives of menand women, that it enshrines a ruthless pos-sessiveness in all the respect which is given tosuccess, that it leads men to fill the greater partof their time and thought with the acquisitionof purely material goods, and that it affords aterrible obstacle to the advancement of civiliza-tion and creative energy.

The approach to a system free from theseevils need not be sudden; it is perfectly possi-ble to proceed step by step towards economicfreedom and industrial self-government. It isnot true that there is any outward difficulty increating the kind of institutions that we havebeen considering. If organized labor wishes

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to create them, nothing could stand in its way.The difficulty involved is merely the difficultyof inspiring men with hope, of giving themenough imagination to see that the evils fromwhich they suffer are unnecessary, and enoughthought to understand how the evils are to becured. This is a difficulty which can be over-come by time and energy. But it will not beovercome if the leaders of organized labor haveno breadth of outlook, no vision, no hopesbeyond some slight superficial improvementwithin the framework of the existing system.Revolutionary action may be unnecessary, butrevolutionary thought is indispensable, and, asthe outcome of thought, a rational and con-structive hope.

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PITFALLS IN SOCIALISM

I

IN ITS EARLY days, socialism was a revolu-tionary movement of which the object was theliberation of the wage-earning classes and theestablishment of freedom and justice. The pas-sage from capitalism to the new régime was tobe sudden and violent: capitalists were to beexpropriated without compensation, and theirpower was not to be replaced by any new au-thority.

Gradually a change came over the spirit ofsocialism. In France, socialists became mem-bers of the government, and made and un-made parliamentary majorities. In Germany,social democracy grew so strong that it be-came impossible for it to resist the temptationto barter away some of its intransigeance in re-

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turn for government recognition of its claims.In England, the Fabians taught the advantageof reform as against revolution, and of concil-iatory bargaining as against irreconcilable an-tagonism.

The method of gradual reform has manymerits as compared to the method of revolu-tion, and I have no wish to preach revolution.But gradual reform has certain dangers, to wit,the ownership or control of businesses hithertoin private hands, and by encouraging legisla-tive interference for the benefit of various sec-tions of the wage-earning classes. I think itis at least doubtful whether such measures doanything at all to contribute toward the idealswhich inspired the early socialists and still in-spire the great majority of those who advocatesome form of socialism.

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Let us take as an illustration such a measureas state purchase of railways. This is a typi-cal object of state socialism, thoroughly prac-ticable, already achieved in many countries,and clearly the sort of step that must be takenin any piecemeal approach to complete collec-tivism. Yet I see no reason to believe that anyreal advance toward democracy, freedom, oreconomic justice is achieved when a state takesover the railways after full compensation to theshareholders.

Economic justice demands a diminution, ifnot a total abolition, of the proportion of thenational income which goes to the recipients ofrent and interest. But when the holders of rail-way shares are given government stock to re-place their shares, they are given the prospectof an income in perpetuity equal to what they

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might reasonably expect to have derived fromtheir shares. Unless there is reason to expecta great increase in the earnings of railways,the whole operation does nothing to alter thedistribution of wealth. This could only be ef-fected if the present owners were expropriated,or paid less than the market value, or givena mere life-interest as compensation. Whenfull value is given, economic justice is not ad-vanced in any degree.

There is equally little advance toward free-dom. The men employed on the railway haveno more voice than they had before in the man-agement of the railway, or in the wages andconditions of work. Instead of having to fightthe directors, with the possibility of an appealto the government, they now have to fight thegovernment directly; and experience does not

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lead to the view that a government departmenthas any special tenderness toward the claimsof labor. If they strike, they have to contendagainst the whole organized power of the state,which they can only do successfully if theyhappen to have a strong public opinion on theirside. In view of the influence which the statecan always exercise on the press, public opin-ion is likely to be biased against them, partic-ularly when a nominally progressive govern-ment is in power. There will no longer be thepossibility of divergences between the policiesof different railways. Railway men in Englandderived advantages for many years from thecomparatively liberal policy of the North East-ern Railway, which they were able to use as anargument for a similar policy elsewhere. Suchpossibilities are excluded by the dead unifor-mity of state administration.

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And there is no real advance toward democ-racy. The administration of the railways willbe in the hands of officials whose bias and as-sociations separate them from labor, and whowill develop an autocratic temper through thehabit of power. The democratic machinery bywhich these officials are nominally controlled iscumbrous and remote, and can only be broughtinto operation on first-class issues which rousethe interest of the whole nation. Even then it isvery likely that the superior education of theofficials and the government, combined withthe advantages of their position, will enablethem to mislead the public as to the issues, andalienate the general sympathy even from themost excellent cause.

I do not deny that these evils exist at present;I say only that they will not be remedied by

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such measures as the nationalization of rail-ways in the present economic and political en-vironment. A greater upheaval, and a greaterchange in men’s habits of mind, is necessaryfor any really vital progress.

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II

STATE SOCIALISM, EVEN in a nation whichpossesses the form of political democracy, isnot a truly democratic system. The wayin which it fails to be democratic may bemade plain by an analogy from the politicalsphere. Every democrat recognizes that theIrish ought to have self-government for Irishaffairs, and ought not to be told that they haveno grievance because they share in the Parlia-ment of the United Kingdom. It is essential todemocracy that any group of citizens whose in-terests or desires separate them at all widelyfrom the rest of the community should be freeto decide their internal affairs for themselves.And what is true of national or local groups isequally true of economic groups, such as min-

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ers or railway men. The national machinery ofgeneral elections is by no means sufficient to se-cure for groups of this kind the freedom whichthey ought to have.

The power of officials, which is a great andgrowing danger in the modern state, arisesfrom the fact that the majority of the voters,who constitute the only ultimate popular con-trol over officials, are as a rule not interestedin any one particular question, and are there-fore not likely to interfere effectively against anofficial who is thwarting the wishes of the mi-nority who are interested. The official is nom-inally subject to indirect popular control, butnot to the control of those who are directly af-fected by his action. The bulk of the public willeither never hear about the matter in dispute,or, if they do hear, will form a hasty opinion

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based upon inadequate information, which isfar more likely to come from the side of theofficials than from the section of the commu-nity which is affected by the question at issue.In an important political issue, some degree ofknowledge is likely to be diffused in time; butin other matters there is little hope that this willhappen.

It may be said that the power of officials ismuch less dangerous than the power of capital-ists, because officials have no economic inter-ests that are opposed to those of wage-earners.But this argument involves far too simple a the-ory of political human nature–a theory whichorthodox socialism adopted from the classicalpolitical economy, and has tended to retain inspite of growing evidence of its falsity. Eco-nomic self-interest, and even economic class-

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interest, is by no means the only important po-litical motive. Officials, whose salary is gen-erally quite unaffected by their decisions onparticular questions, are likely, if they are ofaverage honesty, to decide according to theirview of the public interest; but their view willnone the less have a bias which will often leadthem wrong. It is important to understand thisbias before entrusting our destinies too unre-servedly to government departments.

The first thing to observe is that, in any verylarge organization, and above all in a greatstate, officials and legislators are usually veryremote from those whom they govern, and notimaginatively acquainted with the conditionsof life to which their decisions will be applied.This makes them ignorant of much that theyought to know, even when they are industrious

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and willing to learn whatever can be taught bystatistics and blue-books. The one thing theyunderstand intimately is the office routine andthe administrative rules. The result is an un-due anxiety to secure a uniform system. I haveheard of a French minister of education tak-ing out his watch, and remarking, “At this mo-ment all the children of such and such an agein France are learning so and so.” This is theideal of the administrator, an ideal utterly fa-tal to free growth, initiative, experiment, or anyfar reaching innovation. Laziness is not one ofthe motives recognized in textbooks on politi-cal theory, because all ordinary knowledge ofhuman nature is considered unworthy of thedignity of these works; yet we all know thatlaziness is an immensely powerful motive withall but a small minority of mankind.

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Unfortunately, in this case laziness is rein-forced by love of power, which leads energeticofficials to create the systems which lazy of-ficials like to administer. The energetic offi-cial inevitably dislikes anything that he doesnot control. His official sanction must be ob-tained before anything can be done. What-ever he finds in existence he wishes to alterin some way, so as to have the satisfaction offeeling his power and making it felt. If he isconscientious, he will think out some perfectlyuniform and rigid scheme which he believesto be the best possible, and he will then im-pose this scheme ruthlessly, whatever promis-ing growths he may have to lop down for thesake of symmetry. The result inevitably hassomething of the deadly dullness of a new rect-angular town, as compared with the beautyand richness of an ancient city which has lived

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and grown with the separate lives and individ-ualities of many generations. What has grownis always more living than what has been de-creed; but the energetic official will always pre-fer the tidiness of what he has decreed to theapparent disorder of spontaneous growth.

The mere possession of power tends to pro-duce a love of power, which is a very dan-gerous motive, because the only sure proof ofpower consists in preventing others from do-ing what they wish to do. The essential theoryof democracy is the diffusion of power amongthe whole people, so that the evils produced byone man’s possession of great power shall beobviated. But the diffusion of power throughdemocracy is only effective when the voterstake an interest in the question involved. Whenthe question does not interest them, they do not

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attempt to control the administration, and allactual power passes into the hands of officials.

For this reason, the true ends of democracyare not achieved by state socialism or by anysystem which places great power in the handsof men subject to no popular control exceptthat which is more or less indirectly exercisedthrough parliament.

Any fresh survey of men’s political actionsshows that, in those who have enough en-ergy to be politically effective, love of power isa stronger motive than economic self-interest.Love of power actuates the great millionaires,who have far more money than they can spend,but continue to amass wealth merely in orderto control more and more of the world’s fi-nance.2 Love of power is obviously the ruling

2Cf. J. A. Hobson, “The Evolution of Modern Capi-

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motive of many politicians. It is also the chiefcause of wars, which are admittedly almost al-ways a bad speculation from the mere point ofview of wealth. For this reason, a new eco-nomic system which merely attacks economicmotives and does not interfere with the concen-tration of power is not likely to effect any verygreat improvement in the world. This is one ofthe chief reasons for regarding state socialismwith suspicion.

talism.”

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III

THE PROBLEM OF the distribution of poweris a more difficult one than the problem of thedistribution of wealth. The machinery of repre-sentative government has concentrated on ulti-mate power as the only important matter, andhas ignored immediate executive power. Al-most nothing has been done to democratize ad-ministration. Government officials, in virtue oftheir income, security, and social position, arelikely to be on the side of the rich, who havebeen their daily associates ever since the timeof school and college. And whether or not theyare on the side of the rich, they are not likely,for the reasons we have been considering, to begenuinely in favor of progress. What applies togovernment officials applies also to members

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of Parliament, with the sole difference that theyhave had to recommend themselves to a con-stituency. This, however, only adds hypocrisyto the other qualities of a ruling caste. Whoeverhas stood in the lobby of the House of Com-mons watching members emerge with wander-ing eye and hypothetical smile, until the con-stituent is espied, his arm taken, “my dear fel-low” whispered in his ear, and his steps guidedtoward the inner precincts–whoever, observ-ing this, has realized that these are the arts bywhich men become and remain legislators, canhardly fail to feel that democracy as it existsis not an absolutely perfect instrument of gov-ernment. It is a painful fact that the ordinaryvoter, at any rate in England, is quite blind toinsincerity. The man who does not care aboutany definite political measures can generallybe won by corruption or flattery, open or con-

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cealed; the man who is set on securing reformswill generally prefer an ambitious windbag toa man who desires the public good withoutpossessing a ready tongue. And the ambitiouswindbag, as soon as he has become a powerby the enthusiasm he has aroused, will sell hisinfluence to the governing clique, sometimesopenly, sometimes by the more subtle methodof intentionally failing at a crisis. This is part ofthe normal working of democracy as embodiedin representative institutions. Yet a cure mustbe found if democracy is not to remain a farce.

One of the sources of evil in modern largedemocracies is the fact that most of the elec-torate have no direct or vital interest in most ofthe questions that arise. Should Welsh childrenbe allowed the use of the Welsh language inschools? Should gipsies be compelled to aban-

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don their nomadic life at the bidding of theeducation authorities? Should miners have aneight-hour day? Should Christian Scientists becompelled to call in doctors in case of seriousillness? These are matters of passionate inter-est to certain sections of the community, butof very little interest to the great majority. Ifthey are decided according to the wishes of thenumerical majority, the intense desires of a mi-nority will be overborne by the very slight anduninformed whims of the indifferent remain-der. If the minority are geographically concen-trated, so that they can decide elections in a cer-tain number of constituencies, like the Welshand the miners, they have a good chance of get-ting their way, by the wholly beneficent processwhich its enemies describe as log-rolling. But ifthey are scattered and politically feeble, like thegipsies and the Christian Scientists, they stand

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a very poor chance against the prejudices of themajority. Even when they are geographicallyconcentrated, like the Irish, they may fail toobtain their wishes, because they arouse somehostility or some instinct of domination in themajority. Such a state of affairs is the negationof all democratic principles.

The tyranny of the majority is a very realdanger. It is a mistake to suppose that the ma-jority is necessarily right. On every new ques-tion the majority is always wrong at first. Inmatters where the state must act as a whole,such as tariffs, for example, decision by ma-jorities is probably the best method that can bedevised. But there are a great many questionsin which there is no need of a uniform deci-sion. Religion is recognized as one of these.Education ought to be one, provided a certain

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minimum standard is attained. Military ser-vice clearly ought to be one. Wherever di-vergent action by different groups is possiblewithout anarchy, it ought to be permitted. Insuch cases it will be found by those who con-sider past history that, whenever any new fun-damental issue arises, the majority are in thewrong, because they are guided by prejudiceand habit. Progress comes through the gradualeffect of a minority in converting opinion andaltering custom. At one time–not so very longago–it was considered monstrous wickednessto maintain that old women ought not to beburnt as witches. If those who held this opinionhad been forcibly suppressed, we should stillbe steeped in medieval superstition. For suchreasons, it is of the utmost importance that themajority should refrain from imposing its willas regards matters in which uniformity is not

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absolutely necessary.

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THE CURE FOR the evils and dangers whichwe have been considering is a very great ex-tension of devolution and federal government.Wherever there is a national consciousness, asin Wales and Ireland, the area in which it existsought to be allowed to decide all purely localaffairs without external interference. But thereare many matters which ought to be left to themanagement, not of local groups, but of tradegroups, or of organizations embodying someset of opinions. In the East, men are subjectto different laws according to the religion theyprofess. Something of this kind is necessary ifany semblance of liberty is to exist where thereis great divergence in beliefs.

Some matters are essentially geographical;

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for instance, gas and water, roads, tariffs,armies and navies. These must be decided byan authority representing an area. How largethe area ought to be, depends upon accidentsof topography and sentiment, and also uponthe nature of the matter involved. Gas andwater require a small area, roads a somewhatlarger one, while the only satisfactory area foran army or a navy is the whole planet, since nosmaller area will prevent war.

But the proper unit in most economic ques-tions, and also in most questions that are in-timately concerned with personal opinions, isnot geographical at all. The internal manage-ment of railways ought not to be in the handsof the geographical state, for reasons which wehave already considered. Still less ought it tobe in the hands of a set of irresponsible capital-

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ists. The only truly democratic system wouldbe one which left the internal management ofrailways in the hands of the men who workon them. These men should elect the generalmanager, and a parliament of directors if nec-essary. All questions of wages, conditions oflabor, running of trains, and acquisition of ma-terial, should be in the hands of a body respon-sible only to those actually engaged in the workof the railway.

The same arguments apply to other largetrades: mining, iron and steel, cotton, and soon. British trade-unionism, it seems to me, haserred in conceiving labor and capital as bothpermanent forces, which were to be broughtto some equality of strength by the organiza-tion of labor. This seems to me too modest anideal. The ideal which I should wish to sub-

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stitute involves the conquest of democracy andself-government in the economic sphere as inthe political sphere, and the total abolition ofthe power now wielded by the capitalist. Theman who works on a railway ought to have avoice in the government of the railway, just asmuch as the man who works in a state has aright to a voice in the management of his state.The concentration of business initiative in thehands of the employers is a great evil, and robsthe employees of their legitimate share of inter-est in the larger problems of their trade.

French syndicalists were the first to advo-cate the system of trade autonomy as a bet-ter solution than state socialism. But in theirview the trades were to be independent, al-most like sovereign states at present. Such asystem would not promote peace, any more

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than it does at present in international rela-tions. In the affairs of any body of men, we maybroadly distinguish what may be called ques-tions of home politics from questions of foreignpolitics. Every group sufficiently well-markedto constitute a political entity ought to be au-tonomous in regard to internal matters, but notin regard to those that directly affect the out-side world. If two groups are both entirely freeas regards their relations to each other, there isno way of averting the danger of an open orcovert appeal to force. The relations of a groupof men to the outside world ought, wheneverpossible, to be controlled by a neutral authority.It is here that the state is necessary for adjustingthe relations between different trades. The menwho make some commodity should be entirelyfree as regards hours of labor, distribution ofthe total earnings of the trade, and all questions

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of business management. But they should notbe free as regards the price of what they pro-duce, since price is a matter concerning theirrelations to the rest of the community. If therewere nominal freedom in regard to price, therewould be a danger of a constant tug-of-war, inwhich those trades which were most immedi-ately necessary to the existence of the commu-nity could always obtain an unfair advantage.Force is no more admirable in the economicsphere than in dealings between states. In or-der to secure the maximum of freedom with theminimum of force, the universal principle is:Autonomy within each politically important group,and a neutral authority for deciding questions in-volving relations between groups. The neutral au-thority should, of course, rest on a democraticbasis, but should, if possible, represent a con-stituency wider than that of the groups con-

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cerned. In international affairs the only ade-quate authority would be one representing allcivilized nations.

In order to prevent undue extension of thepower of such authorities, it is desirable andnecessary that the various autonomous groupsshould be very jealous of their liberties, andvery ready to resist by political means any en-croachments upon their independence. Statesocialism does not tolerate such groups, eachwith their own officials responsible to thegroup. Consequently it abandons the internalaffairs of a group to the control of men not re-sponsible to that group or specially aware of itsneeds. This opens the door to tyranny and tothe destruction of initiative. These dangers areavoided by a system which allows any groupof men to combine for any given purpose, pro-

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vided it is not predatory, and to claim fromthe central authority such self-government asis necessary to the carrying out of the purpose.Churches of various denominations afford aninstance. Their autonomy was won by cen-turies of warfare and persecution. It is to behoped that a less terrible struggle will be re-quired to achieve the same result in the eco-nomic sphere. But whatever the obstacles, I be-lieve the importance of liberty is as great in theone case as it has been admitted to be in theother.

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INDIVIDUAL LIBERTY AND PUBLICCONTROL

I

SOCIETY CANNOT EXIST without law andorder, and cannot advance except through theinitiative of vigorous innovators. Yet law andorder are always hostile to innovations, and in-novators are almost always, to some extent, an-archists. Those whose minds are dominated byfear of a relapse towards barbarism will em-phasize the importance of law and order, whilethose who are inspired by the hope of an ad-vance towards civilization will usually be moreconscious of the need of individual initiative.Both temperaments are necessary, and wisdomlies in allowing each to operate freely where itis beneficent. But those who are on the side oflaw and order, since they are reinforced by cus-tom and the instinct for upholding the status

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quo, have no need of a reasoned defense. It isthe innovators who have difficulty in being al-lowed to exist and work. Each generation be-lieves that this difficulty is a thing of the past,but each generation is only tolerant of past in-novations. Those of its own day are met withthe same persecution as though the principle oftoleration had never been heard of.

“In early society,” says Westermarck, “cus-toms are not only moral rules, but the onlymoral rules ever thought of. The savage strictlycomplies with the Hegelian command that noman must have a private conscience. The fol-lowing statement, which refers to the Tinnev-elly Shanars, may be quoted as a typical exam-ple: ‘Solitary individuals amongst them rarelyadopt any new opinions, or any new course ofprocedure. They follow the multitude to do

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evil, and they follow the multitude to do good.They think in herds.”’3

Those among ourselves who have neverthought a thought or done a deed in the slight-est degree different from the thoughts anddeeds of our neighbors will congratulate them-selves on the difference between us and thesavage. But those who have ever attemptedany real innovation cannot help feeling that thepeople they know are not so very unlike theTinnevelly Shanars.

Under the influence of socialism, even pro-gressive opinion, in recent years, has been hos-tile to individual liberty. Liberty is associated,in the minds of reformers, with laissez-faire,

3“The Origin and Development of the Moral Ideas,”2d edition, Vol. I, p. 119.

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the Manchester School, and the exploitation ofwomen and children which resulted from whatwas euphemistically called “free competition.”All these things were evil, and required stateinterference; in fact, there is need of an im-mense increase of state action in regard to cog-nate evils which still exist. In everything thatconcerns the economic life of the community,as regards both distribution and conditions ofproduction, what is required is more publiccontrol, not less–how much more, I do not pro-fess to know.

Another direction in which there is urgentneed of the substitution of law and order foranarchy is international relations. At present,each sovereign state has complete individualfreedom, subject only to the sanction of war.This individual freedom will have to be cur-

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tailed in regard to external relations if wars areever to cease.

But when we pass outside the sphere of ma-terial possessions, we find that the argumentsin favor of public control almost entirely disap-pear.

Religion, to begin with, is recognized as amatter in which the state ought not to interfere.Whether a man is Christian, Mahometan, orJew is a question of no public concern, so longas he obeys the laws; and the laws ought to besuch as men of all religions can obey. Yet evenhere there are limits. No civilized state wouldtolerate a religion demanding human sacrifice.The English in India put an end to suttee, inspite of a fixed principle of non-interferencewith native religious customs. Perhaps theywere wrong to prevent suttee, yet almost every

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European would have done the same. We can-not effectively doubt that such practices ought tobe stopped, however we may theorize in favorof religious liberty.

In such cases, the interference with liberty isimposed from without by a higher civilization.But the more common case, and the more inter-esting, is when an independent state interfereson behalf of custom against individuals whoare feeling their way toward more civilized be-liefs and institutions.

“In New South Wales,” says Westermarck,“the first-born of every lubra used to be eatenby the tribe ‘as part of a religious ceremony.’In the realm of Khai-muh, in China, accord-ing to a native account, it was customary to killand devour the eldest son alive. Among certaintribes in British Columbia the first child is often

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sacrificed to the sun. The Indians of Florida,according to Le Moyne de Morgues, sacrificedthe first-born son to the chief....”’4

There are pages and pages of such instances.

There is nothing analogous to these prac-tices among ourselves. When the first-bornin Florida was told that his king and countryneeded him, this was a mere mistake, and withus mistakes of this kind do not occur. But it isinteresting to inquire how these superstitionsdied out, in such cases, for example, as thatof Khai-muh, where foreign compulsion is im-probable. We may surmise that some parents,under the selfish influence of parental affec-tion, were led to doubt whether the sun wouldreally be angry if the eldest child were allowed

4Op cit., p. 459.

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to live. Such rationalism would be regardedas very dangerous, since it was calculated todamage the harvest. For generations the opin-ion would be cherished in secret by a handfulof cranks, who would not be able to act uponit. At last, by concealment or flight, a few par-ents would save their children from the sacri-fice. Such parents would be regarded as lack-ing all public spirit, and as willing to endan-ger the community for their private pleasure.But gradually it would appear that the stateremained intact, and the crops were no worsethan in former years. Then, by a fiction, a childwould be deemed to have been sacrificed if itwas solemnly dedicated to agriculture or someother work of national importance chosen bythe chief. It would be many generations beforethe child would be allowed to choose its ownoccupation after it had grown old enough to

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know its own tastes and capacities. And dur-ing all those generations, children would be re-minded that only an act of grace had allowedthem to live at all, and would exist under theshadow of a purely imaginary duty to the state.

The position of those parents who first dis-believed in the utility of infant sacrifice illus-trates all the difficulties which arise in connec-tion with the adjustment of individual freedomto public control. The authorities, believing thesacrifice necessary for the good of the commu-nity, were bound to insist upon it; the parents,believing it useless, were equally bound to doeverything in their power toward saving thechild. How ought both parties to act in sucha case?

The duty of the skeptical parent is plain: tosave the child by any possible means, to preach

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the uselessness of the sacrifice in season andout of season, and to endure patiently what-ever penalty the law may indict for evasion.But the duty of the authorities is far less clear.So long as they remain firmly persuaded thatthe universal sacrifice of the first-born is in-dispensable, they are bound to persecute thosewho seek to undermine this belief. But theywill, if they are conscientious, very carefullyexamine the arguments of opponents, and bewilling in advance to admit that these argu-ments may be sound. They will carefully searchtheir own hearts to see whether hatred of chil-dren or pleasure in cruelty has anything to dowith their belief. They will remember that inthe past history of Khai-muh there are innu-merable instances of beliefs, now known to befalse, on account of which those who disagreedwith the prevalent view were put to death. Fi-

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nally they will reflect that, though errors whichare traditional are often wide-spread, new be-liefs seldom win acceptance unless they arenearer to the truth than what they replace; andthey will conclude that a new belief is proba-bly either an advance, or so unlikely to becomecommon as to be innocuous. All these consid-erations will make them hesitate before they re-sort to punishment.

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II

THE STUDY OF past times and uncivilizedraces makes it clear beyond question that thecustomary beliefs of tribes or nations are al-most invariably false. It is difficult to divestourselves completely of the customary beliefsof our own age and nation, but it is not verydifficult to achieve a certain degree of doubt inregard to them. The Inquisitor who burnt menat the stake was acting with true humanity ifall his beliefs were correct; but if they were inerror at any point, he was inflicting a whollyunnecessary cruelty. A good working maximin such matters is this: Do not trust custom-ary beliefs so far as to perform actions whichmust be disastrous unless the beliefs in ques-tion are wholly true. The world would be ut-

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terly bad, in the opinion of the average English-man, unless he could say “Britannia rules thewaves”; in the opinion of the average German,unless he could say “Deutschland über alles.”For the sake of these beliefs, they are willingto destroy European civilization. If the beliefsshould happen to be false, their action is regret-table.

One fact which emerges from these consid-erations is that no obstacle should be placed inthe way of thought and its expression, nor yetin the way of statements of fact. This was for-merly common ground among liberal thinkers,though it was never quite realized in the prac-tice of civilized countries. But it has recentlybecome, throughout Europe, a dangerous para-dox, on account of which men suffer imprison-ment or starvation. For this reason it has again

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become worth stating. The grounds for it areso evident that I should be ashamed to repeatthem if they were not universally ignored. Butin the actual world it is very necessary to repeatthem.

To attain complete truth is not given to mor-tals, but to advance toward it by successivesteps is not impossible. On any matter of gen-eral interest, there is usually, in any given com-munity at any given time, a received opinion,which is accepted as a matter of course by allwho give no special thought to the matter. Anyquestioning of the received opinion rouses hos-tility, for a number of reasons.

The most important of these is the instinct ofconventionality, which exists in all gregariousanimals and often leads them to put to deathany markedly peculiar member of the herd.

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The next most important is the feeling of in-security aroused by doubt as to the beliefs bywhich we are in the habit of regulating ourlives. Whoever has tried to explain the philos-ophy of Berkeley to a plain man will have seenin its unadulterated form the anger arousedby this feeling. What the plain man derivesfrom Berkeley’s philosophy at a first hearingis an uncomfortable suspicion that nothing issolid, so that it is rash to sit on a chair or toexpect the floor to sustain us. Because this sus-picion is uncomfortable, it is irritating, exceptto those who regard the whole argument asmerely nonsense. And in a more or less anal-ogous way any questioning of what has beentaken for granted destroys the feeling of stand-ing on solid ground, and produces a conditionof bewildered fear.

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A third reason which makes men dislikenovel opinions is that vested interests arebound up with old beliefs. The long fight of thechurch against science, from Giordano Brunoto Darwin, is attributable to this motive amongothers. The horror of socialism which existedin the remote past was entirely attributable tothis cause. But it would be a mistake to as-sume, as is done by those who seek economicmotives everywhere, that vested interests arethe principal source of anger against noveltiesin thought. If this were the case, intellectualprogress would be much more rapid than it is.

The instinct of conventionality, horror ofuncertainty, and vested interests, all militateagainst the acceptance of a new idea. And it iseven harder to think of a new idea than to getit accepted; most people might spend a lifetime

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in reflection without ever making a genuinelyoriginal discovery.

In view of all these obstacles, it is not likelythat any society at any time will suffer from aplethora of heretical opinions. Least of all isthis likely in a modern civilized society, wherethe conditions of life are in constant rapidchange, and demand, for successful adapta-tion, an equally rapid change in intellectualoutlook. There should be an attempt, therefore,to encourage, rather than discourage, the ex-pression of new beliefs and the disseminationof knowledge tending to support them. But thevery opposite is, in fact, the case. From child-hood upward, everything is done to make theminds of men and women conventional andsterile. And if, by misadventure, some spark ofimagination remains, its unfortunate possessor

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is considered unsound and dangerous, worthyonly of contempt in time of peace and of prisonor a traitor’s death in time of war. Yet suchmen are known to have been in the past thechief benefactors of mankind, and are the verymen who receive most honor as soon as theyare safely dead.

The whole realm of thought and opinion isutterly unsuited to public control; it ought tobe as free, and as spontaneous as is possibleto those who know what others have believed.The state is justified in insisting that childrenshall be educated, but it is not justified in forc-ing their education to proceed on a uniformplan and to be directed to the production of adead level of glib uniformity. Education, andthe life of the mind generally, is a matter inwhich individual initiative is the chief thing

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needed; the function of the state should beginand end with insistence on some kind of edu-cation, and, if possible, a kind which promotesmental individualism, not a kind which hap-pens to conform to the prejudices of govern-ment officials.

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III

QUESTIONS OF PRACTICAL morals raisemore difficult problems than questions of mereopinion. The thugs honestly believe it theirduty to commit murders, but the governmentdoes not acquiesce. The conscientious objectorshonestly hold the opposite opinion, and againthe government does not acquiesce. Killing is astate prerogative; it is equally criminal to do itunbidden and not to do it when bidden. Thesame applies to theft, unless it is on a largescale or by one who is already rich. Thugs andthieves are men who use force in their dealingswith their neighbors, and we may lay it downbroadly that the private use of force should beprohibited except in rare cases, however con-scientious may be its motive. But this principle

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will not justify compelling men to use force atthe bidding of the state, when they do not be-lieve it justified by the occasion. The punish-ment of conscientious objectors seems clearly aviolation of individual liberty within its legiti-mate sphere.

It is generally assumed without questionthat the state has a right to punish certainkinds of sexual irregularity. No one doubts thatthe Mormons sincerely believed polygamy tobe a desirable practice, yet the United Statesrequired them to abandon its legal recogni-tion, and probably any other Christian countrywould have done likewise. Nevertheless, I donot think this prohibition was wise. Polygamyis legally permitted in many parts of the world,but is not much practised except by chiefs andpotentates. If, as Europeans generally believe,

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it is an undesirable custom, it is probable thatthe Mormons would have soon abandoned it,except perhaps for a few men of exceptionalposition. If, on the other hand, it had proveda successful experiment, the world would haveacquired a piece of knowledge which it is nowunable to possess. I think in all such cases thelaw should only intervene when there is someinjury inflicted without the consent of the in-jured person.

It is obvious that men and women wouldnot tolerate having their wives or husbands se-lected by the state, whatever eugenists mighthave to say in favor of such a plan. In thisit seems clear that ordinary public opinion isin the right, not because people choose wisely,but because any choice of their own is betterthan a forced marriage. What applies to mar-

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riage ought also to apply to the choice of atrade or profession; although some men haveno marked preferences, most men greatly pre-fer some occupations to others, and are farmore likely to be useful citizens if they followtheir preferences than if they are thwarted by apublic authority.

The case of the man who has an intense con-viction that he ought to do a certain kind ofwork is peculiar, and perhaps not very com-mon; but it is important because it includessome very important individuals. Joan of Arcand Florence Nightingale defied conventionin obedience to a feeling of this sort; reform-ers and agitators in unpopular causes, such asMazzini, have belonged to this class; so havemany men of science. In cases of this kind theindividual conviction deserves the greatest re-

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spect, even if there seems no obvious justifica-tion for it. Obedience to the impulse is veryunlikely to do much harm, and may well dogreat good. The practical difficulty is to distin-guish such impulses from desires which pro-duce similar manifestations. Many young peo-ple wish to be authors without having an im-pulse to write any particular book, or wish tobe painters without having an impulse to cre-ate any particular picture. But a little experi-ence will usually show the difference betweena genuine and a spurious impulse; and thereis less harm in indulging the spurious impulsefor a time than in thwarting the impulse whichis genuine. Nevertheless, the plain man almostalways has a tendency to thwart the genuineimpulse, because it seems anarchic and unrea-sonable, and is seldom able to give a good ac-count of itself in advance.

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What is markedly true of some notable per-sonalities is true, in a lesser degree, of almostevery individual who has much vigor or forceof life; there is an impulse towards activity ofsome kind, as a rule not very definite in youth,but growing gradually more sharply outlinedunder the influence of education and opportu-nity. The direct impulse toward a kind of ac-tivity for its own sake must be distinguishedfrom the desire for the expected effects of theactivity. A young man may desire the rewardsof great achievement without having any spon-taneous impulse toward the activities whichlead to achievement. But those who actuallyachieve much, although they may desire therewards, have also something in their naturewhich inclines them to choose a certain kindof work as the road which they must travel iftheir ambition is to be satisfied. This artist’s

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impulse, as it may be called, is a thing of in-finite value to the individual, and often to theworld; to respect it in oneself and in othersmakes up nine tenths of the good life. In mosthuman beings it is rather frail, rather easily de-stroyed or disturbed; parents and teachers aretoo often hostile to it, and our economic systemcrushes out its last remnants in young men andyoung women. The result is that human be-ings cease to be individual, or to retain the na-tive pride that is their birthright; they becomemachine-made, tame, convenient for the bu-reaucrat and the drill-sergeant, capable of be-ing tabulated in statistics without anything be-ing omitted. This is the fundamental evil re-sulting from lack of liberty; and it is an evilwhich is being continually intensified as pop-ulation grows more dense and the machineryof organization grows more efficient.

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The things that men desire are many andvarious: admiration, affection, power, security,ease, outlets for energy, are among the com-monest of motives. But such abstractions donot touch what makes the difference betweenone man and another. Whenever I go to thezoölogical gardens, I am struck by the fact thatall the movements of a stork have some com-mon quality, differing from the movements ofa parrot or an ostrich. It is impossible to put inwords what the common quality is, and yet wefeel that each thing an animal does is the sort ofthing we might expect that animal to do. Thisindefinable quality constitutes the individual-ity of the animal, and gives rise to the plea-sure we feel in watching the animal’s actions.In a human being, provided he has not beencrushed by an economic or governmental ma-chine, there is the same kind of individuality,

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a something distinctive without which no manor woman can achieve much of importance, orretain the full dignity which is native to humanbeings. It is this distinctive individuality that isloved by the artist, whether painter or writer.The artist himself, and the man who is creativein no matter what direction, has more of it thanthe average man. Any society which crushesthis quality, whether intentionally or by acci-dent, must soon become utterly lifeless and tra-ditional, without hope of progress and with-out any purpose in its being. To preserve andstrengthen the impulse that makes individual-ity should be the foremost object of all politicalinstitutions.

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WE NOW ARRIVE at certain general princi-ples in regard to individual liberty and publiccontrol.

The greater part of human impulses maybe divided into two classes, those which arepossessive and those which are constructiveor creative. Social institutions are the gar-ments or embodiments of impulses, and maybe classified roughly according to the impulseswhich they embody. Property is the direct ex-pression of possessiveness; science and art areamong the most direct expressions of creative-ness. Possessiveness is either defensive or ag-gressive; it seeks either to retain against a rob-ber, or to acquire from a present holder. In ei-ther case an attitude of hostility toward others

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is of its essence. It would be a mistake to sup-pose that defensive possessiveness is alwaysjustifiable, while the aggressive kind is alwaysblameworthy; where there is great injustice inthe status quo, the exact opposite may be thecase, and ordinarily neither is justifiable.

State interference with the actions of individ-uals is necessitated by possessiveness. Somegoods can be acquired or retained by force,while others cannot. A wife can be acquiredby force, as the Romans acquired the Sabinewomen; but a wife’s affection cannot be ac-quired in this way. There is no record thatthe Romans desired the affection of the Sabinewomen; and those in whom possessive im-pulses are strong tend to care chiefly for thegoods that force can secure. All material goodsbelong to this class. Liberty in regard to such

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goods, if it were unrestricted, would make thestrong rich and the weak poor. In a capitalis-tic society, owing to the partial restraints im-posed by law, it makes cunning men rich andhonest men poor, because the force of the stateis put at men’s disposal, not according to anyjust or rational principle, but according to a setof traditional maxims of which the explanationis purely historical.

In all that concerns possession and the useof force, unrestrained liberty involves anarchyand injustice. Freedom to kill, freedom to rob,freedom to defraud, no longer belong to indi-viduals, though they still belong to great states,and are exercised by them in the name of patri-otism. Neither individuals nor states ought tobe free to exert force on their own initiative, ex-cept in such sudden emergencies as will subse-

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quently be admitted in justification by a courtof law. The reason for this is that the exer-tion of force by one individual against anotheris always an evil on both sides, and can onlybe tolerated when it is compensated by someoverwhelming resultant good. In order to min-imize the amount of force actually exerted inthe world, it is necessary that there should be apublic authority, a repository of practically ir-resistible force, whose function should be pri-marily to repress the private use of force. A useof force is private when it is exerted by one ofthe interested parties, or by his friends or ac-complices, not by a public neutral authority ac-cording to some rule which is intended to be inthe public interest.

The régime of private property under whichwe live does much too little to restrain the pri-

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vate use of force. When a man owns a pieceof land, for example, he may use force againsttrespassers, though they must not use forceagainst him. It is clear that some restriction ofthe liberty of trespass is necessary for the culti-vation of the land. But if such powers are to begiven to an individual, the state ought to sat-isfy itself that he occupies no more land thanhe is warranted in occupying in the public in-terest, and that the share of the produce of theland that comes to him is no more than a justreward for his labors. Probably the only wayin which such ends can be achieved is by stateownership of land. The possessors of land andcapital are able at present, by economic pres-sure, to use force against those who have nopossessions. This force is sanctioned by law,while force exercised by the poor against therich is illegal. Such a state of things is unjust,

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and does not diminish the use of private forceas much as it might be diminished.

The whole realm of the possessive impulses,and of the use of force to which they give rise,stands in need of control by a public neutral au-thority, in the interests of liberty no less than ofjustice. Within a nation, this public authoritywill naturally be the state; in relations betweennations, if the present anarchy is to cease, it willhave to be some international parliament.

But the motive underlying the public controlof men’s possessive impulses should always bethe increase of liberty, both by the preventionof private tyranny and by the liberation of cre-ative impulses. If public control is not to domore harm than good, it must be so exercisedas to leave the utmost freedom of private ini-tiative in all those ways that do not involve the

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private use of force. In this respect all gov-ernments have always failed egregiously, andthere is no evidence that they are improving.

The creative impulses, unlike those that arepossessive, are directed to ends in which oneman’s gain is not another man’s loss. The manwho makes a scientific discovery or writes apoem is enriching others at the same time ashimself. Any increase in knowledge or good-will is a gain to all who are affected by it, notonly to the actual possessor. Those who feel thejoy of life are a happiness to others as well asto themselves. Force cannot create such things,though it can destroy them; no principle of dis-tributive justice applies to them, since the gainof each is the gain of all. For these reasons, thecreative part of a man’s activity ought to be asfree as possible from all public control, in or-

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der that it may remain spontaneous and full ofvigor. The only function of the state in regardto this part of the individual life should be todo everything possible toward providing out-lets and opportunities.

In every life a part is governed by the com-munity, and a part by private initiative. Thepart governed by private initiative is greatestin the most important individuals, such as menof genius and creative thinkers. This part oughtonly to be restricted when it is predatory; oth-erwise, everything ought to be done to make itas great and as vigorous as possible. The objectof education ought not to be to make all menthink alike, but to make each think in the waywhich is the fullest expression of his own per-sonality. In the choice of a means of livelihoodall young men and young women ought, as far

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as possible, to be able to choose what is attrac-tive to them; if no money-making occupationis attractive, they ought to be free to do littlework for little pay, and spend their leisure asthey choose. Any kind of censure on freedomof thought or on the dissemination of knowl-edge is, of course, to be condemned utterly.

Huge organizations, both political and eco-nomic, are one of the distinguishing character-istics of the modern world. These organiza-tions have immense power, and often use theirpower to discourage originality in thought andaction. They ought, on the contrary, to give thefreest scope that is possible without producinganarchy or violent conflict. They ought not totake cognizance of any part of a man’s life ex-cept what is concerned with the legitimate ob-jects of public control, namely, possessions and

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the use of force. And they ought, by devo-lution, to leave as large a share of control aspossible in the hands of individuals and smallgroups. If this is not done, the men at the headof these vast organizations will infallibly be-come tyrannous through the habit of excessivepower, and will in time interfere in ways thatcrush out individual initiative.

The problem which faces the modern worldis the combination of individual initiative withthe increase in the scope and size of organiza-tions. Unless it is solved, individuals will growless and less full of life and vigor, and moreand more passively submissive to conditionsimposed upon them. A society composed ofsuch individuals cannot be progressive or addmuch to the world’s stock of mental and spiri-tual possessions. Only personal liberty and the

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encouragement of initiative can secure thesethings. Those who resist authority when it en-croaches upon the legitimate sphere of the indi-vidual are performing a service to society, how-ever little society may value it. In regard to thepast, this is universally acknowledged; but itis no less true in regard to the present and thefuture.

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NATIONAL INDEPENDENCE ANDINTERNATIONALISM

IN THE RELATIONS between states, as in therelations of groups within a single state, whatis to be desired is independence for each as re-

CHAPTER V

gards internal affairs, and law rather than pri-vate force as regards external affairs. But as re-gards groups within a state, it is internal inde-pendence that must be emphasized, since thatis what is lacking; subjection to law has beensecured, on the whole, since the end of the Mid-dle Ages. In the relations between states, onthe contrary, it is law and a central govern-ment that are lacking, since independence ex-ists for external as for internal affairs. The stagewe have reached in the affairs of Europe cor-responds to the stage reached in our internalaffairs during the Wars of the Roses, when tur-bulent barons frustrated the attempt to makethem keep the king’s peace. Thus, although thegoal is the same in the two cases, the steps to betaken in order to achieve it are quite different.

There can be no good international system

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until the boundaries of states coincide as nearlyas possible with the boundaries of nations.

But it is not easy to say what we mean by anation. Are the Irish a nation? Home Rulerssay yes, Unionists say no. Are the Ulstermen anation? Unionists say yes, Home Rulers say no.In all such cases it is a party question whetherwe are to call a group a nation or not. A Ger-man will tell you that the Russian Poles are anation, but as for the Prussian Poles, they, ofcourse, are part of Prussia. Professors can al-ways be hired to prove, by arguments of race orlanguage or history, that a group about whichthere is a dispute is, or is not, a nation, as maybe desired by those whom the professors serve.If we are to avoid all these controversies, wemust first of all endeavor to find some defini-tion of a nation.

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A nation is not to be defined by affinitiesof language or a common historical origin,though these things often help to produce a na-tion. Switzerland is a nation, despite diversitiesof race, religion, and language. England andScotland now form one nation, though they didnot do so at the time of the Civil War. This isshown by Cromwell’s saying, in the height ofthe conflict, that he would rather be subject tothe domain of the royalists than to that of theScotch. Great Britain was one state before itwas one nation; on the other hand, Germanywas one nation before it was one state.

What constitutes a nation is a sentiment andan instinct, a sentiment of similarity and aninstinct of belonging to the same group orherd. The instinct is an extension of the in-stinct which constitutes a flock of sheep, or any

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other group of gregarious animals. The senti-ment which goes with this is like a milder andmore extended form of family feeling. Whenwe return to England after being on the Conti-nent, we feel something friendly in the familiarways, and it is easy to believe that Englishmenon the whole are virtuous, while many foreign-ers are full of designing wickedness.

Such feelings make it easy to organize a na-tion into a state. It is not difficult, as a rule,to acquiesce in the orders of a national govern-ment. We feel that it is our government, andthat its decrees are more or less the same asthose which we should have given if we our-selves had been the governors. There is an in-stinctive and usually unconscious sense of acommon purpose animating the members ofa nation. This becomes especially vivid when

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there is war or a danger of war. Any one who,at such a time, stands out against the orders ofhis government feels an inner conflict quite dif-ferent from any that he would feel in standingout against the orders of a foreign governmentin whose power he might happen to find him-self. If he stands out, he does so with somemore or less conscious hope that his govern-ment may in time come to think as he does;whereas, in standing out against a foreign gov-ernment, no such hope is necessary. This groupinstinct, however it may have arisen, is whatconstitutes a nation, and what makes it impor-tant that the boundaries of nations should alsobe the boundaries of states.

National sentiment is a fact, and should betaken account of by institutions. When it is ig-nored, it is intensified and becomes a source of

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strife. It can only be rendered harmless by be-ing given free play, so long as it is not preda-tory. But it is not, in itself, a good or admirablefeeling. There is nothing rational and noth-ing desirable in a limitation of sympathy whichconfines it to a fragment of the human race.Diversities of manners and customs and tra-ditions are, on the whole, a good thing, sincethey enable different nations to produce differ-ent types of excellence. But in national feelingthere is always latent or explicit an element ofhostility to foreigners. National feeling, as weknow it, could not exist in a nation which waswholly free from external pressure of a hostilekind.

And group feeling produces a limited andoften harmful kind of morality. Men come toidentify the good with what serves the inter-

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ests of their own group, and the bad with whatworks against those interests, even if it shouldhappen to be in the interests of mankind as awhole. This group morality is very much inevidence during war, and is taken for grantedin men’s ordinary thought. Although almostall Englishmen consider the defeat of Germanydesirable for the good of the world, yet never-theless most of them honor a German for fight-ing for his country, because it has not occurredto them that his actions ought to be guided bya morality higher than that of the group.

A man does right, as a rule, to have histhoughts more occupied with the interests ofhis own nation than with those of others, be-cause his actions are more likely to affect hisown nation. But in time of war, and in all mat-ters which are of equal concern to other nations

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and to his own, a man ought to take account ofthe universal welfare, and not allow his surveyto be limited by the interest, or supposed inter-est, of his own group or nation.

So long as national feeling exists, it is veryimportant that each nation should be self-governing as regards its internal affairs. Gov-ernment can only be carried on by force andtyranny if its subjects view it with hostile eyes,and they will so view it if they feel that it be-longs to an alien nation. This principle meetswith difficulties in cases where men of differ-ent nations live side by side in the same area,as happens in some parts of the Balkans. Thereare also difficulties in regard to places which,for some geographical reason, are of great in-ternational importance, such as the Suez Canaland the Panama Canal. In such cases the purely

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local desires of the inhabitants may have togive way before larger interests. But in gen-eral, at any rate as applied to civilized commu-nities, the principle that the boundaries of na-tions ought to coincide with the boundaries ofstates has very few exceptions.

This principle, however, does not decidehow the relations between states are to be reg-ulated, or how a conflict of interests betweenrival states is to be decided. At present, ev-ery great state claims absolute sovereignty, notonly in regard to its internal affairs but alsoin regard to its external actions. This claimto absolute sovereignty leads it into conflictwith similar claims on the part of other greatstates. Such conflicts at present can only be de-cided by war or diplomacy, and diplomacy isin essence nothing but the threat of war. There

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is no more justification for the claim to abso-lute sovereignty on the part of a state than therewould be for a similar claim on the part of anindividual. The claim to absolute sovereigntyis, in effect, a claim that all external affairs areto be regulated purely by force, and that whentwo nations or groups of nations are interestedin a question, the decision shall depend solelyupon which of them is, or is believed to be, thestronger. This is nothing but primitive anarchy,“the war of all against all,” which Hobbes as-serted to be the original state of mankind.

There cannot be secure peace in the world, orany decision of international questions accord-ing to international law, until states are will-ing to part with their absolute sovereignty asregards their external relations, and to leavethe decision in such matters to some interna-

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tional instrument of government.5 An interna-tional government will have to be legislativeas well as judicial. It is not enough that thereshould be a Hague tribunal, deciding mattersaccording to some already existing system ofinternational law; it is necessary also that thereshould be a body capable of enacting interna-tional law, and this body will have to have thepower of transferring territory from one stateto another, when it is persuaded that adequategrounds exist for such a transference. Friendsof peace will make a mistake if they undulyglorify the status quo. Some nations grow, whileothers dwindle; the population of an area maychange its character by emigration and immi-

5For detailed scheme of international governmentsee “International Government,” by L. Woolf. Allen &Unwin.

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gration. There is no good reason why statesshould resent changes in their boundaries un-der such conditions, and if no international au-thority has power to make changes of this kind,the temptations to war will sometimes becomeirresistible.

The international authority ought to possessan army and navy, and these ought to be theonly army and navy in existence. The only le-gitimate use of force is to diminish the totalamount of force exercised in the world. So longas men are free to indulge their predatory in-stincts, some men or groups of men will takeadvantage of this freedom for oppression androbbery. Just as the police are necessary to pre-vent the use of force by private citizens, so aninternational police will be necessary to pre-vent the lawless use of force by separate states.

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But I think it is reasonable to hope that ifever an international government, possessed ofthe only army and navy in the world, cameinto existence, the need of force to enact obe-dience to its decisions would be very tempo-rary. In a short time the benefits resulting fromthe substitution of law for anarchy would be-come so obvious that the international gov-ernment would acquire an unquestioned au-thority, and no state would dream of rebellingagainst its decisions. As soon as this stage hadbeen reached, the international army and navywould become unnecessary.

We have still a very long road to travel be-fore we arrive at the establishment of an in-ternational authority, but it is not very diffi-cult to foresee the steps by which this resultwill be gradually reached. There is likely to

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be a continual increase in the practice of sub-mitting disputes to arbitration, and in the re-alization that the supposed conflicts of inter-est between different states are mainly illusory.Even where there is a real conflict of interest,it must in time become obvious that neither ofthe states concerned would suffer as much bygiving way as by fighting. With the progress ofinventions, war, when it does occur, is boundto become increasingly destructive. The civ-ilized races of the world are faced with thealternative of coöperation or mutual destruc-tion. The present war is making this alternativedaily more evident. And it is difficult to believethat, when the enmities which it has generatedhave had time to cool, civilized men will de-liberately choose to destroy civilization, ratherthan acquiesce in the abolition of war.

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The matters in which the interests of nationsare supposed to clash are mainly three: tariffs,which are a delusion; the exploitation of infe-rior races, which is a crime; pride of power anddominion, which is a schoolboy folly.

The economic argument against tariffs is fa-miliar, and I shall not repeat it. The only rea-son why it fails to carry conviction is the en-mity between nations. Nobody proposes to setup a tariff between England and Scotland, orbetween Lancashire and Yorkshire. Yet the ar-guments by which tariffs between nations aresupported might be used just as well to defendtariffs between counties. Universal free tradewould indubitably be of economic benefit tomankind, and would be adopted to-morrow ifit were not for the hatred and suspicion whichnations feel one toward another. From the

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point of view of preserving the peace of theworld, free trade between the different civi-lized states is not so important as the open doorin their dependencies. The desire for exclusivemarkets is one of the most potent causes of war.

Exploiting what are called “inferior races”has become one of the main objects of Euro-pean statecraft. It is not only, or primarily, tradethat is desired, but opportunities for invest-ment; finance is more concerned in the matterthan industry. Rival diplomatists are very oftenthe servants, conscious or unconscious, of ri-val groups of financiers. The financiers, thoughthemselves of no particular nation, understandthe art of appealing to national prejudice, andof inducing the taxpayer to incur expenditureof which they reap the benefit. The evils whichthey produce at home, and the devastation that

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they spread among the races whom they ex-ploit, are part of the price which the worldhas to pay for its acquiescence in the capitalistrégime.

But neither tariffs nor financiers would beable to cause serious trouble, if it were not forthe sentiment of national pride. National pridemight be on the whole beneficent, if it tookthe direction of emulation in the things thatare important to civilization. If we prided our-selves upon our poets, our men of science, orthe justice and humanity of our social system,we might find in national pride a stimulus touseful endeavors. But such matters play a verysmall part. National pride, as it exists now, isalmost exclusively concerned with power anddominion, with the extent of territory that anation owns, and with its capacity for enforc-

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ing its will against the opposition of other na-tions. In this it is reinforced by group moral-ity. To nine citizens out of ten it seems self-evident, whenever the will of their own nationclashes with that of another, that their own na-tion must be in the right. Even if it were notin the right on the particular issue, yet it standsin general for so much nobler ideals than thoserepresented by the other nation to the dispute,that any increase in its power is bound to be forthe good of mankind. Since all nations equallybelieve this of themselves, all are equally readyto insist upon the victory of their own side inany dispute in which they believe that theyhave a good hope of victory. While this temperpersists, the hope of international coöperationmust remain dim.

If men could divest themselves of the senti-

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ment of rivalry and hostility between differentnations, they would perceive that the mattersin which the interests of different nations co-incide immeasurably outweigh those in whichthey clash; they would perceive, to begin with,that trade is not to be compared to warfare; thatthe man who sells you goods is not doing youan injury. No one considers that the butcherand the baker are his enemies because theydrain him of money. Yet as soon as goods comefrom a foreign country, we are asked to believethat we suffer a terrible injury in purchasingthem. No one remembers that it is by means ofgoods exported that we purchase them. But inthe country to which we export, it is the goodswe send which are thought dangerous, and thegoods we buy are forgotten. The whole concep-tion of trade, which has been forced upon usby manufacturers who dreaded foreign com-

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petition, by trusts which desired to secure mo-nopolies, and by economists poisoned by thevirus of nationalism, is totally and absolutelyfalse. Trade results simply from division of la-bor. A man cannot himself make all the goodsof which he has need, and therefore he mustexchange his produce with that of other peo-ple. What applies to the individual, applies inexactly the same way to the nation. There isno reason to desire that a nation should itselfproduce all the goods of which it has need; itis better that it should specialize upon thosegoods which it can produce to most advantage,and should exchange its surplus with the sur-plus of other goods produced by other coun-tries. There is no use in sending goods out ofthe country except in order to get other goodsin return. A butcher who is always willing topart with his meat but not willing to take bread

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from the baker, or boots from the bootmaker, orclothes from the tailor, would soon find him-self in a sorry plight. Yet he would be no morefoolish than the protectionist who desires thatwe should send goods abroad without receiv-ing payment in the shape of goods importedfrom abroad.

The wage system has made people believethat what a man needs is work. This, of course,is absurd. What he needs is the goods pro-duced by work, and the less work involved inmaking a given amount of goods, the better.But owing to our economic system, every econ-omy in methods of production enables employ-ers to dismiss some of their employees, and tocause destitution, where a better system wouldproduce only an increase of wages or a diminu-tion in the hours of work without any corre-

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sponding diminution of wages.

Our economic system is topsyturvy. It makesthe interest of the individual conflict with theinterest of the community in a thousand waysin which no such conflict ought to exist. Undera better system the benefits of free trade and theevils of tariffs would be obvious to all.

Apart from trade, the interests of nations co-incide in all that makes what we call civiliza-tion. Inventions and discoveries bring bene-fit to all. The progress of science is a matterof equal concern to the whole civilized world.Whether a man of science is an Englishman,a Frenchman, or a German is a matter of noreal importance. His discoveries are open toall, and nothing but intelligence is required inorder to profit by them. The whole world ofart and literature and learning is international;

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what is done in one country is not done for thatcountry, but for mankind. If we ask ourselveswhat are the things that raise mankind abovethe brutes, what are the things that make usthink the human race more valuable than anyspecies of animals, we shall find that none ofthem are things in which any one nation canhave exclusive property, but all are things inwhich the whole world can share. Those whohave any care for these things, those who wishto see mankind fruitful in the work which menalone can do, will take little account of nationalboundaries, and have little care to what state aman happens to owe allegiance.

The importance of international coöperationoutside the sphere of politics has been broughthome to me by my own experience. Untillately I was engaged in teaching a new sci-

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ence which few men in the world were able toteach. My own work in this science was basedchiefly upon the work of a German and an Ital-ian. My pupils came from all over the civi-lized world: France, Germany, Austria, Rus-sia, Greece, Japan, China, India, and America.None of us was conscious of any sense of na-tional divisions. We felt ourselves an outpostof civilization, building a new road into the vir-gin forest of the unknown. All coöperated inthe common task, and in the interest of such awork the political enmities of nations seemedtrivial, temporary, and futile.

But it is not only in the somewhat rarefiedatmosphere of abstruse science that interna-tional coöperation is vital to the progress of civ-ilization. All our economic problems, all thequestions of securing the rights of labor, all

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the hopes of freedom at home and humanityabroad, rest upon the creation of internationalgood-will.

So long as hatred, suspicion, and fear dom-inate the feelings of men toward each other,so long we cannot hope to escape from thetyranny of violence and brute force. Men mustlearn to be conscious of the common interestsof mankind in which all are at one, rather thanof those supposed interests in which the na-tions are divided. It is not necessary, or evendesirable, to obliterate the differences of man-ners and custom and tradition between differ-ent nations. These differences enable each na-tion to make its own distinctive contribution tothe sum total of the world’s civilization.

What is to be desired is not cosmopoli-tanism, not the absence of all national char-

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acteristics that one associates with couriers,wagon-lit attendants, and others, who have hadeverything distinctive obliterated by multipleand trivial contacts with men of every civilizedcountry. Such cosmopolitanism is the result ofloss, not gain. The international spirit whichwe should wish to see produced will be some-thing added to love of country, not somethingtaken away. Just as patriotism does not pre-vent a man from feeling family affection, sothe international spirit ought not to prevent aman from feeling affection for his own coun-try. But it will somewhat alter the character ofthat affection. The things which he will desirefor his own country will no longer be thingswhich can only be acquired at the expense ofothers, but rather those things in which the ex-cellence of any one country is to the advantageof all the world. He will wish his own coun-

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try to be great in the arts of peace, to be em-inent in thought and science, to be magnan-imous and just and generous. He will wishit to help mankind on the way toward thatbetter world of liberty and international con-cord which must be realized if any happinessis to be left to man. He will not desire for hiscountry the passing triumphs of a narrow pos-sessiveness, but rather the enduring triumphof having helped to embody in human affairssomething of that spirit of brotherhood whichChrist taught and which the Christian churcheshave forgotten. He will see that this spiritembodies not only the highest morality, butalso the truest wisdom, and the only road bywhich the nations, torn and bleeding with thewounds which scientific madness has inflicted,can emerge into a life where growth is possi-ble and joy is not banished at the frenzied call

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of unreal and fictitious duties. Deeds inspiredby hate are not duties, whatever pain and self-sacrifice they may involve. Life and hope forthe world are to be found only in the deeds oflove.

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