29 JUNE 1929, Page 4

The Socialist Myth

IT has been truly said that Great Britain was of all -I- countries the hardest hit by the War, not simply by reason of the " devastated regions " of our trade, but first and foremost because so many of our best traditions, and of those habits of mind which we held most dear, have been shown to be at cross purposes with post-War social and economic circumstances. This need for intellectual reorientation was never more conspicuous than during the last Parliament, when the Government party, with its huge majority in the House, became, as time went on, more and more out of touch with popular feeling.

Already, in 1923, Professor A. E. Zimmern, writing for the British Institute of Adult Education, indicated our tremendous task—" we have-to transform ourselves from islanders to men of the world, of the awakened, aspiring, ' self-determining,' twentieth century world." It is difficult enough in all conscience for us who live in the British Isles to acquire the necessary detachment, but this self-knowledge brooks no delay. Let us, there- fore, have done with the unquestioning affirmation of old or new orthodoxies, and let us be thankful for the present political situation which offers a heaven-sent opportunity for Great Britain to face up to the economic realities of the century. There is grave danger in the fact (emphasized in a thoughtful paper which we print at the head of the letter columnsof the Spectator this week) that business practice has so far outstripped political thought as to give rise to a demand for industrial self- government in place of public control through Parliament.

Now, however, ten years after the War, the marvellous instinct of the nation has sensed the inadequacy of our old political creeds, and has ordained a breathing-space in which the mask may, if we will, be torn off. For, though the dogmatic politicians may rage furiously together, we hold—in common with many of the less revolutionary of our contemporaries—that the new Parliament exactly hits off the temper of the country. Some correspondents tell us that in Scotland, at any rate, the Election was fought on class lines. One Unionist M.P. even resorts to the Mandan terminology, and tries to fasten on an innocent British public outlandish terms like " proletariat " and " bourgeoisie." What he describes- as " Socialism," however, is nothing more than that healthy enthusiasm for self-expression—which is the very principle of democracy. The clamour of the Clydeside itself arises not from any attachment to abstract SoCialist principles, but from the natural enough desire of a newly enfranchised political section of the community to acquire economic enfranchisement. Those who still see the bogy of red revolution lurking in this country betray a shocking ignorance of the national character.

We have recorded our conviction that party grouping under the present labels conceals the real cleavage in the country, and—what is more--obscures fatally the natural and necessary pull of forces. For the car of progress needs to be equipped with both accelerator and brake. At the moment, we have the feeling that Great Britain is going to put her foot on the accelerator, and so at last bring up to date her organization and mental outlook. (As we have stated repeatedly, we recognize that the Conservative-Unionist Party includes any number of people who share the views, of the Spectator. What is painfully evident, however, is that this leaven is at present powerless to produce the desired ferment) We have shown, too, that the Liberalism which offered in the last century an alternative met of principles—" Peace, Retrenchment and Reform "—has- gone by the board with the special conditions out of which it grew. The new Liberalism, as has been admirably expounded by Mr. J. A. Hobson in The Nation, is already committed to every one of the five roads by which the Labour Party in its official programme proposes to `-` advance towards the establishment of the Socialist Commonwealth." Conservative and Liberal Governments in power have-- in the name of democrary—sanctioned the employment of public powers and resources in the kind of social and economic policy for which the present Government. stands. The • dogmatists will, of course, boggle over the current SoCialist phrase -" public ownership." The prac- tical man, however, sees that this only means that owner- ship implies responsibility to the community—a principle which we all accept, at least if there be any meaning in our professions of democracy. (The loose use of the word " public " is not confined to Socialists. What of our " public schools " ?). Mr. Hobson very properly brings us down to earth, to what he calls " practicable Socialism," and, as he says, the policy of this or any other Labour Government—which is what we have to consider— is not in the least likely to be directed to the establish- ment of bureaucratic despotisms in Whitehall. It is far more likely—unless Parliament and our political leaders bring their ideas up to date—to promote some form of syndicalist rule.

Let us then frankly recogniie that just as Liberalism, in the old sense, i.e., economic individualism and laissez- ; Mire, is a myth—a formula which has been killed by circumstances—so " Socialism " is a myth, a lifeless abstraction, both in the sense in which it is imagined by timorous Conservatives and as conceived by the ranters and theorists on the Left. Only Mr. Bernard Shaw nowadays demands that the Government should be " the national landlord, the national employer, and the national financiers" All the old formulas (although, of course, they will go on being repeated fora long time) are entirely inapplicable to actual conditions if only because they assume the Nation-states to be so many water-tight compartments and take no account of the world plane on which business and finance move to-day.

For the benefit of those who are still hypnotized by this Labour-Socialist association of ideas let us- examine the background of Socialism. It is, indeed, a movement bound up with the cause of democracy, a crusade, if you like, partaking of the nature of a religion, as various correspondents have pointed out in the Times ; but it was from the first, as Mr. Shaw reminds us, a middle-class movement caused by the revolt of the consciences of educated and humane , men and women against the injustice and cruelty of " Capitalism," a movement which was then—for political purposes—grafted on the existing Trade Union organizations. When we are told that Socialism " aims at the welfare of society as a whole as against class prejudice and property interests "- we can say—most of us at any rate—" Amen." But we should add that the battle was won for " Socialism " in this sense, i.e., the principle of the common good, long. ago, at the time of the first Factory- Acts. Certainly the Socialists whom we know derive their emotional force from a picture of Victorian conditions which bears little or no resemblance to the actual facts of life to-day.

As long as the miscellany of those who profess and call themselves Socialists was outside public affairs, in other words, was in a position of irresponsibility, they were entitled to their logical fool-proof doctrines and unproven assumptions—for example, that the evils of present-day society are due, entirely to , its, economic system, and would mysteriously disappear under Socialist rule ; or again, that the means of production can. be taken over from private business without causing untold and irre- trievable damage 1. just as they were entitled to appeal to the common yearning for a golden age that knows no political frontiers. But Socialism is now a practical political .question, and we—all of us—are .now going to apply practical tests. Only a small minority of English people are so devoid of all common sense as to make political and economic questions matters of stark, abstract principle, and the members of the present Government who have had to do with problems of administration and the handling of men all their lives, and " got on " by their own personal ability—are not among that minority. The root fallacy of the doctrinaire, the sort of person who says " all private ownership is wrong, morally wrong in itself as well as materially bad in results," is to assume that any economic system can be tried out arbitrarily like a political or legal experiment. The economic order is, above all things, dynamic, not suscept- ible of any such static conception ; it is a living organism in constant change, each change being governed by the common interests at a particular time in a particular place, and not by any " Capitalist" or any other principle.

But, on the other hand, in view of economic realities to-day, no less out-of-date is the doctrine of " uncon- trolled " private business enterprise. While the battle of the books continues on the questionof private or.public enterprise, events take their course, and you have first joint stock companies, then your Public Utility Companies, introduced by " Private Acts '.' ; then you have all the w Combinations and regulations which are part and parcel of rationalization. The Central Electric Board appointed by the State, the Beam Wireless and Cable Merger, in which the Government retains a measure of control, the Expo-rt Credit System, which is a mixture of State and private capitalism—these are some of the phenomena of to-day, and the point to notice is that this modicum of State control over industries of public concern obtains to a greater or less degree in all countries. It is all very well for Conservatives to say that they support rationali- zation. The facts are there to show that Great Britain is lagging behind in this vital process of industrial re- organization—witness the relative lack of interest on the part of the English business community in the Conference which has been taking place in Paris during the last week. There was, as it happens, a good example of the recalcitrance which we have in mind in an article on the subject of private railway wagons in The Times' Trade and Engineering Supplement last week. The writer stated that " the problem is not merely one of saving half a million or a million pounds. per annum "—(no one ever thought it was)—and that its solution would involve the disturbance and readjustment of a whole series of complicated interests and responsibilities .

that coal producers and distributors would object to any such interference with production, distribution and control—and so on. Exactly, but that is the very adjust. ment and reorganization on up-to-date lines which is essential for the future of British industry, most of all in that coal industry which is here cited.

We do not—as apparently some of our correspondents imagine—accept the nostrums of Labour and the Nation, but we see little difference between " the conduct of industry as a public service, democratically owned and responsibly administered . . ." and that measure of public control already practised in this country and everywhere with the approval of all shades of political opinion. Finally, in Mr. Hobson's words, " purely voluntary benevolence cannot be regarded as an adequate guarantee of the interests either of workers or of consumers."

To those who would object to that measure of State intervention in social and economic affairs which already exists, we would quote the remark of the American trust magnate with regard to the anti-Trust Law, " you cannot unscramble eggs." Political institutions, if they are to justify themselves in the future, must be such as will enable the public power to retain or recover control over the new industrial tendencies in the form of huge trusts and monopolies. And thanks to the new technique of international co-operation through the League and International Labour Office, the res publica of the world is slowly redressing the balance which has been so heavily weighted against it by the tremendous strides made by trade and finance as res privatae during the last century.

If the present Government attempts to carry- public control beyond the point where it is demanded by the common interests, it digs its own grave. On that score We are, for once, in agreement with Mr. Lloyd George. The large body of sane and sensible progressive opinion which has put Mr. MacDonald in power would then, we are confident, desert in a body to the party of the brake.