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This being your attitude with regard to international relations, what is the Socialist position in connection with internal or domestic politics?
Generally speaking the position of the Socialist Party in every civilised country is one of hostility to the existing political order. That order is based upon private property in the means of production, and its function is to maintain and defend that property in the interests of the dominant class. Hence the existing political order is in antagonism to Socialism.
From the foregoing, then, we are to understand that Socialism cannot afford to ignore existing political forms, as is sometimes asserted by Fabians on the one side and Sentimentalists on the other?
Certainly. Socialists are essentially thorough-going Republicans. Socialism, which aims at political and economic equality, is radically inconsistent with any other political form whatever than that of Republicanism. By this we do not mean any existing republican constitution, which is a quite superficial matter, but that the principle of republicanism is essential to Socialism. Monarchy and Socialism, or Empire and Socialism, are incompatible and inconceivable. Socialism involves political and economic equality; while Monarchy or Empire essentially imply domination and inequality.
You say that your attitude is one of hostility to the existing political order, and that Socialism is essentially Republican. How, then, do you propose to give practical effect to this hostility and to demonstrate your Republicanism in a tangible form? Do you purpose organising, and waiting for, a revolutionary outbreak?
Socialism is essentially revolutionary, politically and economically, as it aims at the complete overthrow of existing economic and political conditions. We should organise and be prepared for what might be described as a revolutionary outbreak, certainly; but we do not need to wait for it. As we have endeavoured to show, the economic changes which are taking place, and the corresponding changes in other conditions, are bringing about a revolutionary transformation in human society, and what we have to do is to help on this development and to prepare the way for it.
How do you reconcile your revolutionary principles with your practice of tinkering with existing conditions as shown by your participation in current political action and the palliative programmes put forward by the Socialist parties of the various countries?
While organising and working for the complete overthrow of the capitalist system, Socialists everywhere recognise it to be their duty, as far as possible, to mitigate the evil effects of existing conditions, not only for the good directly effected by such mitigation, but also because, by the restriction of the exploitation and impoverishment of the proletariat, they must necessarily help on the economic and social development for which they are working. Thus it is incumbent upon us to enter into the active political life of the day in order to press forward such measures as better and free education, and free maintenance for the children; the raising of the age at which children should enter the factory; the strict limitation of the working day; a minimum wage, and, where necessary, maximum price; prohibition of poisonous occupations, and the general protection of the lives and limbs of the working classes in their work; the public construction of healthy workmen’s dwellings, etc. Socialists advocate and support such measures as these as being calculated not only to palliate the worst evils of capitalism, but also to raise the physical, moral and mental status of the working-class, and to better fit them for the struggle for their emancipation - at the same time that such measures would in many cases help on that emancipation by restricting the limits of private, and increasing the area of public, property.
But in the historical development of the Socialist movement has not this participation in what is sometimes called practical politics proved to be a considerable danger?
Very much so, indeed, but it is a danger the movement is bound to run, unless it would sink into mere Utopianism. A revolutionary movement must risk something, but it should profit by experience, and the dangers arising from participation - with a strict adherence to fundamental principles - in the active political life of the day are not nearly so great as those resulting from an avoidance of political action. That amounts to sheer “impossibilism.” It is indeed the theory of the Anarchists. But it is almost invariably found that those who start out as Anarchists with the idea of cutting themselves adrift from the contamination of all political activity, in the practical sense, as being mere mild tinkering with the present system, strange as it may seem, land themselves ultimately in some weak reform movement of an infinitely milder character than the proposals of the most opportunist Social-Democrat against whom they have formerly inveighed.
Then we are to gather from the above that Socialism presupposes political and economic democracy? Does this democracy imply absolute equality between the sexes?
Economically, certainly; for equal service equal remuneration or credit, material or moral, to man or woman; and it is perfectly certain that the establishment of such economic equality must necessarily produce very material and radical changes in the position of woman and the relations between the sexes. The precise nature of these changes it would be rash at the present time to predict. The subject, however, in this connection, is beset with fallacies, especially false analogies. People forget that the relation of sex is largely unique in its character as implying an organic difference, and not a mere social one, and hence quite distinct from the relation of class or of race. The relation of man to woman has none but the most superficial analogy to that of an exploiting class with an exploited class, or of a dominant race with a subject race. And yet this thinnest of superficial analogies, hardly worthy the name of analogy at all, is constantly being reasoned from with axiomatic dogmatism, which would be not even justified were the analogy complete at all points.
But leaving aside the question of future conditions between risen and women; what is the position of Socialism towards the question of marriage as at present constituted?
The existing marriage relation is determined as such relations have always been determined, throughout human development, by the general economic institutions of the existing society. The existing monogamic relation is simply the outcome of the institution of private or individual property. It has developed, in proportion to the accentuation of the institution of private as against communal property. When private property ceases to be the fulcrum around which the relations between the sexes turn, any attempt at coercion, moral or material, in these relations (such as is implied in laws mechanically and compulsorily prescribing their conditions, as do the marriage laws of to-day), since it would have no reason for its existence, must necessarily become repugnant to the moral sense of the community.
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Last updated on 16.6.2004