MIA > Archive > Bax > Catechism
Socialists constantly assert their belief in the speedy downfall of the present system, and the near advent of Socialism; what are their reasons for this belief?
There are many grounds, small and great, upon which we base our conclusions in this respect. The chief economical ground is that all the facts go to show that capitalism has reached the furthest term of its development. If it continues to exist it can only be by a sort of artificial prolongation of its life through a suspension of that social development which in the normal course should effect its transformation into collectivism, as it is difficult to see any further organic changes through which it can pass. We might point out as one of the signs of the end of capitalism, that it is already being controlled more and more completely by its financial side. In its earlier and immature stages, it is the commercial aspect which is dominant; it is the merchant who travels from city to city to buy and sell and get gain (mainly with raw materials), that is its typical representative. Little progress beyond this stage was made either in Antiquity or throughout the Middle Ages. During the subsequent development, the employer; of labour, the manufacturer, became the “predominant partner” until, in the heyday of its vigour, throughout the great industry of the nineteenth century, the manufacturer, or in other words, the industrial side of capitalism, controlled the whole system. Now, at the opening, of the twentieth century, we see the supremacy of the old industrial capitalist in its turn threatened, and even more than threatened, by the mere man of money-the financier – of which the Rockefellers, the Rhodeses, and the Pierpont Morgans are types. This domination of the FINANCIAL side, of capitalism over the COMMERCIAL and INDUSTRIAL respectively, which means the reign of trusts and big combines, denotes the last stage of capitalism, and the final extinction of the last useful function of the capitalist as the direct organiser and immediate supervisor of industrial processes. (The organisation of the financial capitalist is of, quite a different order.) The trust system obviously spells the reduction of the wealth of the world under the control of a few gigantic cosmopolitan capitalists and syndicates; and from this to the removal of these possessing money-lords, and the assumption of the productive wealth of the world by democratic society organised to this end, is only a step.
But the foregoing, true as it may be, only refers to the material development, and you have said that Socialism is something more than an economic theory. Are we to understand, nevertheless, that Socialism is merely sordid and material, and has no regard for the more ideal side of human interests?
By no manner of means. The Socialist recognises, far more than others, the higher ideals of human life as being its true end. But the Socialist, if he be worthy the name, refuses to be befooled himself or to befool others, with vapid phrases about the scorning of the material side of life, plain living and high thinking, and so on. He knows that to place mankind in a position to realise its higher aspirations, it is necessary to ignore these “spiritual” things in their present, largely bogus, form, and to direct his attention primarily to the securing of the material ends of life by material means – a proceeding so much despised in theory by those who have already attained these material ends in practice. In the words of St. Paul, “That which thou sowest is not quickened except it die,” and much of what now passes for the “higher interests” will undoubtedly, to follow out the metaphor, have to die and be buried, in the rich soil of new material conditions, before it can be quickened into real life, and blossom forth in the more perfect ideals of the future. Material conditions form the fundamental basis of human existence. When these become common property, free to all, and abundant for all, they will cease to have that importance they now possess; the sordid struggle for mere material things will disappear; free play will be given to man’s higher faculties, and the struggle, competition, or emulation between man and man will be for the realisation of his highest conceivable aspirations. With his mind freed from the dreary cares now imposed by the perpetual struggle for daily bread, man will bend his thoughts on nobler things. Absolute master of the material circumstances of life, his Will must dominate, and be no longer dominated by them, and such opportunities of existence, such scope for mental and moral gratification, such ideals and aspirations will open up before him as are at present, inconceivable.
Does Socialism, then, represent a final phase of human development, beyond which nothing further is possible?
All we claim for Socialism is that it is the next summit which has to be attained in man’s progress onward and upward. This summit hides from our view all that may lie beyond; we only know that a return to Individualism as we see it to-day and as it has been to a greater or less extent throughout history, will be impossible. The goal of Socialism once having been attained, the ground gained will never more be lost. What further developments in human social organisation, beyond those Socialist forms which we can conceive of at the present time, may be in store, we not know. It is enough for us to work for our ideal – the Socialism we can foresee; in which we know must be realised the nearest approach, since man first appeared on this planet, to the state pictured by the Syrian dreamer, on the Aegean sea, in the first century of the Christian era, when he wrote of a time when the tears shall be wiped from all eyes, when there shall be no more grief – “neither sorrow nor crying, neither shall there be any more pain.”
Previous chapter – Top of the page
Last updated on 16.6.2004