SOCIALISM EXAMINED.

Otago Witness, Issue 2840, 19 August 1908, Page 81

SOCIALISM EXAMINED.

"A CEITICAL EXAMINATION OF SOCIALISM."

By W. H. Maixock.

This book, founded on a series of lee- i tures delivered in the United States in 1807, appears very opportunely -when j Socialist propaganda is so a-ctive. Written an a vigorous incisive style, with rare lucidity of argument and illustration, it j compels the attention of the most indolent reader. Mr Malloek is a hard hitter, and •his sarcastic manner will make not a few Socialists very angry. But no reasonable opponent can deny that he presents a formidable- indictment of Socialism. And those who remain unconvinced should at least benefit by being compelled to examine and strengthen the defences of Socialistic theory. j The writer begins by clearing up ideas | as to what the world is asked to accept in exchanging Capitalism for Socialism. As j 'he points out, Socialism — except in the j ■case of a few small communities which have j experimented with it for brief period© — I exists as a theory only. Capitalism has ] .produced the wealth of the modern world. : " Socialism has - produced resolutions at \ endless public meetings. It has produced discontent, and strikes j it has hampered .production . constantly. But Socialism has aiever inaugurated an improved chemicaJ It has never bridged an estuary nor built an ocean liner. It has never produced or cheapened so much ac a lamp or a frying-pan." Socialism is rather an ambiguous term, and all who have any quarrel with the existing system usually jproclaim themselves Socialists. Moreover, as a definite body of doctrines, . Socialism 3ias undergone much modification during the last 60 years. As a definite systematic theory it was first developed toy Karl Marx. * His leading principle ,was that all wealth arises from lftbour. 'All forms of capital represent "crystallised labour," which has been appropriated by non- r prpdueers. Marx insisted that no improvement, iii the condition of labourers was possible ■ under the Capitalist system. The. rich,:, said he, "are getting richer, the ipoor poorer, and the middle class is being eru6bMt)ouiL' ! ni Finally, when the contrast jb£twe,en u ,a. handful of idle millionaires kjx6 ii ' J a,.^\aes of miserable ragamuffins had .become intolerable, the latter would assert themselves and reposes? themselves of the implements of production of which they had been" to' long depii\ed. Marx fixed this crisis for the end of the nineteenth century. It is always rash to prophesy ; particularly rash to affix dates to the accomplishment of one's prophecies ! Mallock proceeds to show what surely should be plain to everyone, that except Tinder the most primitive conditions •wealth is not solely due to labour. In England within the last two centuries the product per head of the industrial population has increased in the proportion of 33 to 7. But labour per te shows no improvement. Human strength and human skill have not increased within 200 years. _ The workmanship of the middle ages or of ancient Greece equalled or surpassed anything of to-day. ■ Marx and others say that it is through the advance of knowledge and thje "development of machinery that labour has become more productive.. But this,, says Mallock. is . merely begging the question. To what is this development of knowledge. of methods, of machinery due?. Marx. Ruskin. and others included geniu» and inventive factulty under the head "labour." But Mallook- shows that these alone do not accouirT for modem industrial progress. "ThtMgoods whofce value is due to exceptional craftsmanship are always few in number, and can be possessed by the few only. The distinctive feature of wealth production in the modern voile!, on the cototrary, is the multiplication of oood? relatively to the number of the producers of them, and the consequent cheapening of each article individually." Division of labour is an obvious explanation of il.i 1 . creased productivity, but this explan.iti m requires explaining. And this explanation is found in "the growing application of exceptional mental powers to the process of directing and co-ordinating ihp - divided labours of others." "Labour from the most ordinary up to the rarest kind - is the mind or the brain of one man affect- • ing that man's own hands. The directive ■ faculties are the mind or th*e brain of . one man simultaneously affecting the hands of any number of other men." To the' latter" faculties Mr Mallock applies the term "ability," and the greater por-tion-of the book is devoted to proving that these faculties, essential to progress, could not be commanded by Socialism. Modern Socialists acknowledge the fallacy pf Marx's doctrine, and admit that dires-i-iiye; ability i. is. an' important "factor in

production. Mr Mallock says that many Socialists accused him of either ignorance or disingenuousness in imputing 'to \ih.iva • the "worn-out and discredited theories of r Marx." .But he turns the imputation of I disingenuousness against-* his critics by ; showing that Socialists still use these I " worn-out and discredited theories" to appeal to the passions of the ill-informed I multitude. Accepting the admission of ! the more intellectual Socialists that uni directed labour is impotent for the pro- | duction of modern wealth, the author ! shows to what this admission leads. Under Socialism labour may be secured either by ' a continuance of the wage system, or, as has been proposed by some Socialists, by ensuring a maintenance to all and penalis- ! ing the idle who refuse to work — in short, *by a return to slavery. For the great majority of mankind labour is a necessity under all social systems, the only difference between primitive civilisations anJ our advanced industrial systems being that under the first unremitting labxir secures only a bare maintenance. Bur, inventive genius and directive ability cannot be commanded. - Their very possessor may be unaware of them till circumstances impel him to exert them. Under a Socialist regime such powers .would not meet with adequate reward., hence would not be exercised. Under Capitalism ability to direct industrial enterprise is subjected to the test of success. Those who attempt to direct industry without requisite to direct wholly or in part the means of doing go, while the gains of superior ability enable it progressively to enlarge its enterprise. Under Statepaid direct oi'6 only glaring incompetence would lead to dismissal ; those of poor initiative and power of control would continue to hold their positions, since they would suffer no loss. Mr Mallock argues that actual experience has shown State and municipal control to be less economical than private enterprise, and quotes several examples in proof of his contention. And when State and private enterprise exist side by side the former usually succeeds in killing, or at least hampering, the latter. Thus over two centuries ago private enterprise established a penny post in London. The State killed it, and deprived the metropolis of this service for 150 years. Also, State control of industry under a democracy would mean the rule of the majority. Discoverers and inventors have often had to fight for long against public prejudice, and if they had to depend for the means of carrying out their ideas on a government under popular i control, there ideas could never have been realised. The author repeats the argument of Charles Bradlaugh, that under ! Socialism no literary expression of free thought would be practicable. With a State prets "the focalised prejudices of the majority, or the privileged self-con-fidence of a certain eelect minority, would deprive independent thought in any other quarter of any means of expressing itself either by book or journal." But behind all these objections the ultimate difficulty remains — the impossibility of securing ability when it is no longer to reap its fiuits. Mr Mallock examines the various motives proposed by Socialists as substi-. tutes for the vulgar one of personal gain — " honour,' "" pleasure of excelling,' "joy in creative work,"' "satisfaction of ministering to others" — and finds them sadly insufficient for sordid everyday realities. "Wbrat reason is there to suppose that the impassioned emotion which stimulates the adoring monk to lavish all his genius an an altar piece will stimulate another man to devise and to organise the production of some new kind of liquid enamel for the decoration of cheap furniture? Or who can suppose that the disinterested passion for truth which made such men as Kant and Hegel forget their dinners will stimulate others to devote themselves to the improvement of stoves and saucepans?'" The favourite example of altruistic motive is that of the soldier, which, it is claimed, can always "be relied on to induce any number of ordinary men to face death in its most frightful forms. But Mr Mallock unkindly shows that the motives which nerve soldiers to battle are not wholly of the lofty nature assumed. Mer- , cenaries have fought as bravely as soldiers j fighting for the independence of their j fatherland. "The fighting instinct is inherited from the million years of struggle that have made man what he is, and will always prompt numbers to do for the smallest wage, or, none, what they could hardly, in its absence, be induced to do foi the highest."' The love of truth, satisfaction in creative work, and love of one's fellows are all exceptional motives accompanj'ing special temperaments and powers. Love of fighting exists in a degree in most normal men, but it can be aroused only in exceptional circumstances. The failure of the Socialist colonies that have been attempted is testimony to the

tfuth of Mr Mallook'& arguments, feocialistf themselves, as he satirically pointe out, bear testimony to the need of the motive of personal gain, or they are never Wry of insisting that accumulated

mwuivc vi jjeisuutu gain, or tney are never weary of insistifig that accumulated wealth ig due to greed alone. Thus they geclare; in one .bfeath that the desire for excepkpjial weajt-h accompanies the powers W*JPwffi>,W£\fc *# Propose 8* IVM I™^1 ™^ »* it such mkhm as Honour," m .f eagvf #ork? F etT Moreover, the natural leMsh. motive is still universally appealed to in rallying the masse? jo eplist under the Socialist banner vpS/ I *!^ m «> m^ in for some very lard hitting, a book called "The selected as a fair specimen of thii variety of Socialism. Its author is willing to talent, but he claims that the men- posting them are above ~the consideration useless capitalists represented by "the oil kings and steel kings " who, according to him, exploit both the abilities of the" inventors and the labour of working, men But inventions, says Mr Mallock, are usebrain of the inventor. And inventors are very commonly highly unpractical. It requires the class of men denounced as greedy parasites to bring the ideas of invenW into practical effect. The author of Ihe Gospel for To-day" evidently looks on steel and refined oil as two natural products. Oil- he apparently thinks of as existing fit for use in a lake* ;and ready to be dipped up by evervbodv in nice little tin cans, if only the oil kings having got to the lake 'first, did not by their superior strength frighten other people away. Of the actual -history of the production of useable oil, of the vast and marvellous system by which :t i? brought within reach of the consumers, of the by-products which reduce its price — all of them the restilts^ of concentrated economic ability, and requiring from week to week ite constant and renewed application—the author of "The Gospel .for To-day " apparently knows nothing. The oil kings and the steel kings, according to his conception of them, need merely refrain from the exercise of their only distinctive power — that is to say, an exceptional power of i&eizimg— and every Christian Socialist in New York will have .the same oil in, his lamps that he has now, and a constant supply of cutlery and all other forms of hardware, the sole 'difference being that. he will get -them at half-price, or for nothing, and have the money thus saved to spend upon new enjoyments. "He imagines that inventions. as they form themselves in the head of the inventor, leap direct into uee, while the inventor is a being so superior to the world he works in that the rapture of being allowed to work for it is the only reward he covets ; that he has never dreamed of such selfish things as profits, an 4 does not even' know the meaninß of a patent or a founder's share, and that the oil kings and the steel kings, and all other able men, will save society by following in the footsteps of this chimera." This unpracticableness the author — and many will agree with him — finds to be "characteristic of Socialists. " Just as o&rtain men are incapable of dealing with th.c abstractions of mathematics, so are tho Socialist men w-ho in virtue of their temperaments are incapable of comprehending accurately the concrete facts of life. They have none of them done anything to enlace the powers of industry, or even to sustain them at their present pitch of efficiency. If some old indusirv declines they demand, with tears, that the thousands thus thrown out of work shall be set by the State to do or produce something, even though this be a something which is not wanted by anybedv. They never set themselves to devise some new commodity, such as the modern bicycle. They fail to do these things for the simple j reason that they cannot do them, and they cannot do them because they are deficient alike in the interest requisite for understanding how they are done, and in the concentrated practical energy which is no less requisite for the doing of them. They dream about reforming the industrial business of the world, while practical men, who take men and Nature as they are. do so in reality. Space does not admit of following Mr Mallock into his refutation of the Socialist attack on interest and his examination of the practicability of the favourite nlea for "equality of opportunity " At the conclusion of the book the author denies the justice of the frequently repeated challenge that thoee who refuse to accept Socialism as a panacea for all the evils of society should have a better remedy to oiier. The diseases of society are various, and no remedy will cure them all. One may at least point out that the proposed remedy would only aggravate present evils. " The object of the volume has not been to maintain that existing conditions are perfect, or that Socialists are visionaries in declaring that they are capable of improvement, but to exp-ree that radical misconception of facts which renders demands visionary that would not be visionary otherwise, and to stimulate all sane and statesmanlike refoimert h v helping them to see, acd also to explain to others that the improved conditions which Socialism blindly clamours for are practicable only in proportion as they are dissociated from the theoiks of Socialism.

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