SOCIALISM

Waipa Post, Volume 37, Issue 2179, 5 July 1928, Page 4

SOCIALISM

THE TERM MISUNDERSTOOD INTERESTING W.E.A. LECTURE. The fortnightly gathering of the Workers' Educational Association was held in Mr Wynyard's office last night. The subject chosen for~discussion was that embraced under the term Socialism. Mr Stephens, the lecturer, stated at the outset that he did not propose 'to take up the subject from the point 1 of view of a socialist, but from a scientific point of view. Hence the lecture would provide a critical examination of the history of socialism and also of the doctrines of the Socialists' creed. '

No word, said the lecturer, was more misunderstood than the term socialism. The average person on hearing that term conjured up a vague monster of some unknown species, but on a'sked for his definition of a Socialist or of socialism he cannot supply the needed explanation. "Socialism," says Heaton, "is a supposed economic system, in which private ownership of property, with its eonsequent private appropriation of rent, interest and profit disappears, giving place to social ownership and control of the means for the production of wealth." This definition seems to fit it most nearly with the general policies of the various classes and parties of Socialists. The difference between them' is largely due to their different methods of bringing this, state of affairs to pass. The fundamental fact in nosition assumed is that in modern industrial society there is inequality of opportunity.

Socialism is a growth of very modern times. The emergence of the factory system at the beginning of last century saw such an enormous amount of human suffering and starvation that men's minds were naturally turned to an enquiry as to the reason. One of the first facts noticed was the concentration of capital in the hands of a few with the necessary control which those few exercised over the mass of their less fortunate bretm-en. The employee who had only his labour to sail was of course at a disadvantage in bargaining, and it is admitted on every hand that there was a good deal of suffering. Hence we.find m England the rise of a class of idealists who sought to change the svstem and replace it with a Utopian system where man got the whole product of his labour, and where man had some say m his own industrial management. Robert Owen, with his. model settlements, is the most outstanding man of this class. He expected men to respond and by moral suasion "to usher in the millenium.

_ Men did not respond. The conditions grew worse and the low murmur gave place to a loud roar. Revolution, which was at the basis economic in origin shook Europe in the forties. Men sought by force to ulsher in the New Heaven. However, the forces of reaction were too strong and. Europe settled slowly down again, but not until many industrial hardships had. been exposed. At this ■ stage there, emerged a man who wasi afterwards to change the whole outlook of the" Socialist from that of an idle dreamer to that of a scientist. Karl Marx, a German Jew, was involved in the reVolutions of the forties and after. He settled in London and began an elaborate survey of history. His contri-' bution to historical research was the extent to which he carried the principle of the materialistic interpretation of history. He emphasised the fact that history was not the record of great men, but by movements which he suggested were purely economic in origin. From that basis he sought to prophesy as to the future; and he visualised a time when society would not be dominated bv wealth but by a benevolent omnipresent state which would control all the means of production. His chief criticism, from a scientific point of view of the current or capitalistic society, was the fact that the labourer, who he said was the creator of aJI value, did not get the return in wages of the value he had created. He said that this was ! eaten up by the idle rich. Revolutionary as Marx is supposed to be; a careful study of .his works, and particularly his great work "Dafr Kapital," suggests that he thought that this change would come about, by State action. He emphasised the Solidarity of the workers of the world, and called on them to unite. • Each nation has interpreted Marx, in its- owih way. France, ever revolutionary, has through syndicalism. preached the violent overthrow of the capitalistic system, through revolution. England,, more sober in temperament, has never adopted the revolutionary sentiments to any degree. The Fabianfs, a group of intellectuals who sought to educate the public and the parliament as to the more pressing needs of reform represent the movement of one side. Their propaganda has in a wonderful degree affected England's industrial policy over the last thirty years. Men like Wells, the Webbs, Bernard Shaw, to mention a few are the creature of the masses. On the other side the Independent Labour party in Great Britain represents the parliamentary side of the same movement. They are not revolutionary but evolutionary, seeking to attain their-ends by ly constitutional means. The Union Congress again represents another phase of the same movement. The economics of socialism was discussed and numerous criticisms offered.