Socialism.

Waiapu Church Gazette, Volume II, Issue 2, 1 August 1911, Page 21

Socialism.

E\ W. Martin.

No word lias been more loosely employed than Socialism. Sometimes it lias been connected, more or less, with doctrines of atheism, materialism, or free-love. To the popular mind it is occasionally associated with anarchy. The word has been made to mean complete Communism, and, at the other end of the scale, it is applied to progressive taxation, and municipal monopolies.

The difficulty of coming to a clear understanding of the doctrines of Socialism is that they have never been formulated with precision by any well-known writer.

The truth of the matter probably is that it is a movement blindly feeling 1 out for better conditions of human life, making tentative attempts at reform, but yet almost wholly inarticulate. Patient investigation will, however, bring 1 some clear ideas out of the tangle.

1. Socialism, as a theory, is not bound up with the hostility to those things we consider sacred. It is not necessarily connected with the dissolution of the bonds of marriage, and the making the breeding and rearing of children a purely State function. As to the family, Christian Socialises argue that it would be better off all round than under the present individualistic system, for, at present, m many labouring families, the woman and children are obliged to obtain external work for maintenance, while under the collective system the head of the family would be assured of sufficient for all his household. Nor is Socialism bound up with irreligion. At a congress held recently on the Continent, the English delegates sturdily maintained that the Socialistic State could not stand without the ameliorating influence of religion, especially Christianity, and they expressly claimed to be speaking for the main body of those whom they represented. 2. In a strict sense, Socialism is, as the Bishop of Birmingham

lucidly describes it, "a certain economic theory, viz., that for the present system of private capital should be substituted collective ownership by the State, or community, of all the sources "and instruments of production and distribution. At present land, factories, and capital generally belong to private owners or combinations of private owners : and the labourer of all sorts is dependent for employment and subsistence upon private owners, and their competition to enrich themselves largely determines the conditions of employment. For this system the Socialist would substitute collective ownership of all that constitutes capital, of all sources and instruments of production and distribution by the State or community, m the equal interest of all — with an equal obligation upon all for co-operative labour, and an equal claim by all upon the produce of labour, according to the value of labour, and the needs of such. In the Socialistic community there would be no distinction of employers and employed. The community would be the sole employer, and the members of the community would be its salaried servants." "Such," says the Bishop, "is the essence of the various socialistic theories, and remote as the establishment of any fully socialistic State may be at present, the ideal is so prominently before the minds of men, and there is so much aspiration m this direction that Christianity is bound to consider its relation to the Socialistic idea." It is obvious that this scheme of Socialism has no place yet, except it is m tentative, isolated experiments, m any State. Paul Leroy Beaulieu, m his standard work on Collectivism, examines cases of collective ownership of land, which have existed for centuries m some instances m Russia, Switzerland, Java, and India. There is not time m a paper like this to go into details, but one author shows that m Russia "collective ownership is convicted of inefficiency, of inability to put the land within the reach of all, and of incapacity to raise the families, whom it endows, from misery." The benefits derived m Switzerland are doubtful, and m the village communities of India and Java, the sy s«

tern is stated to be responsible for the almost complete absence of personal initiative. There are several obvious objections to collectivism. One lies m the incentive of private interest ; The hazards which attend all human efforts perform a useful function as a spur to exertion. This may be illustrated by a reference to invention. It is calculated that the profits made # by the inventor of Bessemer steel amount to about \ per cent, on the total amount of money saved by his process. The rapid development of that invention suggests a contrast with what would probably have happened if it had been necessary to submit it to the consent of the bureaucracy appointed by the community to direct its industries. The social organisation of trades m the middle ages was to some extent communistic, and that epoch was sterile m inventions. Is it conceivable that the bureaucratic organisation of collectivism can effectively replace the inventive fertility of private enterprise. Schaffle, one of the most distinguished Socialist writers of today, is compelled to admit that this is a vital question, and, although decisive, it is not yet decided. If a collectivism regime would dry up the sources of invention and enterprise, the advantages it offers would be purchased at too high a price.

Under a Socialist regime the direction of industries would have to be placed m the hands of a group of officials. As the sole directors of cultivation, or of the division of land, and as the employers of labour, they would be able, by arbitrary use of this authority to impose upon the citizens; and no one is so ingenuous as to believe that popular suffrage will always place the most capable, honest, or impartial men m office.

3. A third % objection is based upon the defects of human nature. No doubt it is true that some modern methods of accumulation of wealth are as blameworthy as the violence of the middle ages, and a number of fortunes are thus obtained. But it is also true that these are exceptions among the multitude of fortunes laboriously and honestly gained. These very exceptions are due to ctutses.

wliieli civilisation, as it advances, will diminish; Tlie causes are due to defective legislation, which can be remedied as the public conscience developes. But they are also, due to lack of education, to th 6 carelessness, and the credulity which is often allied to cupidity, of the For this education i§ the remedy. There is another cause which will be as potent under a colleciivist regime a,s any dfther: this is the fact that humanity will always produce men inclined to and expert at rascality, and others always ready to.be duped and despqiied. We have at present no guarantee that collectivism, if completely substituted for the present, system, would produce any permanent or decided advance. But the main thing we should consider is, as. Bishop Gore well puts it, that "Christianity is bound to consider its relation to the Socialistic idea. 3 ' My first observation is that the socialistic idea has the same objective as Christianity — the gradual realisation, as far as the environment will permit, of the ideal of the Kingdom of God among men on earth. Frederick Denison Maurice laid down the dictum that "we must either Christianise socialism, or socialise Christianity." The economic change which Socialism seeks as the method of attainment is open to many objections, is doubtful, and will probably be varied, and modified, as its evolution developes. But as Bishop Westcott says, "Individualism regards humanity as made up of disconnected and warring atoms. . . . . . Socialism regards it as an organic whole The aim of individualism is the attainment of some personal advantage — riches, place, or fame. The aim of Socialism is the fulfilment of service. Socialism seeks such an organism as shall secure for every one the completest development of his powers ; while Individualism seeks primarily the satisfaction of the particular wants, of each one, m the hope that the pursuit of private interests will, m the end, secure public welfare." If, then, Socialists demand collective ownership of the means of living-— of those things fundamen-

tally necessary to life—it is because they believe that by this means alone can be secured that justice, equality of opportunity, and that freedom for and among men, which social morality. re-> quires.

Is not this the fundamental aim of Christianity ? In asking this question, of course, I rule out the conception according' to which the purpose of Christianity is to prepare s/parate souls for a hereafter. It does that incidentally, but our Lord pointed out the. path which Christian psychology must follow. Man has a soul, a personality, and yet it is not his indefectibly, it may be lost ; na3', m a sense, it is not his yet at all, but has to be acquired with patience. (S. Luke xxi, 19.) In other words, personality is an ideal; not a given fact. We are to gain, to acquire, our personality; and the way to gain it is to lose it. How does a man lose his soul to gain it. ? To lose his soul must mean that a man must forget himself entirely, cease to revolve round his selfish interests, and pass out freely into the great life of the world, constructing our universe on a Christocentric or cosmocentric basis, not -a self-cen-tred one. This maxim ("lose his soul to find it"), has been emphasised rightly by many writers (see Inge, "Personal Idealism.") The Gospel which Christ proclaimed was not a scheme of individual salvation, but the good news of the Kingdom of God as at hand. A kingdom begun m this world, and having as its mission to get God's will done on earth, as m heaven, m the secular as m the spiritual realm; to get the Spirit of God into all human life, into politics, art, business, literature. The end— personal salvation — is a result rather than a. purpose. The Kingdom of God, which is to be progressively realised, is an ideal social state. It does not contemplate any good which can not be shared with others. It assumes two fundamental facts that man is a religious being and needs God, and that he is a social being, and can^ only realise himself m fellowship. What, then, is the position which the Church ought to take

m its attitude towards Socialism? She ought not to tie herself to anyone political party; nor ally herr self as a partisan of any particular class, nor bind herself to any particular theory. Nor can she take the place of an arbiter with regard to any socialistic programme. The Church as such has no capacity to decide the ethical and scientific questions raised by Socialism, so far . as these^ relate to the production and distribution of wealth. As it is her mission to teach: her children that they must m their: individual, relations practice justice, so ought she also to rebuke social injustice where it exists. As she exhorts to resist temptation, and rise by Divine grace, superior to circumstances, she must also be ready to recognise that for many people, and especially for children, a bad environment is too strong for the due assertion of the personality, and use her influence to modify or change the environment. We mourn the loss which is plainly shown m our age of the sense of sin. The sense is prbb*ably not so dead as we imagine. The Mission of Help has taught us something of methods of appeal to that sense. But m our preaching we ought to bear m mind a fact which is patent to many observers, viz., that the sense of sin has somewhat changed its emphasis. It is put, perhaps, less on personal demerit, but there is a growing sense of social wrong and injustice. The social consciousness has developed much m our own times, and any appeal to that meets with a ready response. It is due that I should say that m preparing this paper I have made a liberal use of the papers prepared for the Pan- Anglican Congress, notably those of the Bishop of Birmingham and Dr Wilmer. . May I suggest that valuable work would be done if the clergy were to preach a resume of some of those papers. They are very valuable, yet the world has never heard of them: they are buried m the reports.