"Socialism would be wonderful but it won't work. It's against human nature and you can’t change human nature." How many times have we heard that judgment, usually delivered in a tone of finality. And how many more times will we hear it in the future! It seems almost to be ingrained in the thinking of the average individual, as though he was born with the thought. It is universally accepted in all countries and among all age groups and educational classifications. And yet it is so wrong that one can't help but be amazed. Wrong, that is, if by human nature we mean human behavior. And this is what is generally meant because the nature of man to be human hasn't been subjected to change and is not at all what socialists are talking about.
But human behavior certainly is possible to change and there are many examples around the world today and in the history of civilization of changing human behavior. In fact, there is a branch of psychology that is based upon the knowledge that human behavior can be changed. Practically every university worthy of the name, today, offers courses in behavioral psychology.
However, this is not our field, nor are we ready to embrace this science as an ally of socialism other than to note that behavioral scientists certainly agree that human behavior is changeable. The science of socialism is based on the historical fact that social systems, just as plants and animals, have gone through a process of evolution. Just as man was not always man, nor a rose always a rose, the capitalist system of society was not always part of the scene. Capitalism evolved out of feudalism; feudalism and chattel slavery evolved out of primitive tribal societies when they reached a point in their development that made these higher forms of society possible.
The behavior of serfs and peasants in pre-capitalist society was certainly different from the behavior of wage and salaried workers in our times. Serfs and peasants, like chattel slaves, rarely if ever handled money so the variety of behavior common to people who must have money in order to exist could not have been present among most of the population. The ideology of nationalism was not present among them because nations—in the sense we know today—did not exist. Armies in those times were composed of mercenaries — a separate class — and so it certainly could not be said of peasants, serfs and chattel slaves that they were inherently warlike as so many believe workers of our times to be.
In fact, there are all sorts of evidences In more recent history, particularly in the history of American capitalism, of changing human behavior. Americans are, generally, immigrants from countries all over the world. How long does it take them to change much of their old country behavior patterns? It may seem in many cases that they cling to the old customs but all it takes is a trip back to the homeland after having been through the mill of American-style capitalism a few years to bring into sharp focus their changed behavior. The manner of life dictated by American capitalism has brought about many changes in their way of thinking. And despite their traditional hatreds, the melting pot of developed capitalism has a tendency of mellowing and breaking down hostility.
Socialists maintain that capitalism will, ultimately, compel those who toil for wages or salaries, who produce all but possess little more than their ability to produce, to lay aside the differences that capitalist propaganda still seeks to promote. The working class of the entire world will be forced by the very nature of capitalism to unite in the interests of a higher form of social order — socialism. And a new generation, born under socialist freedom, will look back in amazement at the behavior of their fathers and grandfathers.
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