Hopes and Fears for Socialism
The man who says that he has no use for theory is wrong—and dangerous. Yet the Socialist is always coming up against people who justify their lack of concern about Socialist theory by some such jibe at all theory. In the matter of politics, as in the care of the human body, the man who believes that he acts on no theory at all, but on “common-sense,” is, in fact, only acting on the theories which happen to be most widely accepted at the moment. In the field of politics this is almost tantamount to saying that such a man is bound to be wrong, for are not the existing widely-accepted theories the ones which have been applied without success as a cure for the existing evils?
There are sound theories, that is theories which are in accord with the existing facts and which, if applied, will produce the result intended; and there are unsound theories. The man who “does not believe in theory” is blindly accepting the unsound theories propagated by those who do not understand the economic and political situation and by those who have an interest in maintaining it as it is, evils included. The two theories found most frequently among those who will not listen to the Socialist case are not confined to any one political party, but are common among Liberals and Tories, Labourites and Communists. The first is the theory that conscious organised action to achieve Socialism is not necessary because, in spite of appearances, “things are getting constantly better and better.” The second is the theory that conscious organised action need not be taken because everything will go on getting worse and worse until there is a really terrifying crash “which will simply force people to do something.”
Superficially both theories appear to be plausible enough: fundamentally both are hopelessly wrong. They are dangerous to those who hold them and a serious obstacle standing in the way of the Socialist movement.
The first theory appears to be true because at any given moment there always does seem to be a great deal of activity directed towards making things better. Just at present we are being promised better trade and less unemployment, the abolition of slums, a better organised milk supply, better transport, shorter hours, electricity in our homes—and, of course, higher wages. The snag in it is twofold, firstly it is so far all talk, and the resulting performance—when it comes—will produce quite a small mouse compared with the mountain of promises, and, secondly, that by the time this mouse has been brought forth, capitalism, the source of our present troubles, will have given birth to a large number of other terrifying evils. If you doubt this look back over the past hundred years of “solutions” of the housing problem, the poverty problem, the unemployment problem, the hours problem and the wages problem. They are always being solved. “Solutions” are the permanent stock-in-trade of the capitalist politicians. If you feel disposed to give a chance to some young political group which roundly denounces the old gangs for their failure, remember that the old gangs all began as young fire-eaters; and observe that the planks in the programmes of the new gangsters, are only the same old worm-eaten rubbish with a new coat of paint.
The other theory, the theory of “crash,” looks plausible because periodically unintelligent discontent does burst forth in the shape of violence and destruction.
Yet both theories are unsound. Neither the gradual accumulation of social reforms, nor the periodical outburst of violence solves the problem which faces us. To see that this is so it is only necessary to glance over the events of the past 30 years. In spite of wars and upheavals, Labour Governments and dictatorships, capitalism persists without any essential change for better or for worse. It makes a little adjustment here and another there, it replaces one set of rulers by another set, it calls things by different names, but the same essential capitalism is here with us yet.
Thirty years ago dawn was announced in the Welsh hills by David Lloyd George. Poverty was to be abolished from this land of plenty. Health insurance—9d. for 4d.—was to guard us against the hardships of illness. Labour exchanges would find work for the unemployed. The land tax would undermine the power of the privileged class. If there were anything in the theory that progress only needs a “good leader,” here was the man. Energetic, clear-headed, bold and able to understand working-class problems. What happened ? Nothing very much. The hopes of the workers and the fears of the rich were alike confounded.
Then came the crash, the war. Now—so we were told—the workers would be driven to revolt, and then the new world would be ushered in. The results were otherwise. War-weariness was astutely canalized by this same Lloyd George, with his promises of a ”land fit for heroes to live in,” and his rallying cry to the workers to ”be audacious.” In Great Britain the end of the war saw the workers marching happily behind the man who had betrayed them before.
Then the dawn suddenly shot up in several places all at about the same time. Labour Governments in Australia, so-called Socialist revolutions in Russia, Germany and Austria, followed by a short-lived Bolshevist triumph in Hungary.
What now has happened to those extravagant early hopes? The Socialist Party of Great Britain stood alone in this country when it warned the workers that they were putting their trust in shadows. All those dawns have faded, even if some are not yet everywhere recognised for what they are. The same thing happened with the two Labour Governments in Great Britain, 1924 and 1929- 31.
Then there came hopes and crashes of a different sort, the rise of the Fascists in Italy, followed in 1931 by the National Government in England, and in 1933 by the rise of Hitler in Germany. Part of the working class hailed these events with just the same pathetic fervour as was shown by another part of the working class at the rise of Labour Governments and the rise of the Bolsheviks. So that there was the curious spectacle of one section of the workers looking on MacDonald, Mussolini and Hitler as heroes come to save them, while other workers regarded these men as the embodiments of evil, signifying the collapse of economic life as we have known it, which in fact would mean the collapse of capitalism.
Yet it goes on. Capitalism adjusts itself. Workers go to work under much the same conditions as before. Unemployment, poverty and bad housing continue under dictatorships of the “left” and “right” just as they do under limited monarchies and democratic republics. The means of production and distribution go on being privately owned. Rent, interest and profits, that holy trinity, continue whatever the political form under which capitalism is governed, and whatever political doctrines the ruling clique profess to hold.
Capitalism persists in spite of all the energy and enthusiasm swallowed up in the movements of reform by peaceful penetration and the movements of reform by violence and collapse.
The “inevitability of gradualness” flounders in the same bog as the communist - fascist theory of progress by chaos.
That is the result of following two unsound theories.
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