A correspondent (N. T. T.) asks us the following questions about the organisation of society on a Socialist basis :—
“(1) There are always people, in any stage of civilization, who do not like and do not tone with their surroundings. People live to-day who would be much more happy lying in the sun all day, and picking their food from the trees. I wonder what would be considered the fair share of work for such people? Would they, desiring none of the absurd luxuries of mechanised and artificial civilization, be yet forced to do as much to maintain such a state as any lover of cigars, motorcars, and epicurean meals.
(2) All valuable (not in a monetary sense) works of art, will not be able to be kept in public museums. It is barely possible to consider all our paintings and sculptures thus placed—but for whom are our few Stradivarius violins, to mention but one type of art which cannot be left to rot in a museum ? There are, as I have said, but a few ; but there is a multitude of people who ache to possess them. And this is not greed. It is the very natural desire of the artist to express himself through as fine a medium as possible.
We cannot call those things details, and pass them over. They touch very vital chords of human nature, and must be considered.
Reply.
Our correspondent’s first question is phrased in such a way that it tends to obscure the real issue. We are asked to consider the case of the man who will desire “none of the absurd luxuries of mechanised and artificial civilisation,” and who, therefore, will wish to avoid working to make them possible. He wants, instead, to lie in the sun all day and feed himself from the trees ! If the illustration is to be taken literally, it is itself absurd and impossible. Anyone who tried to live like this in England would have a very strenuous, brief and painful existence. He would be compelled to avoid all cultivated plants, because these are the products of our “mechanised and artificial civilisation,” and would be so busy trying to secure a sufficiency of uncultivated but edible articles, that he would have no time for sunning. He would doubtless soon fall ill. Moreover, not the social organisation, but the climate would effectively prohibit his mode of life for 90 per cent. of the time. But if he then decides to seek sunnier climes, he will again have to fall back on those — to him — detestable mechanical devices, the steamship or the aeroplane.
The real problem is that of the persons whose tastes do not fully coincide with those of their neighbours—but that includes everybody. Everybody would want some but not others of the articles produced by society’s co-operative effort, and would therefore appreciate the need for give and take. It is a problem implicit in every form of human society. The adjustments will be easier when the luxuries of some are not obtained at the cost of the necessities of others. Now the poverty of the poor is forcibly imposed on them in order to safeguard the privileges of the propertied class.
Our correspondent’s second question has nothing to do with Socialism. We are not advocating Socialism on the ground that we have discovered a perfect method of dividing half-a-dozen Strads among a multitude of people. In the nature of the case there is no method of satisfying the desire of the multitude (if, indeed, they exist) who ache to possess a Strad. What Socialism will do will be to remove, society’s means of production and distribution from the ownership and control of a small minority. Having done that, we do not think that the foundations of Socialist society will rock on account of the unsolved problem of the Strads and first editions and other unique relics of this, that, or the other dead hero. Capitalism gives the Strads to its most successful exploiters who can afford to pay monopoly prices—but nobody seems to mind very much. Artist-craftsmen will again find an opening for the production of masterpieces under the new social conditions.
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