State Transformation. 221 collective intervention has been enlarged. The control of the telegraph system has been added to that of postal communication. The Legislature has sanctioned the action of corporations, with a view to better housing and to the recreation and health of the labouring classes. Means of locomotion and of telephonic exchanges have been municipalised. We are using the powers of the State with ever-increasing readiness, not simply for the protection of individual citizens, but for the promotion of the greater happiness of the greater number. But socialism something more and else than this. means What it asks is not so much State help as State transformation. The help is conceded when good cause is shown. But there is a great gulf fixed between carefully considered State action in supplement of the endeavours of the community for purposes the carrying out of which implies a monopoly of means, or which cannot be done or so well done except through such action, and that which socialism in its more crystallised form contemplates. What, then, does it contemplate? in other words, What is socialism? 222 CHAPTER XI. THE POSITIONS OF SOCIALISM. SOCIALISM is one of those indefinite terms under which many theories, differing from each other at many points but united by a common idea, are comprehended. "The societies," writes Mr W. R. Greg, "have assumed every possible variety of form. We have had republican societies like Plato's, Fourier's, and Babœuf's; hierarchical and aristocratic like Simon's; theocratic like the Essenes; despotic like that of the old Peruvians, and that of the Jesuits in Paraguay; polygamists like the Mormons. Some have been based on purely material principles like Mr Owen's; some have been profoundly spiritual and religious like the Moravians; some maintain the family arrangements, some altogether merge them; some recommend celibacy as the Essenes, some enforce it as the Shakers. Some, like the Owenites, relax the marriage tie; some, like the Harmonists, control The Appeal of Modern Socialism. 223 it; some, like the Moravians, hold it sacred and indissoluble; others again, like Plato and the Anabaptists of Munster, advocate a community of women. Some would divide the wealth of the society equally among all the members; some, as Fourier, unequally. But one great idea pervades them all-community of property, more or less complete and unreserved. Common labour for the common good.' "1 Modern socialism-that with which we are now concerned-includes this idea but adds to it, and only in the addition do we find its distinctive platform. There are points at which it appeals to thoughtful and earnest minds. It interprets an ideal of life which interests those who are in sympathy with the spiritual - social sides of Christianity. It interprets an ideal of Government which some who long for a more rapid initiative, and a more effectual action for the public weal, are disposed to hail. It interprets an economic ideal in which not only labour leagues and leaders discern social salvation, but which attracts the attention of many who regard political economy, as hitherto expounded, as "the dismal science." Thus it attracts many, who have yet no fellowship with its ulterior aims, with some of 1 Mistaken Aims and Unattainable Ideals of the Artizan Class, pp. 192, 193. its cardinal principles, and with the methods by which it proposes to apply its principles and carry out its aims. The late Bishop of Durham, Dr Westcott, is an illustration. To him the attraction was the theory of life. Individualism denotes competition; the method of socialism is co-operation. The one looks on man as working against man for private gain; the other looks on man as working with man for a common end. The one aims at the attainment of some personal advantage either of place or of fame; the other aims at the fulfilment of service. Hence the preference of the saintly bishop. He protested against the idea of "humanity as made up of disconnected or jarring atoms"; he looked on humanity "as an organic whole, a vital unity formed by the combination of contributory members mutually interdependent." The economic aspect of socialism he let alone; the humanitarian aspect which it incorporates secured his suffrage.1 And in this he exemplifies the attitude assumed by a large number of earnest minds which are permeated by the Christian law of ministry, binding men by love to serve one another. But the system or the variety of systems that we differentiate as socialistic is political and economical. The ques1 The Incarnation and Common Life. Characteristic Positions of Socialism. 225 tion to which it supplies an answer is, How by State or collective organisation may this law of ministry be rendered binding on men and universal? how is competition to be abolished? and how, by the supremacy of co-operation, are the evils ascribed to competition to be eradicated? 2 1 The expositions of this answer are numerous. Some are so vague that for the purpose of definition they are useless; some are so loose that they are not self-consistent. Of this sort are such statements as that socialism means nothing else than "the betterment of society"; or, again, that it means 66 every tendency which demands any kind of subordination of the individual will to the community." These, and many similar statements, explain nothing. They do not announce the characteristic positions of socialism. To ascertain them, we must turn to more fully formulated and authoritative pronouncements; and we may select Dr Schäffle in his 'Quintessence of Socialism' as perhaps the most moderate and "business-like" of all. The book has this feature, that, whilst it clearly indicates the lines of the proposed action, and is sympathetic with them, it is fully aware of the difficulties attend 1 Kaufman, in 'Subjects of the Day,' No. 2, 2 Held, Sozialismus, &c., p. 29. Р |