 5. Government and law. Government and law, in their very essence, consist of restrictions on freedom, and freedom is the greatest of political goods. A hasty reasoner might conclude, without further ado, that law and government are evils which must be abolished if freedom is our goal. But this consequence, true or false, cannot be proved so simply. In this chapter we will examine the arguments of anarchists against the law and the state. We shall proceed on the assumption that freedom is the supreme aim of a good social system. But on this very basis we shall find the anarchist contentions very questionable. I do not say freedom is the greatest of all goods. The best things come from within. There are such things as creative art, and love, and thought. Such things can be helped or hindered by political conditions, but not actually produced by them. And freedom is, both in itself and in its relation to those other goods, the best thing that political and economic conditions can secure. Respect for the liberty of others is not a natural impulse with most men. Envy and love of power lead ordinary human nature to find pleasure in interferences with the lives of others. If all men's actions were wholly unchecked by external authority, we should not obtain a world in which all men would be free. The strong would oppress the weak, or the majority would oppress the minority, or lovers of violence would oppress the more peaceable people. I fear it cannot be said that these bad impulses are wholly due to a bad social system, though it must be conceited that the present competitive organization of society does a great deal to foster the worst elements in human nature. The love of power is an impulse which, though innate in very ambitious men, is chiefly promoted as a rule by the actual experience of power. In a world where none could acquire much power, the desire to tyrannize would be much less strong than it is at present. Nevertheless, I cannot think that it would be wholly absent, and in those whom it would exist would often be men of unusual energy and executive capacity. Such men, if they are not restrained by the organized will of the community, may either succeed in establishing a despotism, or at any rate, make such a vigorous attempt as can only be defeated through a period of prolonged disturbance. And apart from the love of political power, there is the love of the power over individuals. If threats and terrorism were not prevented by law, it can hardly be doubted that cruelty would be rife in the relations of men and women, and of parents and children. It is true that the habits of a community can make such cruelty rare, but these habits, I fear, are only to be produced through the prolonged reign of law. Experience of backwards communities, mining camps, and other such places seems to show that under new conditions men easily revert to a more barbarous attitude in practice. It would seem, therefore, that while human nature remains as it is, there will be more liberty for all in a community where some acts of tyranny by individuals are forbidden, than in a community where the law leaves each individual free to follow his every impulse. But, although the necessity of some form of government and law must for the present be conceded, it is important to remember that all law and government is in itself in some degree an evil, only justifiable when it prevents other and greater evils. Every use of the power of the state needs, therefore, to be very closely scrutinized, and every possibility of diminishing its power is to be welcomed, provided it does not lead to a reign of private tyranny. The power of the state is partly legal, partly economic. Acts of a kind which the state dislikes can be punished by the criminal law, and individuals who incur the displeasure of the state may find it hard to earn a livelihood. The views of Marx on the state are not very clear. On the one hand he seems willing, like the modern state socialists, to allow greater power to the state, but on the other hand he suggests that when the socialist revolution has been consummated, the state, as we know it, will disappear. Among the measures which are advocated in the communist manifesto as immediately desirable, there are several which would very greatly increase the power of the existing state. For example, centralization of credit in the hands of the state by means of a national bank with the state capital and an exclusive monopoly, and again, centralization of the means of communication and transport in the hands of the state. But the manifesto goes on to say, when, in the course of development, class distinctions have disappeared, and all production has been concentrated in the hands of a vast association of the whole nation, the public power will lose its political character. Political power, properly so called, is merely the organized power of one class for oppressing another. If the proletariat during its contest with the bourgeoisie is compelled by the force of circumstances to organize itself as a class, if, by means of a revolution, it makes itself the ruling class, and as such sweeps away by force the old conditions of production, then it will, along with these conditions, have swept away the conditions for the existence of class antagonisms, and of classes generally, and will thereby have abolished its own supremacy as a class. In place of the old bourgeois society with its classes and class antagonisms, we shall have an association in which the free development of each is a condition for the free development of all. This is from the Communist Manifesto, page 22. This attitude Marx preserved in essentials throughout his life. Accordingly, it is not to be wondered at that his followers, so far as regards to their immediate aims, have in the main become out and out state socialists. On the other hand, the syndicalists, who accept from Marx the doctrine of the class war, which they regard as what is really vital in his teaching, reject the state with abhorrence and wish to abolish it wholly, in which respect they are at one with the anarchists. The guild socialists, though some persons in this country regard them as extremists, really represent the English love of compromise. The syndicalist arguments as to the dangers inherent in the power of the state have made them dissatisfied with the old state socialism, but they are unable to accept the anarchist view that society can dispense altogether with a central authority. Accordingly, they propose that there should be two co-equal instruments of government in a community, the one geographical, representing the consumers, and essentially the continuation of the democratic state. The other representing the producers, organized, not geographically, but in guilds, after the manner of industrial unionism. These two co-authorities will deal with different classes of questions. Guild socialists do not regard the industrial authority as forming part of the state, for they contend that it is the essence of the state to be geographical, but the industrial authority will resemble the present state in the fact that it will have coercive powers and that its decrees will be enforced when necessary. It is to be suspected that syndicalists also, much as they object to the existing state, would not object to coercion of individuals in an industry by the trade union in that industry. Government within the trade union would probably be quite as strict as state government is now. In saying this, we are assuming that the theoretical anarchism of syndicalist leaders would not survive a session to power, but I am afraid experience shows that this is not a very hazardous assumption. Among all these different views, the one which raises the deepest issue is the anarchist contention, that all coercion by the community is unnecessary. Like most of the things that anarchists say, there is much more to be urged in support of this view than most people would suppose at first sight. Kropotkin, who is its ablest exponent, points out how much has been achieved already by the method of free agreement. He does not wish to abolish government in the sense of collective decisions. What he does wish to abolish is the system by which a decision is enforced upon those who oppose it. The whole system of representative government and majority rule is to him a bad thing. He points to such instances as the agreements among the different railway systems of the continent for the running of through expresses and for cooperation generally. He points out that in such cases, the different companies or authorities concerned each appointed delegate and that the delegates suggest a basis of agreement which has to be subsequently ratified by each of the bodies appointing them. The assembly of delegates has no coercive power or whatever, and a majority can do nothing against a recalcitrant minority. Yet this has not prevented the conclusion of very elaborate systems of agreements. By such methods, so anarchists contend, the useful functions of government can be carried out without any coercion. They maintain that the usefulness of agreement is so patent as to make cooperation certain if once the predatory motives associated with the present system of private property were removed. On the other hand, the state has also been confused with government. There can be no state without government. It has been sometimes said that in is the absence of government and not the abolition of the state that should be the aim. It seems to me, however, that state and government represent two ideas of a different kind. The state idea implies quite another idea to that of government. It not only includes the existence of a power placed above society, but also a territorial concentration and a concentration of many functions of the life of society in the hands of a few or even of all. It implies new relations among the members of society. This characteristic distinction, which perhaps escapes notice at first sight, appears clearly when the origin of the state is implied. Kropotkin, the state page four. Representative government has accomplished its historical mission. It has given a mortal blow to court rule. And by its debates, it has awakened public interest in public questions. But to see in it the government of the future socialist society is to commit a gross error. Each economical phase of life implies its own political phase. And it is impossible to touch at the very base of the present economic life, private property without a corresponding change in the very basis of the political organization. Life already shows in which direction the change will be made, not in increasing the powers of the state, but in resorting to free organization and free federation in all these branches, which are now considered as attributes of the state. Kropotkin, anarchist communism, page 28 through 29. Attractive as this view is, I cannot resist the conclusion that it results from impatience and represents the attempt to find a short cut toward the ideal which all humane people desire. Let us begin with a question of private crime. Anarchists maintain that the criminal is manufactured by bad social conditions and would disappear in such a world as they aim at creating. No doubt there is a great measure of truth in this view. There would be little motive to robbery, for example, in an anarchist world, unless it were organized on a large scale by a body of men bent on upsetting the anarchist regime. It may also be conceited that impulses toward criminal violence could be very largely eliminated by a better education. But all such contensions, it seems to me, have their limitations. To take an extreme case, we cannot suppose that there would be no lunatics in an anarchist community, and some of these lunatics would no doubt be homicidal. Probably no one would argue that they ought to be left liberty. But there are no sharp lines in nature, from the homicidal lunatic to the sane man of violent passions, there is a continuous gradation. Even in the most perfect community, there will be men and women, otherwise sane, who will feel an impulse to commit murder from jealousy. These are now usually restrained by the fear of punishment. But if this fear were removed, such murders would probably become much more common, as may be seen from the present behavior of certain soldiers on leave. Moreover, certain kinds of conduct arouse public hostility, and would almost inevitably lead to lynching if no other recognized method of punishment existed. There is in most men a certain natural vindictiveness, not always directed against the worst members of the community. For example, Spinoza was nearly murdered by the mob because he was suspected of undue friendliness to France at a time when Holland was at war with that country. Apart from such cases, there would be the very real danger of an organized attempt to destroy anarchism and revive ancient oppressions. Is it to be supposed, for example, that Napoleon, if he had been born into such a community as Kropotkin advocates, would have acquiesced tamely into a world where his genius could find no scope? I cannot see what should prevent a combination of ambitious men forming themselves into a private army, manufacturing their own munitions, and at last enslaving the defenseless citizens who had relied upon inherent attractiveness of liberty. It would not be consistent with the principles of anarchism for the community to interfere with the drilling of a private army, no matter what its objects might be, though, of course, an opposing private army might be formed by men with different views. Indeed, Kropotkin instances the old volunteers in Great Britain as an example of a movement on anarchist lines. Even if a predatory army were not formed from within, it might easily come from a neighboring nation or from races on the borderland of civilization. So long as the love of power exists, I do not see how it can be prevented from finding an outlet in oppression, except by means of the organized force of the community. On this subject, there is an excellent discussion in the before mentioned work of Monserneke. As to the third, the chief objection, which maintains the necessity of government for punishing those who break the law of society, there is so much to say about it that it hardly can be touched incidentally. The more we study the question, the more we are brought to the conclusion that society itself is responsible for the antisocial needs perpetrated in its midst, that no punishment, no prisons, and no hangmen can diminish the numbers of such deeds, nothing short of reorganization of society itself. Three quarters of all the acts which are brought every year before our courts have their origin, either directly or indirectly, and the present disorganized state of society with regard to the production and distribution of wealth, not in the perversity of human nature. As to the relatively few antisocial deeds which result from antisocial inclinations of separate individuals, it is not by prisons, nor even by resorting to the hangmen, that we can diminish their numbers. By our prisons, we merely multiply them and render them worse. By our detectives, our price of blood, our executions, and our jails, we spread in society such a terrible flow of basest passions and habits that he who should realize the effects of these institutions to their full extent would be frightened by what society is doing under the pretext of maintaining morality. We must search for other remedies, and the remedies have been indicated long since. End quote. Kropotkin, Anarchist Communism, pages 31 through 32. The conclusion which appears to be forced upon us is that the anarchist ideal of the community in which no acts are forbidden by law is not, at any rate for the present, compatible with the stability of such a world as the anarchist desire. In order to obtain and preserve a world resembling as closely as possible that at which they aim, it will still be necessary that some acts should be forbidden by law. We may put the chief of these under three heads. The first, theft. The second, crimes of violence. And the third, the creation of organizations intended to subvert the anarchist regime by force. We will briefly recapitulate what has been said already as to the necessity of these prohibitions. The first, theft. It is true that in an anarchist world there will be no destitution and therefore no thefts motivated by starvation. But such thefts are at present by no means the most considerable or the most harmful. The system of rationing, which is to be applied to luxuries, will leave many men with fewer luxuries than they might desire. It will give opportunities for speculation by those who are in control of the public stores and it will leave the possibility of appropriating such valuable objects of art as would naturally be preserved in public museums. It may be contended that such forms of thefts would be prevented by public opinion. But public opinion is not greatly operative upon an individual unless it is the opinion of his own group. A group of men combined for purposes of theft might readily defy the public opinion of the majority unless that public opinion made itself effective by the use of force against them. Probably, in fact, such force would be applied through popular indignation. But in that case we should revive the evils of the criminal law with the added evils of uncertainty, haste, and passion, which are inseparable from the practice of lynching. If, as we have suggested, it were found necessary to provide an economic stimulus to work by allowing fewer luxuries to idlers, this would afford a new motive for theft on their part and a new necessity for some form of criminal law. Second, crimes of violence. Cruelty to children, crimes of jealousy, rape, and so forth are almost certain to occur in any society to some extent. The prevention of such acts is essential to the existence of freedom for the weak. If nothing were done to hinder them, it is to be feared that the customs of a society would gradually become rougher and that acts which are now rare would cease to be so. If anarchists are right in maintaining that the existence of such an economic system as they desire would prevent the commission of crimes of this kind, the laws forbidding them would no longer come into operation and would do no harm to liberty. If, on the other hand, the impulses to such actions persisted, it would be necessary that steps should be taken to restrain men from indulging it. Third, the third class of difficulties is much the most serious and involves much the most drastic interference with liberty. I do not see how a private army could be tolerated within an anarchist community and I do not see how it could be prevented except by a general prohibition of carrying arms. If there were no such prohibition, rival parties would organize rival forces and civil war would result. If there is such a prohibition, it cannot well be carried out without a very considerable interference with individual liberty. No doubt after a time the idea of using violence to achieve a political object might die down as the practice of dueling has done, but such cases of habit and outlook are facilitated by legal prohibition and would hardly come about without it. I shall not speak yet of the international aspect of this same problem, for I propose to deal with that in the next chapter, but it is clear that the same considerations apply with even greater force to the relations between nations. If we admit, however reluctantly, that a criminal law is necessary and that the force of the community must be brought to bear to prevent certain kinds of actions, a further question arises. How is crime to be treated? What is the greatest measure of humanity and respect for freedom that is compatible with the recognition of such a thing as crime? The first thing to recognize is that the whole conception of guilt or sin should be utterly swept away. At present the criminal is visited with the displeasure of the community. The sole method applied to prevent the occurrence of crime is the inflection of pain upon the criminal. Everything possible is done to break his spirit and destroy his self-respect. Even those pleasures which would be most likely to have a civilizing effect are forbidden to him. Merely on the ground that they are pleasures, while much of the suffering inflicted is of a kind which can only brutalize and degrade still further. I am not speaking, of course, of those few penal institutions which have made a serious study of reforming the criminal. Such institutions, especially in America, have been proved capable of achieving the most remarkable results, but they remain everywhere exceptional. The broad rule is still that the criminal is made to feel the displeasure of society. He must emerge from such a treatment either defiant in hostile or submissive and cringing, with a broken spirit and a loss of self- respect. Neither of these results is anything but evil, nor can any good result be achieved by a method of treatment which embodies reprobation. When a man is suffering from an infectious disease, he is a danger to the community, and it is necessary to restrict his liberty of movement. But no one associates any idea of guilt with such a situation. On the contrary, he is an object of commiseration to his friends. Such steps as science recommends are taken to cure him of this disease, and he submits as a rule without reluctance to the curtailment of liberty involved meanwhile. The same method in spirit ought to be shown in the treatment of what is called crime. It is supposed, of course, that the criminal is actuated by calculations of self- interest, and that the fear of punishment by supplying a contrary motive of self-interests affords the best deterrent. The dog, to gain some private end, went mad and bit the man. This is the popular view of crime, yet no dogs go mad from choice, and probably the same is true of the great majority of criminals, certainly in the case of crimes of passion. Even in cases where self-interest is the motive, the important thing is to prevent the crime, not to make the criminal suffer. Any suffering which may be entailed by the process of prevention ought to be regarded as regrettable, like the pain involved in a surgical operation. The man who commits a crime from an impulse to violence ought to be subjected to a scientific psychological treatment designed to elicit more beneficial impulses. The man who commits a crime from calculations of self- interest ought to be made to feel that self-interest itself, when it is fully understood, can be better served by a life which is useful to the community than by one which is harmful. For this purpose it is chiefly necessary to widen his outlook and increase the scope of his desires. At present, when a man suffers from insufficient love for his fellow creatures, the method of curing him, which is commonly adopted, seems scarcely designed to succeed, being indeed in essentials, the same as his attitude toward them. The object of the prison administration is to save trouble, not to study the individual case. He is kept in captivity in a cell from which all sight of the earth is shut out. He is subjected to harshness by warders who have too often become brutalized by their occupation. He is solemnly denounced as an enemy to society. He is compelled to perform mechanical tasks chosen for their wearsomeness. He is given no education and no incentive to self-improvement. It is to be wondered at if, at the end of such a course of treatment, his feelings toward the community are no more friendly than they were at the beginning. This was written before the author had any personal experience of the prison system. He personally met with nothing but kindness at the hands of the prison officials. Severity of punishment arose through vindictiveness and fear in an age where many criminals escaped justice altogether, and it was hoped that the savage sentences would outweigh the chance of escape in the mind of the criminal. At present a very large part of the criminal law is concerned in safeguarding the rights of property. That is to say, as things are now, the unjust privileges of the rich. Those whose principles lead them into conflict with government, like anarchists, bring a most formidable indictment against the law and the authorities for the unjust manner in which they support the status quo. Many of the actions by which men have become rich are far more harmful to the community than the obscure crimes of poor men if they go unpunished because they do not interfere with the existing order. If the power of the community is to be brought to bear to prevent certain classes of actions through the agency of the criminal law, it is as necessary that these actions should really be those which are harmful to the community. As it is that treatment of criminals should be freed from the conception of guilt and inspired by the same spirit as is shown in the treatment of disease. But if these two conditions were fulfilled, I cannot help thinking that a society which preserved the existence of law would be preferable to one conducted on the unadultered principles of anarchism. So far we have been considering the power which the state derives from the criminal law. We have every reason to think that this power cannot be entirely abolished, though it can be exercised in a wholly different spirit without the vindictiveness and the moral reprobation which now form its essence. We come next to the consideration of the economic power of the state and the influence which it can exert through its bureaucracy. State socialists argue as if there would be no danger to liberty in a state not based on capitalism. This seems to me an entire delusion. Given an official caste, however selected, there are bound to be a set of men whose whole instincts will drive them toward tyranny. Together with the natural of a power they have a rooted conviction, visible now in the higher ranks of the civil service, that they alone know enough to be able to judge what is good for the community. Like all men who administer a system, they will come to feel the system itself sacrosanct. The only changes they will desire will be changes in the directions of further regulations as to how the people are to enjoy the good things kindly granted to them by their benevolent despots. Whoever thinks this picture overdrawn must have failed to study the influence and methods of civil servants at present. On every matter that arises, they know far more than the general public about all the definite facts involved. The one thing they do not know is where the shoe pinches. But those who know this are probably not skilled in stating their case, not able to say offhand exactly how many shoes are pinching how many feet or what is the precise remedy required. The answer prepared for ministers by the civil service is accepted by the respectable public as impartial and is regarded as disposing of the case of malcontents except on a first-class political question on which elections may be one or lost. That at least is the way in which things are managed in England. And there is every reason to fear that under state socialism the power of officials would be vastly greater than it is at present. Those who accept the Orthodox doctrine of democracy contend that if every power of capitals were removed, representative institutions would suffice to undo the evils threatened by bureaucracy. Against this view anarchists and syndicalists have directed a merciless criticism. French syndicalists especially living as they do in a highly democratized country have had bitter experience of the way in which the power of the state can be employed against a progressive minority. This experience has led them to abandon altogether the belief in the divine right of majorities. The constitution that they would desire would be one which allowed a scope for vigorous minorities conscious of their own aims and prepared to work for them. It is undeniable that to all who care for progress actual experience of democratic representative government is very disillusioning. Admitting as I think we must that it is preferable to any previous form of government we must yet acknowledge that much of the criticism directed at it by anarchists and syndicalists is thoroughly justified. Such criticism would have had much more influence if any clear idea of an alternative to parliamentary democracy had been generally apprehended. But it must be confessed that syndicalists have not presented their case in a way which is likely to attract the average citizen. Much of what they say amounts to this that a minority consisting of skilled workers in vital industries can by a strike make the economic life of the whole community impossible and can in this way force their will upon the nation. The action aimed at is compared to the seizure of a power station by which a whole vast system can be paralyzed. Such a doctrine is an appeal to force and is naturally met by an appeal to force on the other side. It is useless for the syndicalists to protest they only desire power in order to promote liberty. The world which they are seeking to establish does not as yet appeal to the effect of will of the community and cannot be stably inaugurated until it does do so. Persuasion is a slow process and may sometimes be accelerated by violent methods. To this extent such methods may be justified. But the ultimate goal of any reformer who aims at liberty can only be reached through persuasion. The attempt to thrust liberty by force upon those who do not desire what we consider liberty must always prove a failure and syndicalists like other reformers must ultimately rely upon persuasion for success. But it would be a mistake to confuse aims with methods. However little we may agree with a proposal to force the millennium on a reluctant community by starvation we may yet agree that much of what the syndicalists desire to achieve is desirable. Let us dismiss from our minds such criticisms of parliamentary governments as are bound up with a present system of private property and consider only those which would remain true in a collectivist community. Certain effects may seem inherent of the very nature of representative institutions. There is a sense of self-importance inseparable from success in a contest for popular favor. There is an all but unavoidable habit of hypocrisy since experience shows that the democracy does not detect insincerity in an orator and will on the other hand be shocked by things which even the most sincere men may think necessary. Hence arises a tone of cynicism among elected representatives and a feeling that no man can retain his position in policies without seat. This is as much the fault of the democracy as of the representatives but it seems unavoidable so long as the main thing that all bodies of men demand from their champions is flattery. However the blame must be apportioned, the evil must be recognized as one which is bound to occur in the existing forms of democracy. Another evil which is especially noticeable in large states is the remoteness of the seat of government from many of the constituencies, a remoteness which is psychological even more than geographical. The legislatures live in comfort protected by thick walls and innumerable policemen from the voice of the mob. As time goes on they remember only dimly the passions and promises of their electoral campaigns. They come to feel it an essential part of statesmanship to consider what are called the interests of the community as a whole rather than those of some discontented group. But the interests of the community as a whole are sufficiently vague as to be easily seen to coincide with self-interest. All these causes lead parliaments to betray the people consciously or unconsciously and it is no wonder if they have produced a certain aloofness from democratic theory in the more vigorous champions of labor. Majority rule as it exists in large states is subject to the fatal defect that in a very great number of questions only a fraction of the nation have any direct interest or knowledge yet the others have an equal voice in the settlement. When people have no direct interest in a question they are apt to be influenced by relevant considerations. This is shown in the extraordinary reluctance to grant autonomy to subordinate nations or groups. For this reason it is very dangerous to allow nation as a whole to decide on matters which concern only a small section whether that section be geographical or industrial or defined in any other way. The best cure for this evil so far as can be seen at present lies in allowing self-government to every important group within a nation in all matters that affect that group much more than they affect the rest of the community. The government of a group chosen by the group will be far more in touch with its constituents far more conscious of their interests than a remote parliament nominally representing the whole country. The most original idea in the syndicalism adopted and developed by the guild socialists is the idea of making industry self- governing units so far as their internal affairs are concerned. By this method extended also to such other groups as have clearly separable interests the evils which have shown themselves in representative democracy can I believe be largely overcome. Guild socialists as we have seen have another suggestion growing naturally out of the autonomy of industrial guilds by which they hope to limit the power of the state and help to preserve individual liberty. They propose that parliament elected as at present on a territorial basis and representing the community as consumers there shall also be a guild congress a glorified successor of the present trade union congress which shall consist of representatives chosen by the guilds and shall represent the community as producers. This method of diminishing the excessive power of the state has been attractively set forth by Mr. G. D. H. Cole in his self-government in industry. Quote where now he says the state passes a factory act or a coal mines regulation act the guild congress of the future will pass such acts and its power of enforcing them will be the same as that of the state. End quote page 98. His ultimate ground for advocating this system is that in his opinion it will tend to preserve individual liberty. Quote the fundamental reason for the preservation in a democratic society of both the industrial and the political forms of social organization is as it seems to me that only by dividing the vast power now wielded by industrial capitalism can the individual hope to be free. End quote page 91. Bell 1917. Will the system suggested by Mr. Cole have this result? I think it is clear that it would in this respect be an improvement on the existing system. Representative government cannot but be improved by any method which brings the representatives into closer touch with the interests concerned in their legislation and this advantage probably would be secured by handing over questions of production to the guild congress. But if in spite of the safeguards proposed by the guild socialists the guild congress became all-powerful in such questions if resistance to its will by a guild which felt ill-used became practically hopeless I fear that the evils now connected with the omnipotence of the state would soon reappear. Trade union officials as soon as they become part of the governing forces in the country tend to become autocratic and conservative. They lose touch with their constituents and gravitate by a psychological sympathy into cooperation with the powers that be. Their formal installation in authority through the guilds congress would accelerate this process. They would soon tend to combine in effect if not obviously with those who wield authority in parliament. Apart from occasional conflicts comparable with the rivalry of opposing financiers which now sometimes disturbs the harmony of the capitalist world there would at most times be agreement between the dominant personalities in the two houses and such harmony would filter away from the individual the liberty which he had hoped to secure by the quarrels of his masters. There is no method if we are not mistaken by which a body representing the whole community whether as producers or consumers or both can alone be a sufficient guardian of individual liberty. The only way of preserving sufficient liberty and even this will be inadequate in the case of very small minorities is the organization of citizens with special interests into groups determined to preserve autonomy as regards their individual affairs willing to resist interference by a strike if necessary and sufficiently powerful either in themselves or through the power of appealing to public sympathy to be able to resist the organized forces of government successfully when their cause is such as many men think just. If this method is to be successful we must have not only suitable organizations but also a diffused respect for liberty and an absence of submissiveness to government both in theory and practice. Some risk of disorder there must be in such a society but this risk is as nothing compared to the danger of stagnation which is inseparable from an all powerful central authority. We may now sum up our discussion of the powers of government. The state in spite of what anarchists urge seems a necessary institution for certain purposes. Peace and war, tariffs, regulation of sanitary conditions and the sale of noxious drugs, the preservation of a just system of distribution. These among other things are functions which could hardly be performed in a community in which there was no central government take for example the liquor traffic or the opium traffic in China. If alcohol could be obtained at cost price without a taxation still more of it could be obtained for nothing as anarchists presumably desire can we believe that there would not be a great and disastrous increase of drunkenness. China was brought to the verge of ruin by opium and every patriotic China man desired to see the traffic in opium restricted. In such matters freedom is not a panacea and some degree of legal restriction seems imperative for the national health. But granting that the state in some form must continue we must also grant I think that its powers ought to be very strictly limited to what is absolutely necessary. There is no way of limiting its powers except by means of groups which are jealous of their privileges and determined to preserve their autonomy even if this should involve resistance to laws decreed by the state when these laws interfere in the internal affairs of a group in ways not warranted by the public interest. The glorification of the state and the doctrine that it is every citizen's duty to serve the state are radically against progress and against liberty. The state though at present a source of much evil is also a means to certain good things and will be needed so long as violent and destructive impulses remain common. But it is merely a means and a means which needs to be very carefully and sparingly used if it is not to do more harm than good. It is not the state but the community the worldwide community of all human beings present and future that we ought to serve. And a good community does not spring from the glory of the state but from the unfettered development of individuals, from happiness and daily life, from congenial work giving opportunity for whatever constructiveness each man or woman may possess, from free personal relations embodying love and taking away the roots of envy in thwarted capacity from affection and above all from the joy of life and its expression in the spontaneous creations of art and science. It is these things that make an age or a nation worthy of existence and these things that are not to be secured by bowing down before the state is the individual in whom all that is good must be realized and the free growth of the individual must be the supreme end of a political system which is to refashion the world. End of chapter 5 of Proposed Roads to Freedom by Bertrand Russell. This recording by Luke Vogel. Chapter 6 of Proposed Roads to Freedom by Bertrand Russell. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org. Recording by Luke Vogel. Chapter 6. International Relations. The main objects which should be served by international relations may be taken to be two. First the avoidance of wars and second the prevention of the oppression of weak nations by strong ones. These two objects do not by any means necessarily lead in the same direction since one of the easiest ways of securing the world's peace would be by a combination of the most powerful states for the exploitation and oppression of the remainder. This method, however, is not one which the Lover of Liberty can favor. We must keep account of both aims and not be content with either alone. One of the common places both socialism and anarchism is that all modern wars are due to capitalism and would cease if capitalism were abolished. This view, to my mind, is only a half-truth. The half that is true is important but the half that is untrue is perhaps equally important when a fundamental reconstruction of society is being considered. Socialist and anarchist critics of existing society point, with perfect truth, to certain capitalistic factors which promote war. The first of these is the desire of finance to find new fields of investment in underdeveloped countries. Mr. J. A. Hobson, an author who is by no means extreme in his views, has well stated this point in his book on the evolution of modern capitalism. Page 55. He says, the economic taproot, the chief directing motive of all the modern imperialistic expansion is the pressure of capitalist industries for markets, primarily markets for investment, secondly markets for surplus products of home industry. Where the concentration of capital has gone furthest and where a rigorous protective system prevails, this pressure is necessarily strongest. Not merely do the trusts and other manufacturing trades that restrict their output for the home market more urgently require foreign markets, but they are also more anxious to secure protected markets, and this can only be achieved by extending the area of political rule. This is the essential significance of the recent change in American foreign policy, as illustrated by the Spanish War, the Philippine annexation, the Panama policy, and the new application of the Monroe Doctrine to the South American states. South America is needed as a preferential market for investment of trust profits and surplus trust products. If in time these states can be brought within a Zolvarian under the suzerainty of the United States, the financial area of operations receives a notable accession. China as a field of railway enterprise and general industrial development already begins to loom large in the eyes of foresighted American businessmen, the growing trade in American cotton and other goods in that country, will be a subordinate consideration to the expansion of the area for American investments. Diplomatic pressure, armed force, and where desirable seizure of territory for political control will be engineered by the financial magnates who control the political destiny of America. The strong and expensive American Navy now beginning to build incidentally serves the purpose of affording profitable contracts to the shipbuilding and metal industries. Its real meaning in use is to forward the aggressive political policy imposed upon the nation by the economic needs of financial capitalists. It should be clearly understood that this constant pressure to extend the area of markets is not a necessary implication of all forms of organized industry. If competition was displaced by combinations of a genuinely cooperative character in which the whole gain of improved economies passed, either to the workers in wages or to large bodies of investors in dividends, the expansion of demand in the home markets would be so great as to give full employment to the productive powers of concentrated capital, and there would be no self-accumulating masses of profit expressing themselves in new credit and demanding external employment. It is the monopoly profits of trusts and combines taken either in construction, financial operation, or industrial working that form a gathering fund of self-accumulating credit whose possession by the financial class implies a contracted demand for commodities and a correspondingly restricted employment for capital in American industries. With certain limits, relief can be found by stimulation of the export trade under cover of a high protective tariff which forbids all interference with monopoly of the home markets. But it is extremely difficult for trusts adapted to the requirements of a profitable tied market at home to adjust their methods of free competition in the world's markets upon a profitable basis of steady trading. Moreover, such a mode of expansion is only appropriate to certain manufacturing trusts. The owners of railroad, financial, and other trusts must look always more to foreign investments for their surplus profits. The ever-growing need for fresh fields of investment for their profits is the great crux of the financial system and threatens to dominate the future economics and the politics of the great republic. The financial system of American capitalism exhibits in more dramatic shape a tendency common to the finance of all developed industrial nations. The large easy flow of capital from Great Britain, Germany, Austria, France, etc. into South African or Australian mines, into Egyptian bonds or the precarious securities of South American republics attests the same general pressure which increases with every development of financial machinery and the more profitable control of that machinery by the class of professional financiers. The kind of way in which such conditions tend toward war may have been illustrated if Mr. Hobson had been writing at a later date by various more recent cases. A higher rate of interest is obtainable on enterprises in an underdeveloped country than in a developed one, provided the risks connected with an unsettled government can be minimized. To minimize these risks the financiers call in the assistance of the military and naval forces of the country which they are momentarily asserting to be theirs. In order to have the support of public opinion in this demand they have the recourse to the power of the press. The press is the second great factor to which critics of capitalism point when they wish to prove that capitalism is the source of modern war. Since the running of a big newspaper requires a large capital the proprietors of important organs necessarily belong to the capitalist class and it will be a rare and exceptional event if they do not sympathize with their own class in opinion and outlook. They are able to decide what news the great mass of newspaper readers shall be allowed to have. They can actually falsify the news or without going so far as that they can carefully select it given such items as will stimulate the passions which they desire to stimulate and suppressing such items as would provide the antidote. In this way the picture of the world in the mind of the average newspaper reader is made not to be a true picture but in the main that which suits the interests of capitalists. This is true in many directions but above all in what concerns the relations between nations. The mass of the population of a country can be led to love or hate any other country at the will of the newspaper proprietors which is often directly or indirectly influenced by the will of the great financiers. So long as enmity between England and Russia was desired our newspapers were full of the cruel treatment meted out to Russian political prisoners the opposition of Finland and Russian Poland and other such topics. As soon as our foreign policy changed these items disappeared from the more important newspapers and we heard instead of the misdeeds of Germany. Most men are not sufficiently critical to be on their guard against such influences and until they are the power of the press will remain. Besides these two influences of capitalism and promoting war there is another much less emphasized by the critics of capitalism but by no means less important. I mean the pugnacity which tends to be developed in men who have the habit of command. So long as capitalist society persists an undue measure of power will be in the hands of those who have acquired wealth and influenced through a great position in industry or finance. Such men are in the habit in private life of finding their well seldom questioned. They are surrounded by obsequious satellites and are not infrequently engaged in conflicts with trade unions. Among their friends and acquaintances are included those who hold high positions in government or administration and these men equally are liable to become autocratic through the habit of giving orders. It used to be customary to speak of the governing classes but nominal democracy has caused this phrase to go out of fashion. Nevertheless it still retains much truth. There are still in any capitalist community those who command and those who as a rule obey. The outlook of these two classes is very different though in a modern society there is a continuous graduation from the extreme of one to the extreme of the other. The man who is accustomed to find submission to his will becomes indignant on the occasions when he finds opposition. Instinctively he is conceived that opposition is wicked and it must be crushed. He is therefore much more willing than the average citizen to resort to war against his rivals. Accordingly we find though of course with very notable exceptions that in Maine those who have the most power are the most warlike and those who have the least power are the least disposed to hatred of foreign nations. This is one of the evils inseparable from the concentration of power. It will only be cured by the abolition of capitalism if the new system is one which allows very much less power to single individuals. It will not be cured for a system which substitutes the power of ministers or officials for the power of capitalists. This is one reason additional to those mentioned in the preceding chapter for desiring to see a diminution in the authority of the state. Not only does the concentration of power tend to cause wars but equally wars and the fear of them bring about the necessity for the concentration of power. So long as the community is exposed to sudden dangers the possibility of quick decision is absolutely necessary to self-preservation. The cumbersome machinery of deliberative decisions by the people is impossible in a crisis and therefore so long as crises are likely to occur it is impossible to abolish the almost autocratic power of governments. In this case as in most others each of the two correlative evils tends to perpetuate the other. The existence of men with the habit of power increases the risk of war and the risk of war makes it impossible to establish a system where no man possesses great power. It is time now to look at the other side and to ask ourselves whether the abolition of capitalism would by itself be sufficient to prevent war. I do not myself believe that this is the case. The outlook of both socialists and anarchists seems to me in this respect as in some others to be unduly divorced from the fundamental instincts of human nature. There were wars before there was capitalism and fighting is habitual among animals. The power of the press in promoting war is entirely due to the fact that it's able to appeal to certain instincts. Man is naturally competitive, acquisitive, and in a greater or less degree pugnacious. When the press tells him that so-and-so as his enemy a whole set of instincts in him responds to the suggestion. It is natural to most men to suppose that they have enemies and to find a certain fulfillment of their nature when they embark on a contest. When a man believes upon grossly insufficient evidence it is an index to his desires, desires of which he himself is often unconscious. If a man is offered a fact which goes against his instincts he will scrutinize it closely and unless the evidence is overwhelming he will refuse to believe it. If, on the other hand, he has offered something which affords a reason for acting in accordance with his instincts, he will accept it even on the slenderest evidence. The origin of myths is explained in this way and much of what is currently believed in international affairs is no better than myth. Although capitalism affords in modern society, the channel by which the instincts of pugnacity finds its outlet, there is reason to fear that if this channel were closed some other would be found unless education and environment were so changed as enormously to diminish the strength of the competitive instinct. If an economic reorganization can affect this it may provide a real safeguard against war but if not it is to be feared that the hopes of universal peace will prove delusive. The abolition of capitalism might and very likely would greatly diminish the incentives to war which are derived from the press and from the desire of finance to find new fields for investment in underdeveloped countries but those which are derived from the instinct of command and the impatience of opposition might remain though perhaps in a less virulent form than at present. A democracy which has power is almost always more bellicose than one which is excluded from its due share in the government. The internationalism of Marx is based on the assumption that the proletariat everywhere are opposed by the ruling classes. The last words of the communist manifesto embody this idea quote let the ruling classes tremble at a communistic revolution the proletarians have nothing to lose but their chains they have a world to win working men of all countries unite end quote so long as the proletarians have nothing to lose but their chains it is not likely that their enmity will be directed against other proletarians if the world had developed as Marx expected the kind of internationalism which he foresaw might have inspired a universal social revolution Russia which developed more nearly than any other country upon the lines of his system has had a revolution of the kind which he expected if the development in other countries had been similar it is highly probable that this revolution would have spread throughout the civilized world the proletariat of all countries might have united against the capitalists as their common enemy and in the bond of an identical hatred they might for the moment have been free from hatred toward each other even then this ground of a union would have ceased with their victory and on the morrow of their social revolution the old national rivalries might have revived there is no alchemy by which a universal harmony can be produced out of hatred those who have been inspired to action by the doctrine of the class war will have acquired the habit of hatred and will instinctively seek new enemies when the old ones have been vanquished but in actual fact the psychology of the working man in any western democracies is totally unlike that which is assumed by the communist manifesto he does not by any means feel that he has nothing to lose but his chains nor indeed is this true the chains which bind Asia and Africa in subjugation to Europe are partly riveted by him he is himself part of a great system of tyranny and exploitation universal freedom would remove not only his own chains which are comparatively light but the far heavier chains which he has helped to fasten upon the subject races of the world not only do working men of a country like England have a share in the benefit accruing from the exploitation of inferior races but many among them also have their part in the capitalist system the funds of trade unions and friendly societies are invested in ordinary undertakings such as railways many of the better paid wage earners have put their savings into government securities and almost all who are politically active feel themselves part of the forces that determine public policy through the power of the labor party and the greater unions owing to these causes their outlook on life has become to a considerable extent impregnated with capitalism and as their sense of power has grown their nationalism has increased this must continue to be true of any internationalism which is based upon hatred of the capitalist adherents to the doctrine of class war something more positive and constructive than this is needed if governing democracies are not to inherit the vices of governing classes in the past I do not wish to be thought to deny that capitalism does very much to promote wars or that wars would probably be less frequent and less destructive if private property were abolished on the contrary I believe that the abolition of private ownership of land and capitalism is a necessary step toward any world in which the nations are to live at peace with one another I am only arguing that this step necessary as it is will not alone suffice for this and but that among the causes of war there are others that go deeper into the roots of human nature than any orthodox socialists are want to acknowledge let us take an instance in Australia and California there is an intense dislike and fear toward the yellow races the causes of this are complex the chief among them are to labor competition and instinctive rates hatred it is probable that if race hatred did not exist the difficulties of labor competition would be overcome European immigrants also compete but they are not excluded in a sparsely populated country industrious cheap labor could with a little care be so utilized as to enrich the existing inhabitants it might for example be confined to certain kinds of work by custom if not by law but race hating opens men's minds the evil of competition and closes them against the advantages of cooperation it makes them regard with horror the somewhat unfamiliar vices of the aliens while our own vices are viewed with mild toleration I cannot but think that if Australia were completely socialized there would still remain the same popular objection as it present to any large influx of Chinese or Japanese labor yet if Japan also were to become a socialist state the Japanese might well continue to feel the pressure of population and the desire for an outlet in such circumstances all the passions and interests required to produce a war would exist in spite of the establishment of socialism in both countries and ours completely socialistic as any community can possibly be yet they put to death any ant which strays among them by mistake from a neighboring and keep men do not differ much from ants as regards to their instincts in this respect wherever there is a great divergence of race as between white men and yellow men of course the instinct of race hostility can be overcome by suitable circumstances but in the absence of such circumstances it remains a formidable menace to the world's peace if the peace of the world is ever to become secure I believe there will have to be along with other changes a development of the idea which inspires the project of a league of nations as time goes on the destructiveness of war grows greater and its profits grow less the rational argument against war acquires more and more force as the increasing productivity of labor makes it possible to devote a greater and greater proportion of the population to work of mutual slaughter in quiet times or when a great war has just ended men's moods are amenable to the rational grounds in favor of peace and it is possible to inaugurate schemes designed to make wars less frequent probably no civilized nation would embark on an aggressive war if it were fairly certain in advance that the aggressor must be defeated this could be achieved if most great nations came to regard the peace of the world as of such importance that they would side against an aggressor even in a quarrel in which they had no direct interest it is on this hope that the league of nations is based but the league of nations like the abolition of private property will be by no means sufficient if it is not accompanied or quickly followed by other reforms it is clear that such reforms if they are to be effective must be international the world must move as a whole in these matters if it is to move at all of the most obvious necessities if peace is to be secure it is a measure of disarmament so long as the present vast armies and navies exist no system can prevent the risk of war but disarmament if it is to serve its purpose must be simultaneous and by mutual agreement among all the great powers and it is not likely to be successful so long as hatred and suspicion rule between nations for each nation will suspect its neighbor of not carrying out the bargain fairly a different mental and moral atmosphere from that to which we are accustomed in international affairs will be necessary if agreements between nations are to succeed in averting catastrophes if one such atmosphere existed it might be perpetuated and strengthened by wise institutions but it cannot be created by institutions alone international cooperation requires mutual goodwill and goodwill however it has arisen is only to be preserved by cooperation the international future depends on the possibility of the initial creation of goodwill between nations it is in this sort of manner that revolutions are most useful if the russian revolution had been accompanied by a revolution in Germany the dramatic suddenness of the change might have shaken europe for the moment out of its habits of thought the idea of fraternity might have seemed in the twinkling of an eye to have entered the world of practical politics and no idea is so practical as the idea of the brotherhood of man if only people can be startled into believing it if once the idea of fraternity between nations were inaugurated with the faith and vigor belonging to a new revolution all the difficulties surrounding it would melt away for all of them are due to the suspicion and the tyranny of ancient prejudice those who as is common in the english-speaking world reject revolution as a method and praise the gradual piecemeal development which we are told constitutes solid progress overlook the effect of dramatic events in changing the mood and the beliefs of whole populations a simultaneous revolution in germany and russia would no doubt have had such an effect and would have made the creation of a new world possible here and now disaliter visum the millennium is not for our time the great moment has passed and for ourselves that is again the distant hope that must inspire us not the immediate breathless looking for the deliverance but we have seen what might have been and we know that great possibilities do arise in times of crisis in some such sense as this it may well be true that the socialist revolution is the road to universal peace and that when it has been traversed all the other conditions for the cessation of wars will grow of themselves out of the changed mental and moral atmosphere this was written in march 1918 almost the darkest moment of the war there is a certain class of difficulties which surrounds the sober idealist in all speculations about the not too distant future these are the cases where the solution believed by most idealist to be universally applicable is for some reason impossible and is at the same time objected to for base or interested motives by all up holders of existing inequalities the case of tropical africa will illustrate what i mean it would be difficult seriously to advocate the immediate introduction of parliamentary government for the natives of this part of the world even if it were accompanied by woman suffrage and proportional representation so far as i know no one supports the populations of these regions capable of self-determination except mr. loy george there can be no doubt that whatever regime may be introduced in europe african negroes will for a long time come to be governed and exploited by europeans if the european states became socialistic and refused under a chaotic impulse to enrich themselves at the expense of the defenseless inhabitants of africa these inhabitants would not thereby gain on the contrary they would lose for they would be handed over to the tender mercies of individual traders operating with armies of reprobate bravos and committing every atrocity to which the civilized barbarian is prone the european governments cannot divest themselves of responsibility in regard to africa they must govern there and the best that can be hoped is that they should govern with a minimum of cruelty and rapacity from the point of view of preserving the peace of the world the problem is to parcel out the advantages which white men derive from their position in africa in such a way that no nation shall feel a sense of injustice this problem is comparatively simple and may no doubt be solved on the lines of the war aims of the inter-allied socialists but it is not this problem which i wish to discuss what i wish to consider is how could a socialist or an anarchist community govern and administer an african region full of natural wealth but inhabited by a quite uncivilized population unless great precautions were taken the white community under the circumstances would acquire the position and the instincts of a slave owner it would tend to keep the negroes down to the bare level of substance while using the produce of their country to increase the comfort and splendor of the communist community it would do this with that careful unconsciousness which now it characterizes all of the worst acts of nations administrators would be appointed and would be expected to keep silence as their methods busy bodies who reported horrors would be disbelieved and would be said to be actuated by hatred toward their existing regime and by perverse love for every country but their own no doubt in the first generous enthusiasm accompanying the establishment of the new regime at home there would be every intention of making the natives happy but gradually they would be forgot and only the tribute coming from their country would be remembered i do not say that all these evils are unavoidable i only say that they will not be avoided unless they are foreseen and a deliberate conscious effort is made to prevent their realization if the white communities should ever reach the point of wishing to carry out as far as possible the principles underlying the revolt against capitalism they will have to find a way of establishing an absolute disinterested and their dealings with subject races it will be necessary to avoid the faintest suggestion of capitalistic profit in the government of africa and to spend in the countries themselves whatever they would be able to spend if they were self-governing moreover it must always be remembered that backwardness and civilization is not necessarily incurable and that with time even the populations of central africa may become capable of democratic self-government provided europeans bend their energies to this purpose the problem of africa is of course a part of the wider problems of imperialism but it is that part in which the application of socialist principles is most difficult in regard to asia and more particularly in regard to india and persia the application of principles is clear in theory though difficult in political practice the obstacles to self-government which exist in africa do not exist in the same measure in asia what stands in the way of freedom of asiatic populations is not their lack of intelligence but only their lack of military prowess which makes them an easy prey to our lust for dominion this lust would probably be a temporary abeyance on the moral of a socialist revolution and at such a moment a new departure in asiatic policy might be taken with permanently beneficial results i do not mean of course that we should force upon india that form of democratic government which we have developed for our own needs i mean rather that we should leave india to choose its own form of government its own manner of education and its own type of civilization india has an ancient tradition very different from that of western europe a tradition highly valued by educated hindus but not loved by our own schools and colleges the hindu nationalist feels that his country has a type of culture containing elements of value that are absent or much less marked in the west he wishes to be free to preserve this and desires political freedom for such reasons rather than for those which would most naturally appeal to an englishman in the same subject position the belief of the european in his own culture tends to be fanatical and ruthless and for this reason as much as for any other the independence of extra european civilization is of real importance to the world for it is not by a dead uniformity that the world as a whole is most enriched i've set forth strongly all the major difficulties in the way of the preservation of the world's peace not because i believe these difficulties to be insuperable but on the contrary because i believe that they can be overcome if they are recognized a correct diagnosis is necessarily the first step towards a cure the existing evils in international relations spring at bottom from psychological causes from motives forming part of human nature as it is at present among these the chief are competitiveness the love of power and envy using envy in that broad sense in which it includes the instinctive dislike of any gain to others not accompanied by an at least equal gain to ourselves the evils arising from these three causes can be removed by a better education and a better economic and political system competitiveness is by no means wholly an evil when it takes the form of emulation in the service of the public or in discovery or the production of works of art it may become a very useful stimulus urging men to profitable effort beyond what they would otherwise make it is only harmful when it aims at the acquisition of goods which are limited in amount so that what one man possesses he holds at the expense of another when competitiveness takes this form it is necessarily attended by fear and out of fear cruelty is almost inevitably developed but a social system providing for a more just distribution of material goods might close the instinct of competitiveness in those channels in which it is harmful and cause it to flow instead in channels in which it would become a benefit to mankind this is one great reason why the communal ownership of land and capital would be likely to have a beneficial effect upon human nature for human nature as it exists in adult men and women is by no means a fixed datum but a product of circumstances education and opportunity operating upon a highly malleable native disposition what is true of competitiveness is equally true of love and power power in the form in which it is now usually sought is power of command power of imposing one's will upon others by force open or concealed this form of power consists in essence in thwarting others for it is only displayed when others are compelled to do what they do not wish to do such power we hope the social system which is to supersede capitalist will reduce to a minimum by the methods which we outlined in the preceding chapter these methods can be applied in international no less than national affairs in international affairs the same formula of federalism will apply self-determination for every group in regard to matters which concern it much more vitally than they concern others and government by a neutral authority embracing rival groups in all matters in which conflicting interests of groups come into play loud always with a fixed principle that the functions of government are to be reduced to the bare minimum compatible with justice and with prevention of private violence in such a world the present harmful outlets for the love of power would be closed but the power which consists in persuasion in teaching in leading men to a new wisdom or the realization of new possibilities of happiness this kind of power which may be wholly beneficial would remain untouched and many vigorous men who in the actual world devote their energies to domination when in such a world find their energies directed to the creation of new goods rather than the perpetuation of ancient evils envy the third of the psychological causes to which we attributed what is bad in the actual world depends in most natures upon that kind of fundamental discontent which springs from a lack of free development from thwarted instinct and from the impossibility of realizing an imagined happiness envy cannot be cured by preaching preaching at the best will only alter its manifestations and lead it to adopt more subtle forms of concealment except in those rare natures in which generosity dominates in spite of the circumstances the only cure for envy is freedom and the joy of life from populations largely deprived of simple instinctive pleasures of leisure and love sunshine and green fields generosity of outlook and kindness of dispositions are hardly to be expected in such populations these qualities are not likely to be found even among the fortunate few for these few are aware however dimly that they are profiting by an injustice that they can only continue to enjoy their good fortune by deliberately ignoring those with whom it is not shared if generosity and kindness are to be common there must be more care than there is at present for the elementary wants of human nature and more realization that the diffusion of happiness among all who are not the victims of some peculiar misfortune is both possible and imperative a world full of happiness would not wish to plunge into war and would not be filled with that grudging hostility which are cramped in narrow existence forces upon average human nature a world full of happiness is not beyond human power to create the obstacles imposed by inanimate nature are not insuperable the real obstacles lie in the heart of man and the cure for these is a firm hope informed and fortified by thought end of chapter six of proposed roads to freedom by Bertrand Russell this recording by Luke Vogel chapter seven of proposed roads to freedom this is a LibriVox recording all LibriVox recordings are in the public domain for more information or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org recording by Matthew Reese proposed roads to freedom by Bertrand Russell chapter seven science and art under socialism socialism has been advocated by most of its champions chiefly as a means of increasing the welfare of the wage earning classes and more particularly their material welfare it has seemed accordingly to some men whose aims are not material as if it has nothing to offer toward the general advancement of civilization in the way of art and thought some of its advocates moreover and among these marks must be included have written no doubt not deliberately as if with the socialist revolution the millennium would have arrived and there would be no need of further progress for the human race I do not know whether our age is more restless than that which preceded it or whether it has merely become more impregnated with the idea of evolution but for whatever reason we have grown incapable of believing in a state of static perfection and we demand of any social system which is to have our approval that it shall contain within itself a stimulus and opportunity for progress toward something still better the doubts thus raised by socialist writers make it necessary to inquire whether socialism would in fact be hostile to art and science and whether it would be likely to produce a stereotype society in which progress would become difficult and slow it is not enough that men and women should be made comfortable in a material sense many members of the well-to-do classes at present in spite of opportunity contribute nothing of value to the life of the world and do not even succeed in securing for themselves any personal happiness worthy to be so called the multiplication of such individuals would be an achievement of the very minutest value and if socialism were merely to bestow upon all the kind of life and outlook which is now enjoyed by the more apathetic among the well-to-do it would offer little that could inspire enthusiasm in any generous spirit the true role of collective existence says emnake l'anarchy et le collectivism is to learn, to discover, to know eating, drinking, sleeping, living in a word is a mere accessory in this respect we are not distinguished from the brute knowledge is the goal if I were condemned to choose between a humanity materially happy glutted after the manner of a flock of sheep in a field and a humanity existing in misery but from which emanated here and there some eternal truth it is on the latter that my choice would fall this statement puts the alternative in a very extreme form in which it is somewhat unreal it may be said and reply that for those who have had the leisure and the opportunity to enjoy eternal truths it is easy to exalt their importance at the expense of sufferings which fall on others this is true but if it is taken as disposing of the question it leaves out of account the importance of thought for progress viewing the life of mankind as a whole in the future as well as in the present there can be no question that a society in which some men pursue knowledge while others endure great poverty offers more hope of ultimate good than a society in which all are sunk in slothful comfort it is true that poverty is a great evil but it is not true that material prosperity is in itself a great good if it is to have any real value to society it must be made a means to the advancement of those higher goods that belong to the life of the mind but the life of the mind does not consist of thought and knowledge alone nor can it be completely healthy unless it has some instinctive contact however deeply buried with the general life of the community divorced from the social instinct thought like art tends to become finicky and precious it is the position of such art and thought as is imbued with the instinctive sense of service to mankind that we wish to consider for it is this alone that makes up the life of the mind in the sense in which it is a vital part of the life of the community will the life of the mind in this sense be helped or hindered by socialism and will there still be a sufficient spur to progress to prevent a condition of Byzantine immobility in considering this question we are in a certain sense passing outside the atmosphere of democracy the general good of the community is realized only in individuals but it is realized much more fully in some individuals than in others some men have a comprehensive and penetrating intellect enabling them to appreciate and remember what has been thought and known by their predecessors and to discover new regions in which they enjoy all the high delights of the mental explorer others have the power of creating beauty giving bodily form to impalpable visions out of which joy comes to many such men are more fortunate than the mass and also more important for the collective life a larger share of the general sum of good is concentrated in them than in the ordinary man and woman but also their contribution to the general good is greater they stand out among men and cannot be wholly fitted into this framework of democratic equality a social system which would render them unproductive would stand condemned whatever other merits it might have the first thing to realize though it is difficult in a commercial age is that what is best in creative mental activity cannot be produced by any system of monetary rewards opportunity and the stimulus of an invigorating spiritual atmosphere are important but if they are presented no financial inducements will be required while if they are absent material compensations will be of no avail recognition even if it takes the form of money can bring a certain pleasure in old age to the man of science who has battled all his life against academic prejudice or to the artist who has endured years of ridicule for not painting in the manner of his predecessors but it is not by the remote hope of such pleasures that their work has been inspired all the most important work springs from an uncalculating impulse and is best promoted not by rewards after the event but by circumstances which keep the impulse alive and afford scope for the activities which it inspires in the creation of such circumstances our present system is much at fault will socialism be better i do not think this question can be answered without specifying the kind of socialism that is intended some forms of socialism would i believe be even more destructive in this respect than the present capitalist regime while others would be immeasurably better three things which a social system can provide or withhold are helpful to mental creation first technical training second liberty to follow the creative impulse third at least the possibility of ultimate appreciation by some public whether large or small we may leave out of our discussion both individual genius and those intangible conditions which make some ages great and others sterile in art and science not because these are unimportant but because they are too little understood to be taken account of in economic or political organization the three conditions we have mentioned seem to cover most of what can be seen to be useful or harmful from our present point of view and it is therefore to them that we shall confine ourselves one technical training technical training at present whether in science or art requires one or other of two conditions either a boy must be the son of well-to-do parents who can afford to keep him while he acquires his education or he must show so much ability at an early age as to enable him to subsist on scholarships until he is ready to earn his living the former condition is of course a mere matter of luck and could not be preserved in its present form under any kind of socialism or communism this loss is emphasized by defenders of the present system and no doubt it would be to some extent a real loss but the well-to-do are a small proportion of the population and presumably on the average no more talented by nature than their less fortunate contemporaries if the advantages which are enjoyed now by those few among them who are capable of good work in science or art could be extended even in a slightly attenuated form to all who are similarly gifted the result would almost infallibly be a gain and much ability which is now wasted would be rendered fruitful but how is this to be affected the system of scholarships obtained by competition though better than nothing is objectionable from many points of view it introduces the competitive spirit into the work of the very young it makes them regard knowledge from the standpoint of what is useful in examinations rather than in the light of its intrinsic interest or importance it places a premium upon that sort of ability which is displayed precociously in glib answers to set questions rather than upon the kind that broods on difficulties and remains for a time rather dumb what is perhaps worse than any of these defects is the tendency to cause overwork in youth leading to a lack of vigor and interest when manhood has been reached it can hardly be doubted that by this cause at present many fine minds have their edge blunted and their keenness destroyed state socialism might easily universalize the system of scholarships obtained by competitive examination and if it did so it is to be feared that it would be very harmful state socialists at present tend to be enamored of the systems which is exactly of the kind that every bureaucrat loves orderly neat giving a stimulus to industrious habits and involving no waste of a sort that could be tabulated in statistics or accounts of public expenditure such men will argue that free higher education is expensive to the community and only useful in the case of those who have exceptional abilities it ought therefore they will say not to be given to all but only to those who will become more useful members of society through receiving it such arguments make a great appeal to what are called practical men and the answers to them are of a sort which it is difficult to render widely convincing revolt against the evils of competition is however part of the very essence of the socialists protest against the existing order and on this ground if on no other those who favor socialism may be summoned to look for some better solution much the simplest solution and the only really effective one is to make every kind of education free up to the age of 21 for all boys and girls who desire it the majority will be tired of education before that age and will prefer to begin other work sooner this will lead to a natural selection of those with strong interests in some pursuit requiring a long training among those selected in this way by their own inclinations probably almost all who have marked abilities of the kind in question will be included it is true that there will also be many who have very little ability the desire to become a painter for example is by no means confined to those who can paint but this degree of waste could well be borne by the community it would be immeasurably less than that now entailed by the support of the idle rich any system which aims at avoiding this kind of waste must entail the far more serious waste of rejecting or spoiling some of the best ability in each generation the system of free education up to any grade for all who desire it is the only system which is consistent with the principles of liberty and the only one which gives a reasonable hope of affording full scope for talent the system is equally compatible with all forms of socialism and anarchism theoretically it is compatible with capitalism but practically it is so opposite in spirit that it would hardly be feasible without a complete economic reconstruction the fact that socialism would facilitate it must be reckoned a very powerful argument in favor of change for the waste of talent at present in the poorer classes of society must be stupendous to liberty to follow the creative impulse when a man's training has been completed if he is possessed of really great abilities he will do his best work if he is completely free to follow his bent creating what seems good to him regardless of the judgment of experts at present this is only possible for two classes of people those who have private means and those who can earn a living by an occupation that does not absorb their whole energies under socialism there will be no one with private means and if there is to be no loss as regards art and science the opportunity which now comes by accident to a few will have to be provided deliberately for a much larger number the men who have used private means as an opportunity for creative work have been few but important one might mention Milton Shelley Keats and Darwin as examples probably none of these would have produced as good work if they had had to earn their livelihood if Darwin had been a university teacher he would of course have been dismissed from his post by the influence of the clerics on account of his scandalous theories nevertheless the bulk of the creative work of the world is done at present by men who subsist by some other occupation science and research generally are usually done in their spare time by men who live by teaching there is no great objection to this in the case of science provided the number of hours devoted to teaching is not excessive it is partly because science and teaching are so easily combined that science is vigorous in the present age in music a composer who is also a performer enjoys similar advantages but one who is not a performer must starve unless he is rich or willing to pander to the public taste in the fine arts as a rule it is not easy in the modern world either to make a living by really good work or to find a subsidiary profession which leaves enough leisure for creation this is presumably one reason though by no means the only one why art is less flourishing than science the bureaucratic state socialist will have a simple solution for these difficulties he will appoint a body consisting of the most eminent celebrities in an art or a science whose business it shall be to judge the work of young men and to issue licenses to those whose productions find favor in their eyes a licensed artist shall be considered to have performed his duty to the community by producing works of art but of course he will have to prove his industry by never failing to produce in reasonable quantities and his continued ability by never failing to please his eminent judges until in the fullness of time he becomes a judge himself in this way the authorities will ensure that the artist shall be competent regular and obedient to the best traditions of his art those who fail to fulfill these conditions will be compelled by the withdrawal of their license to seek some less dubious mode of earning their living such will be the ideal of the state socialist in such a world all that makes life tolerable to the lover of beauty would perish art springs from a wild and anarchic side of the human nature between the artist and the bureaucrat there must always be a profound mutual antagonism an age-long battle in which the artist always outwardly worsted wins in the end by the gratitude of mankind for the joy that he puts into their lives if the wild side of the human nature is to be permanently subjected to the orderly rules of the benevolent uncomprehending bureaucrat the joy of life will perish out of the earth and the very impulse to live will gradually wither and die better a thousandfold the present world with all its horrors than such a dead mummy of a world better anarchism with all its risks than a state socialism that subjects to rule what must be spontaneous and free if it is to have any value it is this nightmare that makes artists and lovers of beauty generally so often suspicious of socialism but there is nothing in the essence of socialism to make art impossible only certain forms of socialism would entail this danger william morris was a socialist and was a socialist very largely because he was an artist and in this he was not irrational it is impossible for art or any of the higher creative activities to flourish under any system which requires the artist shall prove his competence to some body of authorities before he is allowed to follow his impulse any really great artist is almost sure to be thought incompetent by those among his seniors who would be generally regarded as best qualified to form an opinion and the mere fact of having to produce work which will please older men is hostile to a free spirit and to bold innovation apart from this difficulty selection by older men would lead to jealousy and intrigue and backbiting producing a poisonous atmosphere of underground competition the only effect of such a plan would be to eliminate the few who now slip through owing to some fortunate accident it is not by any system but by freedom alone that art can flourish there are only two ways by which the artist could secure freedom under socialism of the right kind he might undertake regular work outside his art doing only a few hours work a day and receiving proportionately less pay than those who do a full day's work he ought in that case to be at liberty to sell his pictures if he could find purchasers such a system would have many advantages it would leave absolutely every man free to become an artist provided he were willing to suffer a certain economic loss this would not deter those in whom the impulse was strong and genuine but would tend to exclude the dilettante many young artists at present endure voluntarily much greater poverty than need be entailed by only doing half the usual day's work in a well organized socialist community and some degree of hardship is not objectionable as a test of the strength of the creative impulse and as an offset to the peculiar joys of the creative life the other possibility which we discussed in chapter four would be that the necessaries of life should be free as anarchists desire to all equally regardless of whether they work or not under this plan every man could live without work there would be what might be called a vagabond's wage sufficient for existence but not for luxury the artist who preferred to have his whole time for art and enjoyment might live on the vagabond's wage traveling on foot when the humor seized him to see foreign countries enjoying the air and the sun as free as the birds and perhaps scarcely less happy such men would bring color and diversity into the life of the community their outlook would be different from that of steady stay-at-home workers and would keep alive a much needed element of light-heartedness which our sober serious civilization tends to kill if they became very numerous they might be too great an economic burden on the workers but i doubt if there are many with enough capacity for simple enjoyments to choose poverty and freedom in preference to the comparatively light and pleasant work which will be usual in those days by either of these methods freedom can be preserved for the artist in a socialistic commonwealth far more complete freedom and far more widespread than any that now exists except for the possessors of capital but there still remain some not altogether easy problems take for example the publishing of books there will not under socialism the private publishers as at present under state socialism presumably the state will be the sole publisher while under syndicalism or guild socialism the federation deliver will have the whole of the trade in its hands under these circumstances who is to decide what manuscripts are to be printed it is clear that opportunities exist for an index more rigorous than that of the inquisition if the state were the sole publisher it would doubtless refuse books opposed to state socialism if the federation deliver with the ultimate arbiter what publicity could be obtained for works criticizing it and apart from such political difficulties we should have as regards literature that very censorship by eminent officials which we agreed to regard as disastrous when we were considering the fine arts in general the difficulty is serious and a way of meeting it must be found if literature is to remain free krapatkin who believes that manual and intellectual work should be combined holds that authors themselves should be compositors book binders etc he even seems to suggest that the whole of the manual work involved in producing books should be done by authors it may be doubted whether there are enough authors in the world for this to be possible and in any case i cannot but think that it would be a waste of time for them to leave the work they understand in order to do badly work which others could do far better and more quickly that however does not touch our present point which is the question on how the manuscripts to be printed will be selected in krapatkin's plan there will presumably be an authors guild with a committee of management if anarchism allows such things this committee of management will decide which of the books submitted to it are worthy to be printed among these will be included those by the committee and their friends but not those by their enemies authors of rejected manuscripts will hardly have the patience to spend their time setting up the works of successful rivals and there will have to be an elaborate system of log rolling if any books are to be printed at all it hardly looks as if this plan would conduce to harmony among literary men or would lead to the publication of any book of an unconventional tendency krapatkin's own books for example would hardly have found favor the only way of meeting these difficulties whether under state socialism or guild socialism or anarchism seems to be by making it possible for an author to pay for the publication of his book if it is not such as the state or the guild is willing to print at its own expense i am aware that this method is contrary to the spirit of socialism but i do not see what other way there is of securing freedom the payment might be made by undertaking to engage for an assigned period in some work of recognized utility and to hand over such proportion of the earnings as might be necessary the work undertaken might of course be as krapatkin suggests the manual part of the production of books but i see no special reason why it should be it would have to be an absolute rule that no book should be refused no matter what the nature of its contents might be if payment for publication were offered at the standard rate an author who had admirers would be able to secure their help in payment an unknown author might it is true have to suffer a considerable loss of comfort in order to make his payment but that would give an automatic means of eliminating those whose writing was not the result of any very profound impulse and would be by no means holy and evil probably some other method would be desirable as regards to publishing and performing of new music what we have been suggesting will no doubt be objected to by orthodox socialists since they will find something repugnant to their principles and the whole idea of a private person paying to have certain work done but it is a mistake to be the slave of a system and every system if it is applied rigidly will entail evils which could only be avoided by some concession to the exigencies of special cases on the whole a wise form of socialism might afford infinitely better opportunities for the artist and the man of science than are possible in a capitalist community but only if the form of socialism adopted is one which is fitted for this end by means of provision such as we have been suggesting three possibility of appreciation this condition is one which is not necessary to all who do creative work but in the sense in which I mean it the great majority find it very nearly indispensable I do not mean widespread public recognition nor that ignorant half sincere respect which is commonly accorded to artists who have achieved success neither of these serves much purpose what I mean is rather understanding and a spontaneous feeling that things of beauty are important in a thoroughly commercialized society and artist is respected if he makes money and because he makes money but there is no genuine respect for the works of art by which his money has been made a millionaire whose fortune has been made in button hooks or chewing gum is regarded with awe but none of this feeling is bestowed on the articles from which his wealth is derived in a society which measures all things by money the same tends to be true of the artist if he has become rich he is respected though of course less than the millionaire but his pictures or books or music are regarded as the chewing gum or the button hooks are regarded merely as a means to money in such an atmosphere it is very difficult for the artist to preserve his creative impulse pure either he is contaminated by his surroundings or he becomes embittered through lack of appreciation for the object of his endeavor it is not appreciation of the artist that is necessary so much as appreciation of the art it is difficult for an artist to live in an environment in which everything is judged by its utility rather than by its intrinsic quality the whole side of life of which art is the flower requires something which may be called disinterestedness a capacity for direct enjoyment without thought of tomorrow's problems and difficulties when people are amused by a joke they do not need to be persuaded that it will serve some important purpose the same kind of direct pleasure is involved in any genuine appreciation of art the struggle for life the serious work of a trade or profession is apt to make people too solemn for jokes and too preoccupied for art the easing of the struggle the diminution in the hours of work and the lightning of the burden of existence which would result from a better economic system could hardly fail to increase the joy of life and the vital energy available for sheer delight in the world and if this were achieved there would be inevitably more spontaneous pleasure in beautiful things and more enjoyment of the work of artists but none of these good results are to be expected from the mere removal of poverty they all require also a diffused sense of freedom and the absence of that feeling of oppression by a vast machine which now weighs down the individual spirit i do not think state socialism can give this sense of freedom but some other forms of socialism which have absorbed what is true in anarchist teaching can give it to a degree of which capitalism is wholly incapable a general sense of progress and achievement is an immense stimulus to all forms of creative work for this reason a great deal will depend not only in material ways upon the question whether methods of production in industry and agriculture become stereotyped or continue to change rapidly as they have done during the last hundred years improved methods of production will be much more obviously than now to the interest of the community at large when what every man receives is his due share of the total produce of labor but there will probably not be any individuals with the same direct and intense interest in technical improvements as now belongs to the capitalist in manufacture if the natural conservatism of the workers is not to prove stronger than their interest in increasing production it will be necessary that when better methods are introduced by the workers in any industry part at least of the benefit should be allowed for a time to be retained by them if this is done it may be presumed that each guild will be continually seeking for new processes or inventions and will value those technical parts of scientific research which are useful for this purpose with every improvement the question will arise whether it is to be used to give more leisure or to increase the dividend of commodities where there is so much more leisure than there is now there will be many more people with a knowledge of science or an understanding of art the artist or scientific investigator will be far less cut off than he is at present from the average citizen and this will almost inevitably be a stimulus to his creative energy i think we may fairly conclude that from the point of view of all three requisites for art and science namely training freedom and appreciation state socialism would largely fail to remove existing evils and would introduce new evils of its own but guild socialism or even syndicalism if it adopted a liberal policy toward those who prefer to work less than the usual number of hours at recognized occupations might be immeasurably preferable to anything that is possible under the rule of capitalism there are dangers but they will all vanish if the importance of liberty is adequately acknowledged in this as in nearly everything else the road to all that is best is the road of freedom end of chapter seven recording by matthew reese