 Individualism, a Reader, edited by George H. Smith and Marilyn Moore, narrated by James Foster. 24. A Catechism of Individualism, Henry Wilson A Catechism of Individualism, London, the Liberty Review Publishing Company, 1902 Henry Wilson, a Lieutenant Colonel in the British Army, was a frequent contributor to the Liberty Review published by the Liberty and Property Defense League until he was killed in a bicycle accident on January 8, 1907. He was Secretary of the Individualist Club, Treasurer of the Personal Rights Association, and a contributor to Oberon Herbert's periodical Free Life. In the booklet reprinted here in its entirety, Wilson responds to a new Catechism of Socialism, which was written by the English journalist and philosopher Belfort Bax in collaboration with his friend Henry Quelch. What do you understand by individualism? It is the opposite of socialism. Why do you give this negative definition? Because individualism is the natural system and would never have got a distinctive name nor have had to search for its principles and the reasons on which they are founded but for the rise of the artificial system of socialism. Am I to understand, then, that individualism is the earlier of the two systems? No. Modern socialism is an attempt to give a scientific justification for a barbarous stage through which men passed in their upward struggle to their present happier state. Why do you call socialism artificial? Because man always, if left free, passes from socialism to individualism, at least in the more advanced races. His happiness and prosperity are in proportion to the completeness of the change. Socialism is an attempt to set back the clock and forcibly to reintroduce barbarism. What, then, are these two opposite systems? They are systems for the arrangement of society wholly in the field of economics. Why do you lay stress on the word economics? Because there is a very common error among inaccurate thinkers seen even in so eminent a writer as Ruskin that these systems have something to do with ethics. Mr. Bax, in his Catechism of Socialism, devotes a chapter to the ethics of socialism. But socialism has no ethics. A socialist may have, he may be an intuitionist or a utilitarian, just as he might be an allopathist or a homeopathist, but he might as well talk of the ethics of astronomy or chemistry as of the ethics of socialism. What, then, is the distinction between ethics on the one hand and economics, chemistry, physics, etc. on the other? Ethics gives orders. The other sciences state facts. How has the confusion arisen in the case of ethics and economics? Probably in this way. They both deal with human motives and actions. What is the difference in their treatment? Ethics tells me what ought to be my motives and my actions. Economics tells me what are other men's motives and what will be their actions. Can you give an example of this confusion from a well-known writer? Ruskin quotes a saying of Adam Smith that the real check on a tradesman is his customer. He characterizes this as the most bestial utterance he ever heard. It is plain, then, that when Adam Smith made the economic statement that a tradesman was induced to sell goodwares for fear of losing customers, Ruskin took him to make the ethical statement that his sole reason for being honest ought to be the fear of losing customers. And when Ruskin goes on to say that in his ideal state every baker should belong to a guild which should sternly punish him if he sold short-weight, he furnishes a delightful instance of inconsistency. Then ethics cannot move till these other sciences have had their say? Exactly. When chemistry has told me that nitric acid thrown in a person's face will cause great agony, when physics has told me that throwing a person out of a window will tend to cause broken bones or death, when economics has told me that promising to keep a person in old age will make him idle and improvident, then, and not till then, can ethics step in and forbid me to commit those actions. Can you give a definition of socialism? This is the definition given by Mr. Belfort-Bax in his Catechism of Socialism. The system of society, the material basis of which is social production for social use. Have you any objection to make to this definition? The coat I wear and the beefsteak I eat are used by me individually, not socially. Supposing the definition were altered to social production for individual use, would you still object? Yes, men have produced socially for individual use ever since civilization began. In fact, that is civilization. If twenty men agree to form a society, community or tribe, Brown agrees to make all the shoes for the community, Jones all the coats and so on, that, if a voluntary arrangement, is individualistic. Where, then, does the difference between socialism and individualism come in? Chiefly in the distribution, though I believe socialism would control the number of shoes Brown produces instead of leaving it to Brown to estimate the demand. Then there are two questions involved. There are production and distribution. First, how many shoes and coats Brown and Jones shall make, and secondly, how many shoes Brown the shoemaker shall give Jones the tailor for a coat. How is this settled under the system of individualism? By leaving Brown and Jones to gauge the demand for their respective goods under the stimulus of self-interest, their living depending on a right estimate, and by assuming that every man is the best judge of what he wants and its value to him and leaving the matter to be settled by bargaining. What are the advantages of this system? The question is settled automatically and without expense. Both parties gain and both are satisfied. Are there any drawbacks? No human institution is perfect. Brown or Jones may overestimate or underestimate the demand so that there will be some loss to one of the parties. How is it settled under the system of socialism? It could only be settled by appointing some central authority to tell Brown first how many shoes he is to make and secondly how many he is to give Jones for a coat. What are the drawbacks to this plan? It shifts the duty of estimating the needs of the community from a responsible person who would suffer if he judged wrongly to an irresponsible person who would not suffer. Also, this person would have to be paid which burden would fall on all the other members. Also, as he could not possibly gauge the value of anything he would certainly not satisfy one of the exchangers and probably would satisfy neither. Moreover, as production would be limited to supposed needs the power of choice would be much curtailed for the consumer. Would the system have any advantages? It is claimed for it that it would save the expenses of advertising commercial travelers and such like. Also, that things would be produced which are not now because they afford no profit, that is, are so little desired that people will not give enough for them to afford a profit. You used the word value. What meaning do you attach to that word? The power of satisfying man's desires. Is there a quality inherent in things and constant? Certainly not. It varies with each individual man with the same man from year to year and from hour to hour. A man of sixty does not value a top as he did when he was six nor does a man who has just dined value a loaf of bread as much as one does who has fasted for twelve hours. How is value measured? By the pain or annoyance that would be caused by the absence of the last increment of the thing in question. Give an example. A man at dinner values a morsel of food by the annoyance he would feel if he had not got it, not by his wish for the next morsel for if he has had enough he attaches no value to the next morsel. What is this called? The marginal value of a thing, that is, a man's estimate of its marginal utility. But is not this difficult to express definitely? It is. In practice we estimate the value of a thing by the amount of something else which a man has and will give up rather than forgo the thing in question. Would not this amount vary with the nature of the something else he gives up? It would. Men usually fix on some one thing in which to estimate the value of all others. This one thing is called a medium of exchange and value as expressed in it is called price. Do not some writers like Ruskin say that value is inherent in a thing? They do. Ruskin says that a picture by Botticelli has inherent value while a cask of whiskey has not only no value but has, so to speak, a minus value. What is your comment on this? On analyzing this statement I find that value is still a matter of opinion. Only it is Ruskin's opinion of what satisfies his desires instead of the opinion of those concerned of what satisfies their desires. Then it is not an economic utterance? No. It confuses economics which investigates what men do like with Ruskin's sociology which lays down what he thinks they ought to like. Had Ruskin an amusing proof of this in his own experience? He had. He wrote a number of works eloquently laying down what he thought right conduct which works he thought valuable but twice the editor of a magazine had to refuse his articles for fear of their ruining the magazine. Then what would have been Ruskin's position under the system of state regulation which he advocated? He would have been utterly refused a hearing. Is then the value of anything never constant? If the demand for anything is very great and it is either very durable or can be produced in great quantities its value tends to be constant. Can you give examples? Gold is an instance of the first and bread of the second. Bread is perishable but the ratio between the number of loaves on sale and the number of men who want to buy remains without change over considerable periods. Then there seems to be a connection between the number and frequency of exchange of a thing and the steadiness of its value. A direct connection as Mr. Cree has shown. A loaf of bread in which thousands of exchanges take place every day remains very constant in value. A picture by an old master changes hands once in twenty years and its price cannot be guessed by many thousand pounds. To what do socialists attribute value? To the amount of labour a thing has cost. Does this agree with facts? A thing that is valuable has generally cost labour which is the result of value not the cause of it. How do you know that? A thing men do not wish for has no value however much labour it has cost. A thing men desire intensely has much value however little labour it has cost. Give an example. Two men shall spend the same number of years learning to paint and then spend the same number of hours in painting a picture. One picture is worth five pounds, the other five thousand. Do not people speak of different kinds of value? Economists have sometimes spoken of value in use as different from value in exchange speaking of iron as being useful and gold as being useless. Is this an error? It springs from two errors. One is confusing like Ruskin what you think people ought to value with what they do value. Men all the world over are prone to value things which minister to show like gold more than things that minister to bodily needs like iron. Again much confusion arises from speaking of the value of gold or iron. Gold, iron and bread have no value in the abstract. A particular piece of one of them may have value according to the circumstances. In the Sahara a loaf of bread might be worth many times its weight in gold and Robinson Crusoe might have been glad to give a large lump of gold for an iron knife. How do you sum up the difference between the two systems of individualism and socialism? Individualism throws on each man the responsibility of choosing a calling fixing on the number of hours he shall work the price of his goods and the provisions he shall make for the future of himself and his family. Socialism has all these fixed by government. Is a socialist state possible? In a community like a monastery where food and clothing are coarse and uniform above all where all are unmarried socialism may be successfully practiced. The difference then between the two systems seems to turn on the amount of government interference with individuals. It does. Individualism limits the action of government to repressing violence and fraud and doing those things which, being everybody's business are nobody's business. How then are all social wants provided for under this system? By making the doer of a service earn his living by whatever the receiver gives him freely. It is each man's interest to find out who wants a service and to supply it well. This system then throws the maximum of responsibility on individuals. It does. It appears then to be the same thing as freedom. It is. Socialism then must be the same thing as slavery. Just so. The essence of slavery is absence of responsibility. But do socialists acknowledge this? Clearheaded ones like Ruskin do. A socialist writer, Mr. J. A. Hobson remarks that Ruskin often turns aside to praise slavery. Would not government acting like a providence have a tendency to make men thoughtless and leave everything to it? It would, as we had a striking example in Paris not long ago. A fire broke out in a crowded bazaar and many persons were burnt to death. One of the managers publicly repudiated all responsibility and said that it was the fault of government for not compelling them to provide means of rapid and orderly exit. Is the system of socialism well-named? Quite the contrary. It is a system of anti-social conduct and individualism contributes just as much to the welfare of society as to that of the individual. But ought not the majority to rule the minority? Only with regard to conduct hurtful to the majority. If two men are in a boat it cannot sail both east and west at once. It must do one or the other. Now if one of the two wants to put out to see in a storm the other whose life would be endangered has a right to resist. But that does not give him a right to interfere with the first man's religion or dress or the way he spends his time so long as it is not spent in hindering the second. Then if ninety-nine others like minded with the second enter the boat that gives them no right to interfere with the first man that the second did not possess when alone. That is the ABC of liberty. But do not socialists complain that society now is unorganized? They do but it is a pure delusion. Organized means arranged like an organism. The human body is an organism in its digestion assimilation nutrition and expulsion of waste processes which corresponding to the feeding clothing traveling and other activities of society go on normally not only without the interference of the brain which is the government but without its knowledge. If then the five millions in London get without fail daily their milk, bread, papers and everything they want without interference of government society in London is organized. Also in a free society government is carried on by certain units elected by the others for a definite and limited purpose. The cells of the brain are not elected by the cells of the bones and muscles. In a society the life of the units is higher and more varied than that of the whole. In an organism it is just the reverse. But socialists say that production is now carried on in the interest and for the profit of the class owns the means of production. Anyone can see the falsity of that statement. There are producers in my village who own neither land, house nor factory nor anything but such tools as they have bought with their savings as wage earners. The mightiest businesses have all had a similar origin. Then there is no such class as the socialists speak of bound together by a common interest against the rest of society. Certainly not. Every member of the supposed class produces one thing but consumes a thousand. Even if his interest in the one thing were opposed to that of the rest of society, his interest in the other thousand is at one with that of the rest of society. What is the socialist definition of capital? This is a summary of Mr. Bax's definition, a good example of the way in which socialists mix morals with economics. A considerable concentration of the means of production in the hands of one or a few persons who employ others to produce and keep the product paying only a small proportion to the producers. What strikes you in this definition? The appeals to prejudice. Capital is not recognized as such unless it is large and in the hands of a few who treat their workmen unjustly. What is capital really? Produce saved whether little or much and used to produce more wealth whether by the owner or by others. What is wealth? Anything that has value. You said value was the power of satisfying human desire. I did. That implies that a valuable thing is limited in quantity for no one would desire a particular mouthful of air if he could get another as good for nothing. Can air ever have value? Yes, in the black hole of Calcutta, as a draft of water is valuable in the desert or in a large town. Socialists attribute value to the average labor which a thing has cost, do they not? Yes, following an unfortunate mistake of Adam Smith and Ricardo, they deify labor and think, like Charles Lamb's friend, that they could write as good plays as Shakespeare's if they had a mind. What example does Mr. Bax give? He supposes a man wishing to exchange a pair of boots for a quarter of wheat and assumes that his anxiety is to get the same amount of labor in return that the boots cost him. Why is this not so? The wheat would cost the bootmaker much more labor than the boots have and he has no means of knowing how much it costs the farmer. A great many things derive their excellence from inborn qualities without labor which no labor can give like a singer's voice. So it is not even true that, as Mr. Bax says, the labor spent on each side take all bargains together, balances. No, and even if it were, the labor would be the result of the value, not the cause of it. But the voice and ear of a singer, the touch of a player, the eye of a painter, the imagination of a poet, even the taste of a tailor or milliner are not and cannot be the result of labor. Does not Mr. Bax complain that things are made now for exchange, not for use? He does, but that is only the result of the division of labor whereby men get many more satisfactions by each making one thing and exchanging. How would socialists manage it? They would have everything sent into a government warehouse and served out in return for tickets or orders. That would only shift the estimate of value from the party's concerned to a government official. How much bread would he value Mr. Bax's catechism at? How does Mr. Bax explain profit? In the queerest way. He says profit cannot be made on the market, for as the sum of satisfactions or profits on each side must in the long run balance, there can be no profit. As profit is what every producer for exchange lives on, everyone must be dead. That sounds singular reasoning. It is quite normal socialist reasoning, a bootmaker having provided for his own where exchanges the other boots he makes for wheat, mutton, coats and everything necessary to support life and the farmer does the same with his spare wheat and this goes on for seventy years, yet according to Mr. Bax, they are dead all the time. How has the error arisen? Mr. Bax says that it is impossible to make a profit by exchange, for to do that you must sell above the cost of production and that is impossible if the accounts balance. He does not see that we measure our profits, not in sovereigns but in the satisfaction of our desires. If I get a pound of tea from a Chinaman in return for a yard of cotton, the tea I had not gives me more pleasure than the cotton of which I had enough already. So I sell at a profit. In the same way the Chinaman values the cotton more than the tea of which he had enough and to spare. So he sells at a profit. The accounts balance and yet we are alive. How do socialists say profit is made? By a curious and fantastic thing called surplus value. This is very important for as Mr. Bax says, in this is the kernel of the whole capitalist system of production for profit with its exploitation and impoverishment of the proletariat. Socialists are very fond of these question begging words. I should say in this is the kernel of the whole socialist system of error. What is this surplus value? It is the difference between the cost of labour power to the capitalist and the amount of labour power he is able to extract from his work people. Give me an example. Mr. Bax would say that if John Smith works in a boot factory 8 hours a day with the produce of 4 hours work he provides his own sustenance, the other 4 hours he is working for his employer. That second 4 hours work is surplus value which is rung from him or in other words he is exploited by the employer who gets all that for nothing. Have you anything to say to that? I have several things to say. First, no account is taken of rent of factory, interest on cost of machinery, repairs, risk and so on. Secondly, if Smith did not work some time for his employer, how is the employer to live? As his whole time is taken up in superintending his men, how could he live if all the produce goes to those men? Can you give an argument to Mr. Bax? I can. Mr. Bax every day buys a loaf of bread for four pence, but the value of it to him is more than that, say five pence. How can you prove that? When flour rises in price the loaf goes up to five pence and Mr. Bax gives that rather than go without bread. So he rings from the baker a penny worth of bread which he has not paid for for nothing. Which, as he knows better, is very naughty of Mr. Bax. What is the baker's position? To him, again, the cost of producing the loaf is less than four pence, say three pence. So he rings from Mr. Bax a penny for which he has given nothing, that is, he exploits Mr. Bax. But as things have now got pretty mixed and there is an old saying, pull Bax, pull baker, we will leave them to settle it between them. Is that objection? I have a practical test. If John Smith is not satisfied let him leave the factory and work on his own account. The fact of his entering the factory shows that he feels he does better there. But do not the machinery, organization and division of labour in the factory enable him to produce much more than if he worked on his own account. They do, but the whole of that excess is created not by him but by the brains and labour of his employer. If the workman claims any of that he is exploiting his employer. If he is not satisfied still let him start as an employer. But how can he get the capital? In the same way as his employer did who probably began as a workman. The famous James Naesmith inventor of the steam hammer began business with sixty pounds. John Smith could save this in three years by putting off marriage. But do not workmen often do what you suggest? Very often and the results are instructive. In going about the smaller streets I have often been struck and saddened by noticing that a shop which two years ago bore the name of Brown Taylor and a year ago Jones Fishmonger is now Robinson Grocer. What does that mean? That in each case a hard working man has saved money, started in business, and failed. Why has he failed? For one or all of many reasons fixing on a bad situation want of judgment of the quality of goods want of a head for figures want of the gift of managing men many men are good servants but bad masters. What proportion of these ventures fail? An American economist puts it at nine tenths. Then it is not the fact as Mr. Bax and all socialists assume that the profits of capital are large. No, that is one of the delusions but for which socialism would not have arisen. If you divide the total profits of capital by the number of capitalists the quotient is small. Are the profits steady? Not at all. Many prosperous businesses have periods sometimes of several years when they make nothing or even a loss yet the workmen get their wages all the time. It is in the foundations then that socialism is so weak. Yes, an Irishman might describe it as an economic house of cards founded on mares' nests of sentiment. You spoke of wages. What is that? The share of the produce given to the workmen in lengthy processes this is advanced out of capital. How is the amount of wages fixed? Socialists consistently with their erroneous measuring of value by the amount of labor a thing has cost say that it is determined by the cost of subsistence of the laborer that is called the iron law of wages. Is this so? Of course, wages cannot fall below what will support life but as the subsistence of one man costs about as much as that of another and the wages of one man are often a hundred times as much as those of another there must be another determinant. What postulate lies at the root of the socialist definition? The assumption that workmen always multiply improvidently so that there are more workmen than there are places. Mr. Back says the laborer is not really free he must sell his labor power in order to live and having no control over the means of production cannot employ himself. All this implies a man who spends all his wages and goes into the labor market without a penny. Do you accept this? No, I have shown that if a man saves he can employ himself as happens every day. If in addition he has the gift of management he can employ others as well. What then do socialists want? They want a man who has not the gift of management and does not manage to be paid as if he did a man who has no risk to be paid compensation for risk and a man who contributes no capital to receive interest on capital. What really governs wages the ratio between the amount of capital available to pay them and the number of men seeking work but is not the idea of a wages fund abandoned it is by many but it is a quibble about words when capital is abundant and men few wages rise when the case is reversed an employer looks to recoup himself for his outings and get interest on his capital and return for his brains and risk then an employer does not object to high wages quite the contrary if he gets a proportionate return as seen in America what then is the way to raise wages to have increased production by increased talent in the employer devising improvements in machinery and processes and increased energy and industry in the workmen then wages cannot be raised by combination not permanently if there are more men than there is employment for they can only be prevented from competing and so lowering wages by devoting the extra wages those at work get to buying off the unemployed but do not socialists propose to abolish the wages system they do and that means that capital is to be provided and risk born by the whole community instead of by the persons who are interested in providing for the first and avoiding the second but do not socialists say that production would be increased under their system they do quintupled as success in production depends on abundance of capital and minute attention to details they expect an increase under a system where no one would feel any compulsion to produce capital that is to save no one would have the special knowledge or the time or the stimulus to supervise the details but would not public officials do that they could not provide capital which must come from the savings of private persons as for supervision they would require supervising and it is universal experience that public management is more costly than private owing to no one in particular to acquire the knowledge or to give the time then it all comes to this that socialism presupposes a radical change in human nature exactly but do not socialists expect also a great saving in consumption they do by cooperative housekeeping but this if voluntary has nothing socialistic about it it is largely practiced now by all classes of persons no people who are comfortably off and are either single or without young children often live in hotels or boarding houses and get more for their money than if they lived alone then are there two kinds of economy there are if a person has only 90 pounds a year it is no use telling him that for a payment of 100 pounds in a hotel he can get 120 pounds worth of comfort by living alone he might get 80 pounds worth of comfort for his 90 but could he not save proportionately by cooperatively living on the smaller some with difficulty for people shrink from practicing petty economies in public besides it would destroy the feeling of home compulsory cooperative living as in work houses and shelters is a miserable thing what does history say Mr. Bax gives an historical sketch beginning with the astonishing statement that the condition of the mass of the people is not improved and that the purchasing power of money has decreased he acknowledges that primitive society was communistic but calls the introduction of slavery a step towards individualism but is there not a difference between socialism and ancient slavery yes the chief or owner of old got a larger share of the produce than his slaves socialism proposes that he should still furnish the capital and management but share equally with the slaves do not socialists assert that the serfs had rights in the land of which they have been wrongfully deprived they do and attribute pauperism and the necessity for the poor lot that cause but have there not been and are there not now many small owners there are and always have been but their condition is not so superior to that of the wage laborer as to support the socialist contention the fact that most of the statesmen or small owners of Cumberland have sold their property shows that they cannot have been very flourishing do not socialists attribute much of present day evils to some ogre called the capitalist system which they assert to be a modern invention they do Mr. Bax defines it as large bodies of laborers working together for a single employer and for his profit this began about the middle of the 16th century is this historically correct it is not stonehenge, the coliseum, the pyramids the palaces of Babylon, the temples of India could not have been made without large bodies of men working together for a single man and for his profit certainly not for their own then was this system the same as the modern capitalist system by no means though it answers Mr. Bax's definition the ancient labor was wholly unproductive, was solely to gratify the vanity of a despot and was attended with frightful suffering in the modern system the workers unless they are redundant which is not the capitalist's fault always earn a comfortable subsistence for themselves and sometimes a profit for their employer then the difference between the ancient and modern capitalism is in favor of modern entirely as far as the workmen is concerned but do the workmen acknowledge this they do by their actions whatever their words may be in Australia where land may be had for the asking men prefer to stop in the towns and work for wages showing that they think themselves better off as wage earners to what do you attribute the socialist delusion that the workmen are exploited to their failure to understand the difference between productive and unproductive labor explain your meaning they argue that as a man now owing to machinery, division of labor and other improvements can produce many times more wealth than before his share ought to be proportionately greater is not that correct it is true that a man can produce much greater quantity of lace wallpaper and all the ornaments of life but he cannot produce much more food the purchasing power therefore of those who grow corn or meat that is the excess of wheat they produce over what they consume is not much greater than it was what is the effect on the producers of comforts and luxuries their produce is cheapened that is they have to give a greater amount of it for the same quantity of food then what is the difference between the state of the ancient and modern workmen the ancient workmen perhaps had as much but he did not eat it with a fork drink out of a glass, sleep in cotton sheets, have glazed windows wallpaper and pictures and a hundred such refinements but does not the employer make a large profit sometimes if he is clever and fortunate a small profit on each workman will amount to a large fortune in time but the average profit is not large do not large concerns tend to increase in number and size naturally with increased population capital and concentration men who have the gift of organization have a greater opportunity of forming what Mr. Bax calls giant octopus-like combinations which promise to bring all the businesses of the world under the control of a mere handful of wealthy capitalists are these great businesses likely to be permanent seeing that they are created by the talent of one man and that talent and energy are not always inherited they have a tendency to decline when the founder dies how do socialists propose to cure this evil as they consider of big concerns by making them bigger still that is handing them over to the government what effect would that have government would have to make the present employer's managers as no one else would have the talent if they were selfish before making them state officials would not make them less so and they would have larger opportunities of enriching themselves with less supervision if they died and there was no one to succeed them ruin would follow did you not say that Mr. Bax devotes a section of his work to socialist ethics he does asserting that socialism has a special code of ethics as each stage of society has he gives a history in which he strangely mixes up ethics and religion saying that ethics had first for its object the welfare of the tribe it then became introspective and the object was a divinity but ethics has always been rules of conduct the result of experience inherited and acquired of the conduct that promotes human welfare its object was always the community the Spartan cheerfully gave his life for the good of his tribe but that was because he found that if every Spartan bravely risked death his individual chance of life was better than if he ran away we find Englishmen today just as ready to sacrifice their lives when necessary as Spartans were only Spartans had to do it often or because of the savage manners of the time ethics therefore develops with the development of society and is not perfect yet for most people regard a wrong done to one of lower social position to themselves as less blame worthy than if done to their equal religion on the other hand has always been a personal affair men have pictured to themselves and invisible being like themselves but stronger whom they sought to propitiate at first they gave presence and sacrifices when they became ethical they imagined an ethical God who was pleased with virtuous conduct but the idea that he likes sacrifice and false imagination like an Eastern King still lingers does Mr. Bax tell us what individualist ethics is like he does it is the theory of the Manchester school of economics namely the individual scramble for wealth the cash nexus and purely material relations instead of sentiment between men that sounds very confused it is Cobden and Bright were not noted as ethical teachers though they were persons of eminently ethical conduct and when ethical questions were discussed advocated a pure and lofty morality but their fame rests on the economic doctrine they preached if each person or nation devoted his or its energies to those commodities which it could produce with least effort and exchanged with others all would enjoy the maximum of satisfaction with the minimum of exertion how does Mr. Bax sum up socialist ethics it is enlightened selfishness since in some unexplained way under socialism the good of all will be the good of each that is things will be made pleasant all round and duty never entail a sacrifice why then does not everyone become a socialist because we are told they are not class conscious that is they do not realize that their interests are opposed to those of the class above them then we have a direct confession that envy is the origin of socialism we have what are the political views of socialists they are Mr. Bax says little englanders they would gladly unite with foreign workmen to ruin their own country if they could thereby plunder their employers or upset the present arrangement of society what is their attitude towards cooperation and trade unionism they view them with favor so far as they may be a step in the same direction how do they view real improvements such as thrift, temperance and malthusianism they hate them as enabling workmen to live more cheaply and so more wages starting from the false assumption that wages never rise above the cost of maintenance then the way for workmen to raise their wages would be to drink champagne just so by similar reasoning but is the object of those who preach temperance, thrift and prudence in marriage to make workmen spend less not at all but to spend their income so as to have a greater amount of comfort and well-being and by having a reserve to be able to move to where wages are high and not have their efficiency impaired by sickness or loss of work having criticized the socialist view can you give a summary of the individualist doctrine I can individualism means enlisting the natural tendencies of human nature on behalf of well-being as we all do when we reward our children if they are good and punish them if disobedient and as a workman avails himself of the natural forces of gravitation etc. to do his work with the least effort it holds with Jesus that good and evil spring from the heart of man and thence affect his surroundings so that the way to improve him is to deal with the cause by persuasion and not with the effect by compulsion it holds that social progress like all natural healthy growths is slow and that no forced and artificial effect is permanent it holds that every action is indirect and remote effects as well as immediate ones and that the former are generally more important it holds that the state has no money but what it takes from the people it holds that denunciation of the idle rich who have earned or lawfully acquired their riches accords ill with the proposal to pension a man at his prime whether he has earned his pension or not it holds that imperfect instruments cannot turn out perfect work however good the scheme it holds that periodicity is the law of the universe so that the only way to prosperity is to work hard while we have the chance and make hay while the sun shines it points to the success of the Jews and of all brain workers who pursue this plan it points out that the time of England's prosperity coincides with the reign of laissez-faire and the complaints of German competition with the present system of socialist interference has been individualism a reader edited by George H. Smith and Marilyn Moore narrated by James Foster copyright 2015 by the Cato Institute production copyright 2015 by the Cato Institute