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Socialism and
Democracy
Woodrow Wilson
Is it possible that in practical
America we are becoming sentimentalists? To judge by
much of our periodical literature, one would think
so. All resolution about great affairs seems now "sicklied
o'er with a pale cast of thought." Our magazine
writers smile sadly at the old-time optimism of
their country; are themselves full of forebodings;
expend much force and enthusiasm and strong (as well
as weak) English style in disclosing social evils
and economics bugbears; are moved by a fine sympathy
for the unfortunate and a fine anger against those
who bring wrong upon their fellows: but where amidst
all these themes for the conscience is there a theme
for the courage of the reader? Where are the brave
plans of reform which should follow such prologues?
No man with a heart can withhold
sympathy from the laborer whose strength is wasted
and whose hope is thwarted in the service of the
heartless and closefisted; but, then, no man with a
head ought to speak that sympathy in the public
prints unless he have some manly, thought-out ways
of betterment to propose. One wearies easily, it
must be confessed, of woful-warnings; one sighs
often for a little tonic of actual thinking grounded
in sane, clear-sighted perception of what is
possible to be done. Sentiment is not despicable �
it may be elevating and noble, it may be inspiring,
and in some mental fields it is self-sufficing � but
when uttered concerning great social and political
questions it needs the addition of practical,
initiative sense to keep it sweet and to prevent its
becoming insipid.
I point these remarks
particularly at current discussions of socialism,
and principally of 'state socialism,' which is
almost the only form of socialism seriously
discussed among us, out-side the Anti-Poverty
Society. Is there not a plentiful lack of nerve and
purpose in what we read and hear nowadays on this
momentous topic. One might be excused for taking and
keeping the impression that there can be no great
need for the haste in the settlement of the
questions mooted in connexion with it, inasmuch as
the debating of them has not yet passed beyond its
rhetorical and pulpit stage. It is easy to make
socialism, as theoretically developed by the greater
and saner socialistic writers, intelligible not
only, but even attractive, as a conception; it is
easy also to render it a thing of fear to timorous
minds, and to make many signs of the times bear
menace of it; the only hard task is to give it
validity and strength as a program in practical
politics. Yet the whole interest of socialism for
those whose thinking extends beyond the covers of
books and the paragraphs of periodicals lies in what
it will mean in practice. It is a question of
practical politics, or else it is only a thesis for
engaging discourse.
Even mere discourses, one would
think, would be attracted to treat of the practical
means of realizing for society the principles of
socialism, for much the most interesting and
striking features of it emerge only when its actual
applications to concrete affairs are examined. These
actual applications of it are the part of it which
is much the most worth talking about � even for
those whose only object is to talk effectively.
Roundly described, socialism is a
proposition that every community, by means of
whatever forms of organization may be most effective
for the purpose, see to it for itself that each one
of its members finds the employment for which he is
best suited and is rewarded according to his
diligence and merit, all proper surroundings of
moral influence being secured to him by the public
authority. 'State socialism' is willing to act
though state authority as it is at present
organized. It proposes that all idea of a limitation
of public authority by individual rights be put out
of view, and that the State consider itself bound to
stop only at what is unwise or futile in its
universal superintendence alike of individual and of
public interests. The thesis of the states socialist
is, that no line can be drawn between private and
public affairs which the State may not cross at
will; that omnipotence of legislation is the first
postulate of all just political theory.
Applied in a democratic state,
such doctrine sounds radical, but not revolutionary.
It is only an acceptance of the extremest logical
conclusions deducible from democratic principles
long ago received as respectable. For it is very
clear that in fundamental theory socialism and
democracy are almost if not quite one and the same.
They both rest at bottom upon the absolute right of
the community to determine its own destiny and that
of its members. Men as communities are supreme over
men as individuals. Limits of wisdom and convenience
to the public control there may be: limits of
principle there are, upon strict analysis, none.
It is of capital importance to
note this substantial correspondence of fundamental
conception as between socialism and democracy: a
whole system of practical politics may be erected
upon it without further foundation. The germinal
conceptions of democracy are as free from all
thought of a limitation of the public authority as
are the corresponding conceptions of socialism; the
individual rights which the democracy of our own
century has actually observed, were suggested to it
by a political Philosophy radically individualistic,
but not necessarily democratic. Democracy is bound
by no principle of its own nature to say itself nay
as to the exercise of any power. Here, then, lies
the point. The difference between democracy and
socialism is not an essential difference, but only a
practical difference � is a difference of
organization and policy, not a difference of primary
motive. Democracy has not undertaken the tasks which
socialists clamour to have undertaken; but it
refrains from them, not for lack of adequate
principles or suitable motives, but for lack of
adequate organization and suitable hardihood:
because it cannot see its way clear to accomplishing
them with credit. Moreover it may be said that
democrats of to-day hold off from such undertakings
because they are of to-day, and not of the days,
which history very well remembers, when government
had the temerity to try everything. The best thought
of modern time having recognized a difference
between social and political questions, democratic
government, like all other governments, seeks to
confine itself to those political concerns which
have, in the eyes of the judicious, approved
themselves appropriate to the sphere and capacity of
public authority.
The socialist does not disregard
the obvious lessons of history concerning
overwrought government: at least he thinks he does
not. He denies that he is urging the resumption of
tasks which have been repeatedly shown to be
impossible. He points to the incontrovertible fact
that the economic and social conditions of life in
our century are not only superficially but radically
different from those of any other time whatever.
Many affairs of life which were once easily to be
handled by individuals have now become so entangled
amongst the complexities of international trade
relations, so confused by the multiplicity of
news-voices, or so hoisted into the winds of
speculation that only powerful combinations of
wealth and influence can compass them. Corporations
grow on every hand, and on every hand not only
swallow and overawe individuals but also compete
with governments. The contest is no longer between
government and individuals; it is now between
government and dangerous combinations and
individuals. Here is a monstrously changed aspect of
the social world. In face of such circumstances,
must not government lay aside all timid scruple and
boldly make itself an agency for social reform as
well as for political control?
'Yes,' says the democrat,
'perhaps it must. You know it is my principle, no
less than yours, that every man shall have an equal
chance with every other man: if I saw my way to it
as a practical politician, I should be willing to go
farther and superintend every man's use of his
chance. But the means? The question with me is not
whether the community has power to act as it may
please in these matters, but how it can act with
practical advantage � a question of policy.'
A question of policy primarily,
but also a question of organization, that is to say
of administration. |
