The term Socialism is usually supposed to date from Robert Owen. It is doubtful, however, whether Owen’s claim to having invented the word is altogether sustainable. Pierre Leroux, Louis Reybaud, and others have similar claims to have been its originators. The truth would seem to be that it came into being about the same time in more than one quarter. It soon began to be applied indifferently to the theories of the three great Utopian systems which arose during the early part of the nineteenth century, namely, those of Owen, Fourier, and Saint Simon. Now these three systems had this in common, they proposed to revolutionise human life in its various aspects, primarily its economic basis, the mode under which production and distribution of its wealth takes place. This economic reconstruction was regarded as a lever for revolutionary changes in other departments of human life, notably in marriage and the family relation, and in the mental and moral attitude of man towards society and the universe. As will be seen, the word arose at a time when the new capitalist class, based upon the machine industry, was rising to power. It thus connoted on its negative side the antithesis to the individualism – “each for himself and the devil take the hindmost” – which was the expression of the new capitalist view of social life.
It should be remarked that the systems to which the term Socialism was originally applied, one and all included revolutionary changes in the relations of the sexes and in religious belief, in addition to economic reconstruction, as part and parcel of their programme. In 1848, with the national workshops scheme of Louis Blanc, the term Socialism first came within the sphere of practical politics. The principle of co-operative production at the basis of all the Utopian systems to which the name of Socialism had been hitherto applied, was now about to enter the arena, as it seemed, of actual social and political life. (Of course, as every man knows, who cares to know at the present day, Louis Blanc’s scheme, defective as it was, never had a chance on this occasion. But this has nothing to do with our present subject.)
From the revolution of 1848 may possibly be dated the tendency to narrow down the definition of Socialism to an exclusively economic issue. In 1847, less than a year before the outbreak of the great revolutionary movement, Marx and Engels drew up a document which may be regarded as the literary inauguration of the Modern Socialist Movement, to wit, the celebrated Communist Manifesto. Under the name of Communism – the word Socialism having by that time become somewhat usé, owing to its association not only with the three great Utopian systems of the beginning of the century, but with inferior imitations, and crude theories emanating from them – the two protagonists of the modern movement drew up a statement of the scientific and historical conditions of which the co-operative commonwealth, which constituted the essential ideal of what had hitherto gone under the name of Socialism, would be the issue. The term “Communism” adopted throughout the manifesto soon fell into disuse and became supplanted by the phrase Social Democracy, and by the old word Socialism, which seems destined to triumph finally over all competitors. In the Communist Manifesto, as is well known, the point of view of historic evolution of the class-struggle under the paramountcy of the economic side of human affairs, was expounded for the first time in a succinct and definite form. That democracy was the essential condition of Communism (Socialism) was emphatically insisted upon, and that the transformation of the Civilisation of to-day into the Socialism of to-morrow must be brought about through a political revolution involving a change in the possessors of power, was made clear. Henceforward the Socialist movement in the modern sense began slowly to shape itself.
We come now to the main question of this chapter: namely, as to the definitions of Socialism in its modern acceptation. A thoroughly superficial definition is one quoted by Mr G.K. Chesterton in an article in the Daily News a year or two back. “Socialism,” said Mr Chesterton, means “the assumption by the State of all the means of production, distribution, and exchange.” Mr Chesterton’s aim was to discredit Socialism by showing that it did not necessarily involve democracy, relative economic equality, or anything else it is usually supposed to imply. This, of course, was no difficult task, starting from the above inadequate definition, and easily allowed Mr Chesterton to assume with an affected naiveté that “the State” referred to might be a “despotic State, an aristocratic State, or a Papal State.” This is, of course, merely a reductio ad absurdum of the definition itself. And yet how many persons who consider they know something about the subject would not be disposed to accept, or at least to acquiesce in, the above definition without comment!
The idea that all Socialism means is the concentration of the means of production, etc., in the hands of any corporate entity that may be called a State, irrespective of what that State may be, is often regarded in the present day as showing a well-informed and up-to-date condition of mind on the subject. This notion that the one and only salient point about Socialism is the concentration of productive wealth in the hands of a power supposed to represent the community, has been fostered in recent years by many adherents of Socialism as a counterblast to the ascription to Socialism of certain definite tendencies of a political, social, or religious character. In opposition to the latter it has been sought to narrow the definition down to the economic issue exclusively, and even to this issue in its crudest and most abstract form. It is manifest at a glance that the mere concentration of production, etc., in the hands of a despot or an aristocratic oligarchy would not be Socialism in any sense under which the word has hitherto been understood.
The idea of democracy has always formed an essential element in the conception of Socialism as such. Where this has been absent and the word Socialism has been retained in popular usage, it has invariably been qualified as Christian Socialism, State Socialism, “Socialism of the Chair,” etc., to distinguish what is meant from Socialism proper. For the latter, the democratic basis and end is every whit as essential as the economic concentration itself Of course, anyone may define a word as he pleases, but no one has any right to claim general recognition for, or to argue from, any definition that runs seriously counter to the meaning attached to a term by the majority of mankind, and which it has connoted from its earliest historical use. Hence, to take the case in point, we are bound to regard Mr Chesterton’s definition of Socialism, as given above, as inadmissible, and any argumentation based upon it as invalid. Every man in the present day knows perfectly well that despotic, aristocratic, or papal conditions exclude the notion of Socialism at the very outset. But the significance of Mr Chesterton’s fallacious definition is not confined to the definition itself. When stated by him, together with the consequences he draws from it, the absurdity will be at once apparent to the majority of readers. The real source and origin of the fallacy, however, will be found, I think, to lie in the tendency before spoken of, to narrow down the definition of Socialism too exclusively and too formally to the central economic issue. This tendency is, more or less, recent in origin. All the Utopian systems of the first half of the nineteenth century, whilst placing the economic re-organisation of society in the forefront, included far-reaching ethical, intellectual, and social changes other than economic, as coming under the definition of Socialism as they understood it.
In the Communist Manifesto of Marx and Engels, the standpoint of the Marxian historical materialism is insisted upon in the sense that the other changes in the “superstructure” of society, as they termed it, the direction of which was foreshadowed in the main by the early Utopian thinkers, must inevitably follow on the economic revolution effected in the Socialism or “Communism” they set forth. It is well known that the modern movement of revolutionary Socialism has been, in all its phases, more or less openly hostile to, and invariably critical of, the various institutions obtaining in the bourgeois world of to-day, whether as regards religious beliefs and churches, present forms of marriage and the family, or the current ideas of duty, patriotism, etc. At the same time, while the general trend alike of the popular movement, as well as of its literary and intellectual exponents, has been in this direction, there has, nevertheless, been a general hesitancy to identify the movement too closely with matters other than politico-economic.
Yet, as I have more than once pointed out, it is unwarrantable to limit the term Socialism to a purely economic formula. It is, in fact, impossible to do so without violating principles universally recognised by modern Socialists as part of their ideal. The definition of Mr Chesterton above referred to is a sufficient illustration of this. By omitting all reference to the basis of democracy and the end of economic equality, relative or absolute, it is easy to infer a result the very opposite to that which is really intended by those who use the word. Democracy, for example, has primarily reference to politics rather than economics, and yet it is as essential to the modern conception of Socialism as that of economic concentration in the hands of an executive power. The whole question, indeed, hinges upon what the administrative power is that has the effective control over the public wealth. Its concentration in the hands of a despot or an oligarchy, with control amounting de facto to possession, is no more Socialism than the Standard Oil Trust is Socialism. (The foregoing remark does not, of course, apply to such temporary concentration or control in the hands of an exceptional Dictatorship designed to tide over a period of revolutionary crisis.) Moreover, the economic equality, which is the avowed aim of Socialism, would be unthinkable were the productive wealth of society given over to the control of despots and oligarchists. In other words, the political question is inseparably bound up with the economical.
The same might be said of other issues – questions of the family, of the principles of ethics, etc. It is impossible to draw a ring-fence round one department of human affairs, be it never so fundamental, and treat it as isolated from all others. But the attempt to define Socialism by a purely economic formula is not merely logically invalid and unsupported by the attitude, if not by the formal words, of the vast number of those who call themselves Socialists. It is also historically unjustifiable. The word, from its earliest use by Owen, Leroux, Reybaud, etc., in the thirties and forties of the last century, has always stood for a revolution, along certain well-defined lines, in human life generally. The attempt to limit it to a technical economic formula, the reductio ad absurdum of which we find in Mr Chesterton’s version, is, as I have said, quite late.
This attempt received one of its earliest expressions in English literature in Mr Kirkup’s article on Socialism in the Encyclopaedia Britannica (ninth edition). Mr Kirkup here labours to impress upon his readers a definition somewhat similar to Mr Chesterton’s as against current notions which assumed that Socialism had a word to say on law, morals, marriage, family, education, etc. His example has since been followed by a large number of exponents, hostile and friendly. It is difficult to say how, in view of the history of the word, the exponents in question justified this restriction of its meaning. The “materialist doctrine of history” of Marx certainly emphasises the economic basis of the social life of man as in a sense the cause of all other manifestations of that life, even those seemingly most remote, but in practice even the strictest adherents of the doctrine in question assume the results of the economic change as taking place along definite lines, alike as regards man’s “view of the world, “ as regards the family relation, and as regards political issues, and do not hesitate to say so as occasion arises. It is well known that they are in favour of freer marriage relations, of the recognition by society of the conclusions of science as opposed to theological conceptions, and of democratic republicanism as against all forms of monarchical or oligarchic rule.
In these demands they undoubtedly carry on the tradition of historical Socialism, and the Marxian party, using the word in its larger meaning in the present day, is practically conterminous with the International Socialist movement. Yet, this notwithstanding, it cannot be denied that the Marxian thesis as regards the philosophy of history, according to which economic forms and relations are the causes in the long run of all the phenomena of man’s social and intellectual life, when interpreted in its narrow and literal signification, does give colour to the view that the definition of Socialism may be reduced to that of a purely economic change. But that this is so more in appearance than in reality is obvious, if we admit, as most Marxians do admit, that these other changes are involved in the economic change itself, for as such they cannot fail to be regarded as forming part and parcel of the changed conditions of the new society, which is only another way of saying that they must form an essential element in the complete ideal of Socialism.
How then stands it in the matter of short definitions of Socialism? Are such possible, and, if possible, are they of any value as bases to be argued from? Plainly, I think they are not. A world-historic movement like Socialism is too big a thing to be fitted into the four corners of a one-sentence formula. All such movements have a central principle, but round this principle group themselves a variety of implications, many of them, it is true, indirect and not always deducible from it at first sight, but which none the less belong to it, and though formally and technically they may be detached from it, yet always reassert themselves in the long run. Every movement has, so to say, its aura. Where you isolate the central principle from its implications, logical, historical, or both, you have lost touch with the concreteness of the ideal, and have nothing but an abstract formula before you. Now an abstract formula may be a very useful thing for working purposes, but for those who take a wider view it is only interesting in connection with the larger whole of which it is the framework. A skeleton is all very well, but its chief interest lies in the indication it affords of the nature of the concrete animal of which it is the skeleton.
As a rule, the vaguer the definition of Socialism, the less open to objection it is. Thus Socialism has been described as “a whole range of tendencies towards the reshaping of the social order at the dictation of certain feelings and certain lines of thought, which develops as it proceeds.” This is admissible, so far as it goes, and possibly Socialism could not be better defined in the same number of words, but the criticism cannot be gainsaid that it is too vague for positive instruction. If, however, we are content to renounce neat definitions for brief expositions, we can arrive at something very much more positive and definite, while at the same time acceptable to the vast majority of the International Socialist party. I do not propose to give one here, as I have already done so more than once in the course of my literary career. Hegel said that while previous thinkers had sought to define the Absolute in a phrase, he found that he could only do so in the exposition of a science. If it is not quite so bad as this with Socialism, it is certain that not even the semblance of justice or accuracy as regards definition can be attained in any form of words numerically less than that of an average leading article in a daily newspaper.
One thing is more often than not lost sight of in the attempt to define Socialism, and that is the distinction between what the present writer has termed “Socialism in the making,” and “Socialism as a realised ideal of society.” In the first period of Socialism there must undoubtedly be many anachronisms, large fragments of the old order of Society in the shape of institutions, customs, and ideas, surviving. That such will be the case no reasonable person, I take it, doubts at the present day. No one nowadays believes in a new heaven and a new earth arising in a perfect form overnight. But this does not hinder the fact that Socialism as a realised ideal, as no mere skeleton, but a thing of flesh and blood, is not exhausted, even in the most complete definition of its economic side. Shaw and others used to be fond of emphasising the fact of the impossibility of forecasting the life of the socialised world. This is perfectly just as against the attempt to describe the details of such life as was done by the old Utopists in one way, and by modern popular romancists in another.
But admitting this does not mean denying the possibility of indicating the tendencies which will be dominant in the world of the future and the main lines along which the institutions of that world will work, and this not merely in economic matters, but throughout the whole range of social affairs. For example, we may venture to assert that the aim and tendency of a Socialist society must be towards complete economic equality throughout the whole of that society. We know that in proportion as this aim is realised, the aim of Socialism is realised. Again, the vast majority of Socialists will agree that the greatest possible extension of liberty, individual and social, is a fundamental principle of Socialism, and that the tendency of the society of the future would be to abolish all direct coercion of the individual. Hence, for example, that, pace Mr Ramsay Macdonald, a society that sought to coerce its members either by law or public opinion into (say) an observance of lifelong monogamy or lifelong celibacy would not be possible under Socialism. Then again, as regards speculative opinion, here also as in modes of private life, Socialism implies, if nothing else, the most absolute toleration. No form of coercion, such as the impregnation of the immature minds of children with dogma by the directing power of the community, would be consistent with Socialism. Hence the demand for secular education. The one thing of which Socialism is intolerant is intolerance, and there its intolerance is absolute.
I have given the above merely as instances of questions constituting essential principles of Socialism, quite apart from its material foundation, to wit, the concentration of the productive wealth of the community in the hands of the community itself. If I be challenged as to my right to assert these things to be involved in the definition of Socialism, I answer the test of such definition can only be historical and actual usage. In this and in other cases we have to consider the connotation the word has generally borne hitherto, and what it connotes to the majority of those who are most interested in its definition at the present day. As tested by this standard, any definition of Socialists isolating its economic side and erecting the latter into a complete definition in itself, breaks down. The fact that sundry littérateurs and politicians have within the present generation done their level best to crush it into such an economic formula does not alter the question. And this remark applies not only to obviously absurd definitions such as that of Mr Chesterton (which omits a universally recognised essential), but even to the very best and broadest formula of the economic basis per se. No! the word covers more than a mere economic transformation, as does the movement, and the test of what it does cover can only, I again insist, be the historical and actual implications included under it, tacitly if not avowedly, by the bulk of those who are best qualified to define its use, namely, Socialists themselves.
Last updated on 15.10.2004