§ VI. Refutation of an Objection

When it is objected to socialists that finally individuals will have to be constrained by the ruling of authority to perform that work which the common good demands, and that thus all freedom in the choice of employment is taken away, they raise the contrary objection that also now there is no freedom in the choice of a vocation—that most people are forced by necessity to seize upon the first employment which offers itself to them. ‘Social democracy,” says Kautsky, the present theorist-in-chief of socialism, “cannot do away with the dependence of the laborer on the industrial machine of which he forms a cog; but instead of the dependence of the laborer on the capitalist, whose interests are clashing with his own, there will be put dependence on a society of which the laborer is a member, on a society of equal comrades with common interests.”¹

¹ Das Erfurter Programm, p. 169.

We are glad to record Kautsky’s concession that after all there will be no communist “leap of humanity from the realm of slavery into the realm of freedom.” But for this loss there is some compensation. In the commonwealth of the future we shall depend, not on an individual, but on a society of which we form a part. As if liberty consisted essentially in not depending on an individual! Slavery is and remains slavery; no matter whether my actions are prescribed by an individual or by a society of which I am a part, the subjection is the same. How should I be affected by the consciousness of being one of twenty or thirty million parts constituting a society which commands me to be chimney-sweep to-day, stable-boy or letter-carrier to-morrow?

As regards the assertion that also at present the laborer is not free, but depending on the conditions of production, we may concede that no absolute freedom is to be obtained. Yet there is a wide gap between absolute freedom and absolute bondage. It is not true that most people are not free to choose their vocation or employment. The great mass of the population has undoubtedly considerable freedom in this regard. There are comparatively few who are not free, on leaving school, to choose from a great variety of occupations. An unlimited freedom in the choice of a vocation does not exist, and has never existed; nor is such freedom in the interest of society; for it is rather an advantage to society if certain callings have permanence and stability, and are generally filled by the same classes. A family in which a certain business or trade has been traditionally handed down from generation to generation has generally great advantages from a moral and industrial standpoint over a family or individual who is new in such trade or business. That at present there are many cases in which, owing to extreme poverty, the choice of a state in life is almost illusory we shall willingly grant. But these are rare exceptions in comparison with the exigencies of the socialist state. Besides, this evil may in great part be remedied by reasonable social reforms affording energetic help to the poorer classes.

Finally—and that is the chief point—the necessity which binds men to a certain kind of work in the present state of society is only a moral one, which is independent of the will of others, while in the socialist state this necessity would emanate from the ordinations of the social authority.

In the socialist commonwealth each one’s vocation would finally be decreed and forced upon him from above—let us say by a board of experts. No one will easily submit to such treatment, and necessarily, besides all dissatisfaction, every complaint about the unfitness and injustice of one’s compulsory vocation would be directed against the governing body; they would be made responsible for every mistake, they would be called upon to redress every grievance.

To satisfy millions of people by allotting to each one the vocation he is to follow, would require superiors towering far above Solomon in wisdom, and inferiors endowed with an unusual share of disinterestedness.

At present, on the contrary, it is the interest of the individual which forces him to embrace a certain profession and to prepare himself properly for the duties connected with it. In consequence of this moral necessity the distribution of the various avocations of life is made without law or precept. Even the lowest and most disagreeable employments generally find a sufficient number of candidates, and commonly those who are employed in them are satisfied with their avocation as long as it yields them a sufficient means of subsistence. The discontent so common among laborers in our time is not with labor itself, but with excessive labor and insufficient pay. If employers would better the condition of the laborer, contentment and satisfaction with their condition would soon return to them if they were not disturbed by the visionary theories of socialist agitators. But if laborers are made to believe that all men have equal rights and should enjoy equal advantages in life, it will be found impossible to reconcile them with their condition. This same imaginary claim to absolute equality will prove the death-blow of socialism itself, for the simple reason that it aspires to an utter impossibility.