4. Political Difficulties of Socialism.

The first difficulty about the scheme is a political one. Pure unmitigated democracy is to Socialism the very breath of its nostrils : for if the State owned all capital, and privileged classes ruled the State, where would the workman be? But pure democracy is a very hard government to work. There is no instance in history of its working over a large area and for a long period of time. But the area of government duties in the Socialist State would be very large indeed. Not only would it include all the functions of government proper, as at present carried on, but likewise the supreme management of business throughout the country. To be sure, those functions would be simplified by the absence of competition, but even in their simplest form the administrative duties would be enormous. The State might have armies of clerks to work for it : moreover, the several gilds, as proposed above, might each conduct their own affairs; but there would always remain the appeal to the general assembly, an appeal that would be made continually. The assembly, unless it were willing that the government should pass into bureaucracy and oligarchy, would exercise an active and meddlesome supervision over the gilds and their officers. It would be a body huge and unwieldy, established on the principle of a vote for every man, and every man one vote. Obstruction would flourish there rank and impassable, like the growth of an Indian jungle. The labour of legislation would supplant the labour of production. The people would be voting supplies when they should be working for them. To “ run,” as the Americans phrase it, the Social Democracy, there ought to be, as there was at Athens and at Rome, one set of men to work as slaves, and another set to legislate and adjudicate as citizens.¹ Thus only would there be shoulders broad enough to bear the immense burden of sovereign and proprietary right combined, which Socialists wish to devolve upon the sovereign people.

¹ Rousseau was shrewd enough to see this. He says of the Greeks: “Des esclaves faisaient ses travaux : sa grande affaire était sa liberté. . . . Quoi ! la liberté ne se maintient qu’à l’appui de la servitude ! Peut-être. Les deux excès se touchent” (Du Contrat Social, iii. 15.).

We are told in reply that the General Assembly, in Socialist times to come, will consist of people so highly educated, so wise to discern their own best good in the good of the commonwealth, so very unlike all people within our experience, the British House of Commons included, that there need be no fear of obstruction, over-legislation, partisanship, or any other of the infirmities that have beset popular assemblies in the past. In other words, we are requested to discard all the lessons of history in judging of Socialist proposals. By what other canon is it possible to judge them except the experience of the past ? “ What is it that hath been ? The same thing that shall be.”

Peoples have their favourites as well as kings. The favourite of a Social Democracy would be a very formidable personage. The lives, liberties, and property of all would be in his hands. It is the way of the multitude in politics to overlook principles which they cannot understand or see the application of, and stand by persons who excite their enthusiasm and sympathy. To these persons they blindly commit the management of concerns, as our large-tongued James committed himself and his kingdom to “ Doggie Steenie.” But this devotion to what our forefathers in Cromwell’s time called “ The Single Person ” looks ominous for popular liberty. If ever in the Socialist State a Fighting Gild—in other words, a standing army—shall rise up by the side of the other gilds, the people may find some day that they and all their capital have passed into the ownership of a military despot.