Letter: “Brave New World”

To the Editors
I recently read one of your Socialist Standards with interest, and can to a large extent sympathise with your criticisms and even ideals, but I cannot accept your deductions and methods. If man was a completely rational and perfect social animal your plans might work, and society could indeed be run in the ways suggested, but Socialism omits the fact that man is an individual, with a free will of his own and bad qualities as well as good ones. Many, indeed most, of the working classes would behave in exactly the same way as the “capitalist exploiters” if they had the chance to take power themselves. The failing of all ideologies, whether of Marx, Hegel or anyone else, is that they fail to take account of man’s “spirit” : he will not be regimented, treated like a machine, or tied down by laws, however beneficial to himself ! Thus Socialism, unless you can change human nature, would be abused and turned into an inverted capitalism, just as the Russians failed with Marxism.

Another important point would seem to be the question of progress. All of mankind’s material advances are the result of competition between companies to produce a better or cheaper product, or alternatively, are a result of international conflict. In short, without a profit motive, where does the incentive come from ? I am convinced that a Socialist and propertyless society would stagnate.

In conclusion, I cannot for one moment contemplate a system being accepted which is irrevocable such as yours is. Unless the population have the right and opportunity to remove the government there is merely tyranny.

I feel that a Socialist must indeed be prepared for a “Brave New World.”
ian vine. Bristol Young Liberal Association.

REPLY
Mr. Vine should ask himself how it is that, if man “… will not be regimented, treated like a machine, or tied down by laws . . .” he submits so meekly to this sort of treatment under capitalism. It is difficult to imagine what more in the way of regimentation we could have suffered in the last war ; yet the working class accepted it as part of the war effort, which they supported. In the same way, they accept the uniformity of peacetime capitalism. This is not because they lack individuality ; they simply cannot afford to do anything else. Their wage packet forces them to live in a working class house, which is pretty much the same as the others around, to wear the same inferior clothes and to eat the same substandard food as their fellow workers. But if man were as individualistic as Mr. Vine supposes, why does he not rebel against such conditions?

In fact, men have always broadly conformed to the relationships of their social system—very few of them are sufficiently individualistic to opt out of society. Thus man will conform to the social requirements of Socialism, without needing to be “… a completely rational and perfect social animal. . . .” Nobody should pretend that man is such an animal ;. but he is rational enough to organise and maintain human society and to change it to suit his needs. That is as much as he can expect of himself, and it is enough to establish Socialism and to keep it running smoothly.

There may be examples of better and cheaper goods being produced as a result of economic competition. There are also examples of better and cheaper goods being deliberately suppressed, of badly needed food being destroyed, of harmful and shoddy goods being produced—all in the name of competition. International conflict may give something of a boost to, say, some branches of medical research. But it gives an even greater boost to the development of weapons. Socialism will replace the anti-social spurs of capitalism with the incentive which is based upon the simple fact that the people of the world will own the world. Then man’s ingenuity and energy will have complete freedom, because they will be working for the good of society, instead of for the profit of a minority.

Contrary to our correspondent’s view, this was never an issue in Russia because, as we pointed out at the time, the conditions were not ripe for it. All that happened in 1917, in fact, was that a country with a backward, semi-feudal system was enabled to develop itself into fully-fledged capitalist State,

Socialism is nothing unless it is a democratically controlled system. The fact that it will be a classless system means that it will not have any political parties (including the Socialist Party of Great Britain) to represent class interests, and no government to act as the coercive agent of a ruling class. But that is not to say that Socialism will be irrevocable—eternal, in fact. If, when it is established there were to develop enough faults in it to convince society of a need to abolish it, there would be nothing to stop them doing so.

But we hardly think this is likely.

EDITORIAL COMMITTEE.