CHAPTER XII
SOCIALISM AND THE EVOLUTION THEORY
The idea of evolution has had a great influence in the history of socialistic speculation. Beginning with Saint-Simon most socialists have recognised three stages in the economic development of mankind—slavery, serfdom, and wage-labour—which last they believe will be displaced by an era of associated labour with a collective capital. The idea of development may indeed be regarded as essential to socialism, inasmuch as it must contemplate a succession of social-economic changes in history.
Marx and Lassalle were both trained in the school of Hegel, and naturally applied to the problems of society the Hegelian theory of development. The principle that economic categories are historical categories, so much emphasised by Lassalle, was by him, as it was by his fellow-labourers, merged in the wider and more fundamental conception of evolution, historical economics thus becoming evolutionary economics.
Some of the later socialists see in the theory of evolution associated with the name of Darwin a suitable expression of their ideas of development. Followers of Marx have found special points of attraction in Darwinism. Darwin himself was, of course, not a materialist; but many speculators have not unreasonably recognised in his teachings an affinity with materialism, which obviously accorded well with the materialistic conception of history held by Marx. The struggle of classes, which Marx regards as the key to history, is, we need not say, also an allied feature.
But the Darwinian conception of development has to many students suggested the strongest reasons for doubt and hostility with reference to socialism. How does the theory of the struggle for existence consist with the harmony of interests contemplated by socialism? Is it not utopian of the Marx school to believe that the struggle of classes, which has hitherto characterised the course of history, can be brought to a close by a great revolutionary act?
Competition, that _bête noire_ of the socialists, is simply the social-economic form of the struggle for existence. Is not competition, therefore, the prime condition of social progress? And is not socialism, therefore, inconsistent with progress?
Thus we are confronted with the twofold problem, whether socialism does not deny the cardinal principles of evolution, and thereby also deny the prime condition of social progress?
These questions are of considerable complexity. And their import will be better understood it we consider them in relation to another question with which they are intimately connected, and which is even more fundamental—the population question. The Darwinian theory of evolution rests on the Malthusian theory of population, and can be fully appreciated only by reference to it.
In this place we need not discuss the theory of population as a whole, but merely in so far as it bears on our present inquiry. The theory of Malthus is so remarkable for its simplicity that no worthy excuse can be offered for the misconceptions regarding it which have been prevalent. The seeds of life, so runs the theory of Malthus, have been scattered throughout the world with a profuse and liberal hand. All living things tend to multiply indefinitely. Animals—even the least prolific—would, if their increase were not checked, fill the entire world. But as the means of subsistence are limited, the struggle for existence inevitably ensues, which is obviously all the more intense because so many animals are themselves the means of subsistence to others.
So with man. If his natural powers of increase were exercised without check, it is only a question of time when the globe itself would be too small for the numbers of human beings, even though equipped with the most effective means of cultivation. In point of fact, population has almost always pressed on the available means of subsistence. The only important exceptions are found in new countries, when opened up to colonists who have brought with them the superior methods of exploitation developed in more advanced civilisations.
Thus the history of the human race is largely the record of a struggle for the means of subsistence caused by the pressure of population. Not that the population is necessarily dense. Some of the most thinly scattered peoples have had the greatest difficulty in making a living, simply because the available means of subsistence were exceptionally scanty, as the North American Indians, and above all in the continent of Australia before its settlement by Europeans. The study of human history shows that if the population was small, it was not owing to any defect in the natural powers of increase of human beings.
It will be seen that the Malthusian theory rests on two great facts: (1) on the physiological fact, viz. that all human beings are capable of indefinite increase; and (2) on a natural economic fact, that the means of subsistence are not capable of a corresponding indefinite increase, the ultimate reason of this being nothing else than the limited size of the planet on which we live. The inevitable result is the struggle for existence. The Darwinian theory of the struggle for existence has the widest application to human society and human history.
This struggle has gone on through a great variety of stages. In the earliest phases of human history it generally resulted in the extermination of the vanquished, and was often associated with cannibalism. As society advanced from the hunting and pastoral into the agricultural state, the victors saw that it would be their interest to spare the vanquished that they might enjoy the benefit of their labour as slaves. In this way began the institution of slavery, on which ancient civilisation rested. The warlike tribes that overturned the Roman Empire found that they could more easily and conveniently utilise the labour of the vanquished under the various forms of serfdom. In modern times free workers, destitute of capital, are ready under a system of competition to perform the labour of society for a wage that renders them the customary subsistence.
In the earliest stages the struggle was one for bare existence, not far removed above the lower animals; but as time went on, it began, as we have seen, to take a higher form. The main motive power, however, has always been the self-regarding principle in which the struggle originated. On the whole it was only a more rational and enlightened self-interest which dictated the change from extermination to slavery, from slavery to serfdom, and from serfdom to the system of competitive free labour. Idealism, the longing for a better life, has always had a considerable power in human affairs, and we hope that its influence will never cease to grow and prevail. Yet it could not be seriously maintained that the peoples who instituted slavery, serfdom, or the competitive system, were in the main actuated by ideal or high ethical motives. It is our duty to recognise with thankfulness that the inevitable progress of society has brought with it a higher life, even though it be merely due to a more enlightened self-interest.
Thus, while in its early stages it was a struggle for mere existence, in later times it has become more and more a struggle for a privileged or superior existence. The victors in most historic struggles have reserved to themselves the loftier functions of government, war and the chase, and the vanquished have been constrained to provide a subsistence both for their masters and themselves by means of labour. Life still is a struggle for the best places in society. And it is a particular object of struggle not to belong to the class of manual labour.
The competitive system is the latest form of the struggle for existence. It is not an accident, but the outcome of the prevalent historic forces. The time had come when free labour was found to be more efficient than servile labour. The feudal system, of which serfdom was a part, went down before the strongly centralised State. The competitive system is the form assumed by the struggle for existence in societies which were controlled by powerful central governments; it is industrial freedom under conditions of legality enforced by strongly constituted governments. In earlier and less settled states of society the struggle for existence used to be decided by more direct and forcible methods. In other days men slew their rivals; at the present time they undersell them.
And we need not say that the competitive system has been a process of selection, bringing to the front, as leaders of industry and also as heads of society, the fittest men.
The struggle for existence, therefore, has continued through human history, and does still continue. And we may feel assured that under the pressure of an ever-increasing population it will continue. The only question is regarding the form it is likely to take in the historic conditions which now tend to prevail all over the world.
For no conclusive solution of the population question is possible under any system. It has been a fundamental difficulty since the beginning of human society, and more than anything else may be regarded as the key to history. The migrations, wars, and conquests recorded in history have for the most part had their origin in want caused by the pressure of population on the extant means of subsistence. No doubt, ambition, vanity, suspicion, and restlessness have played a very considerable part of their own in the military annals of the race, but not nearly so large a part as is generally supposed. Historians have not given anything like adequate attention to the economic factors which have often so decisively operated in human affairs.
In its most comprehensive form, indeed, the population question does not concern the immediate future, for the world is not nearly replenished with human beings. In all the countries dominated by European civilisation, wealth has, owing to the vast mechanical development of the last hundred years, increased much more rapidly than population. But the question is one which does already practically concern the more populous centres over large areas of the world. In many of the old seats of population, both in Europe and the East, the struggle for existence is intense, and if not strongly counteracted, must tend to the increase of egotism, unscrupulousness, and general demoralisation. This is most observable in cases where a large population has to face the prospect of a declining prosperity. If the prosperity of this country were menaced by a great war, or a great shock to the national credit, or by both together, or simply by the slow decline of its industrial and commercial supremacy, the struggle for existence in our large towns would be unspeakable.
It is obvious, therefore, that we are not yet done with the problem of population. It is always a serious matter in the great centres; it may, under very conceivable circumstances, be a fearful dilemma at no very distant date; and as the world becomes more thickly peopled it will more and more present itself as a pressing question. We cannot here, however, enter into a detailed discussion of the problem. It will probably always be a difficulty, and will call forth a variety of answers. But, as we have already said, no satisfactory and conclusive solution can be offered or expected by any one who understands the conditions of the problem. The solution must wait on the moral and social development of mankind. There is certainly no prospect of the question being materially affected by any physiological modification of the human constitution. We can only hope that the present progress of civilised countries in morality, intelligence, and in a reasonable standard of living, will continue; that the improvement in material and economic conditions will go hand in hand with ethical advancement; that the happiness of mankind will not be wrecked by the irrational and unrestrained gratification of a single passion. If the mass of the people remain as they are, ready to sacrifice their own happiness and that of posterity to animal instinct, the population question cannot be solved, and the best hopes of human progress must be unfulfilled.
For socialism, as we have explained it, it may be claimed that it gives the strongest guarantees that the difficulty will receive the best and most rational treatment. As socialism generally means the supremacy of reason and morals over the natural forces, so with reference to the population question it means that natural appetite should be controlled by nobler and more rational feelings and principles. Under a socialistic system every member of the community will be interested in this as in every other serious question. The general enlightenment and the social conscience will most powerfully co-operate with the light and the conscience of the individual to effect a reasonable and a beneficent solution, as far as possible.
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But we must now return to the questions with which we started—the relation of socialism to the struggle for existence, and to social progress as dependent on the struggle for existence. As we have seen, the Darwinian theory of the struggle for existence has the widest application to human society and human history. But the struggle for existence is not the sole principle of social progress. Social progress proceeds from the interaction, the balance and harmony, of many principles. The general question of social development, in which that of progress is involved, must be regarded in the light of the following considerations. Only we must premise that they are not a contradiction of the Darwinian theory; they are to be taken as a complement of it, and a correction of the narrow and one-sided conception of the theory.
1. The political, social, and ethical development of mankind is largely a record of the endeavour to place the struggle for existence under regulation. Progress chiefly and supremely consists in the growing control of ethical principle over all the forms of selfishness, egotism, unscrupulousness, and cruelty called forth by such struggle. In other words, progress mainly consists in the growing supremacy of law, order, and morality over the excess of the self-regarding principle in which the individual struggle has its root. We do not say that this exhausts the meaning of the ethical development of man, but it is a most important aspect of it.
Thus the ethical factor is the decisive one in human progress, but it has advanced _pari passu_ with the general social and political progress. We see it in the crudest and most elementary forms when man emerged from the darkness of pre-historic times, and it has gradually developed into a noble complex of ideals, informed by a growing knowledge and by widening sympathies. In short, human progress has been a continual effort towards the realisation of the true, the beautiful, and the good, in such measure as was attainable by each succeeding generation of the race.
Not that the struggle for existence is hereby abolished. The struggle, and the regulation of it too, are carried forward into a further stage of progress, to be continued on a higher social and ethical plane. The human struggle generally is on a higher plane than the animal one which Darwin describes. It is a struggle on the plane of an intelligence which never ceases to develop, amongst beings who pursue social and ethical aims with growing clearness and energy. If the results still fall so far below our aims, it is because our intelligence and means of performance, though enlarging, are still very imperfect.
What we call natural selection in the animal world is in human history transformed, elevated, and idealised; it becomes social selection. We may call it natural, if we please; only, we must remember the greatly altered character of the agents concerned in it. While at every stage we see moral and intellectual growth, we must particularly remember that the new society for which socialists strive will consist of associated free beings acting under the regulation and stimulus of high ethical and artistic ends and ideals.
Nothing, therefore, can be more narrow and one-sided than to consider the struggle for existence as the sole lever of human progress. Such one-sided insistence on the idea of struggle is to deny the whole ethical development of the world.
Socialism professes to continue and promote the ethical and social development which we have described; on a higher plane of progress than has hitherto been reached to place the natural economic powers operating in human destiny under the regulation of reason, moral principle, and ideals of beauty; to render technical and mechanical appliances, and all the material and economic factors underlying human life, subservient to the well-being of man in a way hitherto unattained; and so to achieve the ethical freedom of man and his rational supremacy over the world. The competitive system is the latest phase in the struggle for existence, and socialism is the latest theory for the regulation of it along the well-approved lines of human progress.
By such tests, none lower or narrower, must a rational socialism be tried.
2. There is, however, one side of this ethical progress which deserves to be more particularly considered. The ethical progress of man is largely a development of the principle of sociality, community, or association. This principle has its centre in the family, with all that is implied therein; in the association of man and woman, in the sacrifices made by both and especially by the mother for the children. Historically, it has developed from the tribe into ever wider and more complex forms—the city, nation, and race—until it more and more embraces the whole human family. That is, it finally tends to become international, so that the whole human family may be included in common ethical and social bonds—a state of things which is still far from being realised, but it is in process.
In the evolution of living things two factors have been decisive, the development of brain power and the development of the social principle. We need scarcely add that the two are intimately connected, and further that the brain power of man is closely co-ordinated with his physical development. The supremacy of man is due to his brain power and to his readiness to associate for common ends, far more than to his strength or hardihood, in which he is greatly excelled by other animals. The entire history of civilisation bears witness to the potency of the two factors; for it is a truism to say that the communities and races that have excelled in brain power and in the family and social moralities have prevailed. A rational socialism might be defined as the mastery of associated human intelligence over the resources of nature for the general good. In this respect, also, the success of socialism would simply mark the continuous development of man along the tested and approved lines of progress.
It is no doubt one of the many exaggerations of Lassalle, due partly to his function of agitator, that he laid excessive emphasis on the principle of community as the lever of progress, compared with the individual principle. Progress has always depended on the action and interaction of both principles. It is rather an idle question, which of the two is the more important; like that other question, whether the great man makes the age, or the age makes the great man. The man and the age make each other.
We know the great influence often exerted in history by exceptional brain power or character, and both are often associated with a prominent individual. But high individual capacity is usually, if not always, found in an age and community with a high average of talent. Well-organised and well-endowed societies are most likely to produce the strongest and finest individuals, and it is only in such societies that the greatest individuals are likely to find adequate scope for their powers. We cannot form a just estimate of our subject unless we give due weight to both principles, but obviously the danger to society lies in the excessive development of the individual principle. History has too often witnessed the abnormal development of private selfishness, so overgrown as to weaken and finally dissolve the society in which it acted, thus accomplishing its own destruction. This is indeed the open secret of the ruin of most communities that have existed. We should seek in vain for an instance of a community ruined by excessive regard for the public good. A happy and wholesome individual development can be secured only by healthy relation and due subordination to society and the common weal.
It will be seen, then, that the principle of sociality or of association plays a specially important part in human development. Yet in close connection with it we again observe the wide operation of the struggle for existence. The struggle for existence is not only a struggle of individuals against each other. It has also been a struggle of tribe against tribe, of city against city, of nation against nation, and race against race. In the existing society it is, moreover, a struggle of classes against each other. Considered in this aspect, which is too obvious to require illustration, the struggle for existence has assumed the most complicated forms, and has had the greatest influence in the history of the world. And the intensity of the struggle has called forth some of the highest human qualities—inventiveness, capacity for organisation, submission to discipline, enthusiasm, heroism, and self-sacrifice. The struggle, hateful though it be in many respects, has been one of the great training schools of the human race.
Modern European history is an impressive example of the importance of this struggle for existence. The progress of Europe is greatly owing to the fact that in this continent we have a group of communities which are closely related, yet independent, and rivals. In every department of activity they learn from each other, and spur one another on by continual emulation. Each must follow its rivals in the adoption of every new improvement, under penalty of decline and even ruin. Communities like China and India in the old world, and the native States of Mexico and Peru in the new world, were isolated, and therefore stationary.
Under the existing conditions, a social organisation favourable to the development of the intelligence, energy, and enthusiasm of the mass of the people is more and more necessary to success in the keen and arduous struggle waged by the European communities. The future both of democracy and of socialism will largely depend on how far they can supply these advantages of organisation. For it is a struggle also between forms of social organisation. Any better form of organisation, when adopted by one of the communities, must also be adopted by its rivals. As soon as it was recognised that universal education and universal liability to military duty gave Prussia an exceptional advantage in the European struggle, other nations have been eager to follow.
Thus, through the development of the principle of sociality in the history of civilisation, the struggle for existence is not abolished. It is continued under more complex conditions, on a wider scale, over larger areas, by greater masses of organised men, with mightier weapons and vaster resources.
3. It is one of the most interesting aspects of history, that we regard it as the education of the human race. Social progress is the result of a long process of discipline, and the training has often been most severe. It would appear as if mankind needed to be goaded and driven forward on the path of improvement.
The theory of the struggle for existence throws new light on the education of humanity. The nations of the world have been schoolmasters to each other; and the competitive system, too, has been a process of discipline for all who have been concerned in it. Socialism, rightly understood, may be regarded as a new phase of the discipline of humanity. For the transition into socialism, if attainable at all, will be more difficult than many suppose. It must be gradual, preparing the minds and morals, the habits and institutions, of the mass of the people for a higher form of social-economic life. As isolated individuals, the working class have no prospect of success. They can make progress only by practising the virtues of combination, foresight, self-control, self-denial, discernment in choosing their leaders, loyalty, unwearying perseverance in well-doing. These qualities have been already cultivated in them by means of their trade-unions and co-operative societies. The process of socialistic evolution will carry on the process of social-economic education.
Socialism must therefore be regarded as providing an economic and social discipline for all men who have the requisite insight, and particularly for the working class, who are its special representatives and promoters. It will offer fresh scope and opportunity to the working class as a whole. But it will also be a process of social selection; for, while inviting all, it will attract the fittest and most worthy, and lead them on to higher things.