Socialism-Substance and Label; E. Opitz

SOCIALISM SUBSTANCE AND LABEL tv GJmunJ.A.Opitz AMERICANS appear to like most everything about social ism except the name. Let a politician lift a plank out of the old time Socialist Party platform, paint it red, white, and blue to disguise its origin, and the voters will go on a stampede until they find some office for him. Socialism, thus domesticated, is safe and sane enough for a Fourth of July oration. But if an opinion poll is taken of these same voters it reveals that they are as hostile to the socialist label as they are friendly to its substance. "For the great majority of Americans," laments a pair of certi fied thinkers who jointly edit a socialist monthly, "'so cialism' is little more than a dirty word." Thus it was necessary for Mr. W. Averell Harriman, when he directed the mutual security program, to ex plain away foreign "socialism" for the inquiring mem bers of a Senate committee. "Now this word (sic!) 'So cialist Party' is much misunderstood here, because it is a general term. In many countries the Socialist Party is what we would call here the New Deal Party or a Fair Deal Party and not the theoretical socialist of the his toric kind."

367 368 EDMUND A. OPITZ This confusion about socialism as between substance and label bespeaks the need of a definition. As a first step, turn to Webster's dictionary. There we read this: "Socialism: A political and economic theory of social organization based on collective or governmental owner ship· and democratic management of the essential means for the production and distribution of goods." This definition may be sharpened to read as follows: "A con viction or belief that organized police force-govern ment-should dictate the creative activities of citizens within a society by the ownership and/or control of the means of production and exchange." Such definitions as these are all right as far as they go, but they omit an important fact about socialism: that it is a substitute religion for many people, arousing all the emotional· response and ethical fervor of genuine re ligion. It is a dream of the kingdom of God on earth but, as von Huegel observed, "without a king and with out a .God."

It was such a religion to H. G. Wells, for example. Wells stands about halfway between Karl Marx and the present. He was active among the early Fabians in Great Britain and wrote his. book, New Worlds for Old, about fifty years ago. In it he said, "Socialism is to me a very great thing indeed, the form and substance of my ideal life and all the religion I possess. I am, by a sort of predestination, a socialist .. I perceive I cannot help talking and writing about so cialism, and shaping and forwarding socialism. I am one of a succession-one of a growing multitude of witnesses, SOCIALISM-SUBSTANCE AND LABEL 369 who will continue. It does not-in the larger sense matter how many generations of us must toil and testify. It does not matter, except as our individual concern, how individually we succeed or fail, what blunders we make, what thwartings we encounter, what follies and inadequacies darken our private hopes and level our personal imaginations to the dust. We have the light.

We know what we are for, and that the light that now glimmers so dimly through· us must in the end prevail." This apocalyptic mood was shared by Americans in the early decades of this century. One of these was the prominent socialist, George D. Herron. He wrote, "There is approaching-and it is not so far off as it seems-a world arranged by the wisdom hid in the hu man heart; a world that is the organization pf a strong and universal kindness; a wor ld redeemedl from the fear of institutions and of poverty. Even now, derided and discouraged as it is, socially untrained arid inexperi enced as it is, if the instinctual and repressed kindness of mankind were suddenly let loose upon the earth, sooner than we think would we be members one of an other, sitting around one family hearthstone, and sing ing the song of the new humanity." In Aristotle's View These harbingers of a terrestrial paradise by legisla tive fiat are not without antecedents. Aristotle encoun tered them. Proposals for legislative interference have "a specious air of benevolence," he says, causing an audi370 EDMUND A. OPITZ ence to accept them with delight, supposing, "especially when abuses under the existing system are denounced as due to private property, that under communism everyone will miraculously become everyone else's friend." But, Aristotle comments, "the real cause of these evils is not private property but the wickedness of human nature."

The men for whom socialism is a kind of religion, see it as the fulfillment of mankind's age-old dream of jus tice and good will on earth. Lenin brought to fruition the seeds planted as far back as the Old Testament prophets! Harry Laidler, of the League for Industrial Democracy, opens his History of Socialist Thought (1927) with a chapter in praise of Amos, Hosea, Isaiah, Jesus, and St. Augustine. This tactic of marshaling the great figures of our religious tradition under the ban ner of socialism is designed to make the critic of modern socialism appear in opposition to the spiritual giants of our race. But the dream of justice and good will among men is by no means the exclusive possession of socialists; it is a dream shared by all men of generous instincts. It is possible to demonstrate, moreover, that the good things, both material and spiritual, that we desire for all men are undermined by methods socialists use to attain them.

The socialist dream is shattered by the operational im peratives of socialist performance. This is not only true of Russian practice; it is implicit in socialist theory. Socialists propose to realize their dreams by putting the productive powers of men under the direction and SOCIALISM-SUBSTANCE AND LABEL 371 control of the State. Socialists prefer to speak of the so cial ownership of property. But society-which means all of us-cannot act as a whole to own and control prop erty; it must act through its enforcement agency, which is government. The men who comprise the governing agency in any society are a small minority within that society. The Methods Are Unsuited In practice, therefore, a socialist society is one in which the vast majority of men are controlled by the tiny minority which has power to direct their economic activities. We might put the matter differently by say ing that the socialist dream is based on the delusion that men's other freedoms will be enhanced if they are de prived of economic liberty. By eliminating economic liberty and replacing it with a planned economy social ists hope to usher in a brave new world.

It hasn't worked out that way in practice because the theory is all wrong. "Economic control is not merely control of a sector of human life which can be sepa rated from the rest," writes F. A. Hayek, Hit is control of the means for all our ends." Eliminate economic lib erty in a society and you begin to institute a master-slave relationship. The guiding ideals which ushered in the modern period aimed at the liberation of the individual; from ecclesiastical corruption, from political tyranny, and from economic bondage. These movements of liber ation converge and the individual is more firmly fettered 372 EDMUND A. OPITZ than ever before. What a strange denouement I How did it happen? Chronic Discontent Socialism, as mood, theory, and practice, is a result of the material abundance made possible by the industrial revolution. Millions of people had toiled close to the soil for millennia, only to be rewarded by a bare sub sistence, at best; at worst by plague and famine. U nti!

the modern era, poverty was hardly more attributed to human arrangements than to cosmic setting; one seemed about as fixed as the other .. Generations toiled, fed, bred, and died and, because of the general conviction that such was man's fate, entertained little hope of bettering their circumstances. The expectation of unimaginable progress was released by the revol u tionary changes which mark the modern period, a period characterized until recently by expanding political liberty, invention and technology, capitalist production, and relative ma terial abundance. Men ceased to yearn for compensatory delights in the world to come and began to dream of getting their New Jerusalem now in "England's green and pleasant land." Secular hopes grew wildly, and material progress seemed to justify them. Conditions of existence were ameliorated. Life expectancy increased; many diseases were eliminated. Populations have increased at an ac celerated rate since 1800; but in spite of this, the addi tional mouths were better fed and the additional bodies were better housed and clothed. But this was not SOCIALISM-SUBSTANCE AND LABEL 373 enough. For those whose expectations can only be summed up by one word, "More!" no additional incre ment is ever enough.

Given this mood, discontent becomes chronic in the modern world. Material progress must forever trail be hind expectation because, in the nature of things, eco nomic goods are always in short supply. This does not reflect a human failure; it is a built-in feature of the universe. A thing is not an economic good unless it is scarce relative to human demand for it. Human de mands, being limitless, invariably outrun supplies, which are naturally limited. This simple fact is widely over looked, with the result that a sense of grievance has be come endemic among large numbers of people. It is simply a reflex of the contrast between a utopian vision and actual living conditions. Being poor is endurable, and besides, poverty is a relative matter. But the feeling that one is being kept poor raises an issue of an altogether different sort; jus tice is involved. Embracing the practical possibility of a heaven on earth is the first false step; belief in a con spiracy· which prevents it from arriving is .the second. A mind vvhich entertains the first foolishness is ripe to be infected with the second.

A sense of grievance is, of all human emotions, the easiest to exploit; and e4ploited it was, by grievance collectors and demagogues. Political power had been wrested from the kings and distributed according to the democratic formula.· But after the glow of exaltation over popular sovereignty had worn off, it was noticed 374 EDMUND A. OPITZ that the anticipated new dawn had not broken. The im mediate inference was that someone must be holding it back. The bottleneck could not be political-the demo cratic revolution assured that; therefore, it must be eco nomic. A conspiracy of capitalists prevented the arrival of utopia! Obviously, we needed an economic revolution. ffDas Kapital" The word "capitalist" was a Marxian term, imported into the language for polemical purposes and as a term of abuse. The "capitalist" was the owner of the factories, machines, and tools. He employed people to run his equipment and then, in his depravity, stole everything they produced except for the pittance they needed to stay alive.

This "surplus value" theory would never have been broached-or, if broached, would never have caught on except that the mentality of the period consisted of a utopian expectation, a sense of grievance, and a belief that the masses were victims of a conspiracy. Out of this soil sprang modern collectivist movements, Marxian and otherwise. But collectivism has been fed by another tributary as well, a non-theoretical one. Classic liberalism dis trusted the state, per see On principle it threw up safe guards to protect society from undue extensions of political power. But the democratic principle does not address itself to· the problem of limiting political auth ority; it is concerned only to get the state operating unSOCIALISM-SUBSTANCE AND LABEL 375 der popular auspices, or majority rule. If a majority wants the state to undertake some function, there is nothing in the democratic principle to forbid it, how ever unjust it might be, or however violative of the principles of liberalism, which make for limited government.

The nature of political action is constant, regardless of the auspices under which it operates. It is of the na ture of power to want to perpetuate itself and, following this mandate, every government seeks to create the means of its own support. The Court of Versailles, un der the old regime, was largely a group of wastrels de pending on government handouts for their mode of life. Their consumption was nothing if not conspicuous. Po litical subventions, under a democracy, are more subtle, but the feeling spreads that everyone is entitled to all he can get. Government comes to be regarded as a benign omnip otence possessing the magical properties of an Alad din's lamp. If properly approached-by means of a lobby or pressure group which knows which buttons to push, which levers to pull-it delivers the goods as obediently as a vending machine. Government is a tool capable of accomplishing anything a majority can be mustered to demand. "Majority" is a technical term among political pros, referring to a numerical figment used by a literal minority to justify a handout from the public treasury.

Democracy and majority rule become a screen behind which insiders operate under the formula: Votes and taxes for all, subsidies for us.

376 EDMUND A. OPITZ Given popular acceptance of the Service State-a po litical authority presumed to be responsive to majority demand, and it is inevitable that democratic govern mentswould get into. the business of dispensing economic benefits-advantage for some at the expense of others. Pyf'a1nidingSpecial Pleaders There is only one way for mankind to live and im prove its economic circumstances, and that is by apply ing its energies to nature and nature's products. Goods are produced in this way and in no other. But once pro duced, the goods of some men may be acquired by other men through political manipulation. Let government perform this service and the trek to Washington is on. Once on, it will grow in geometric progression as group after group organizes to apply political pressure to get something· for nothing: organized labor, the farm bloc, veterans, regional groups, educationists, the aged, and others.

Business and industry, strictly speaking, have to do only with the deploying of economic factors and re sources-somebody making something, transporting it, exchanging it. A businessman or industrialist, pursuing his aims as an entrepreneur, seeks to turn a profit. The appearance of a profit indicates that his talents are be ing employed in a manner approved by a significant number of people. Absence of a profit, on the other hand, ought to be his clue that people are instructing him to go··into some other line. So long as a man proSOCIALISM-SUBSTANCE AND LABEL 377 duces and sells things people· want at a price they are willing to pay, he operates according to the rules of economics. The vast majority of our millions of busi ness enterprises are conducted in this fashion. All that is necessary to keep this operation going is for the law to inhibit and penalize cases of theft, fraud, and violence.

The processes of production and exchange are self starting and self-fueled and need nothing from govern ment but protection from predation. It is in the inter ests of business-as-a-whole to maintain this climate of freedom. But the immediate interests of a particular businessman do not always coincide with the interests of business-as-a-whole. That is to say, businessman X might find it profitable for himself if his responsive, democratic government will intervene to give him a preferential position in the market by penalizing his competitors. Such political intervention is contrary to the princi ples of classic liberalism and has the effect of giving some men an economic advantage at the expense of other men. Government intervention frustrates the workings of economic laws by forcing economic deci sions contrary to the decisions of the unhampered mar ket. The intervention annuls consumer choice, and the net result is economic advantage for political favorites.

Economic success under capitalism-the free market system-is measured by consumer s'atisfactions. If con sumers are pleased with the goods and services provided by a producer, as demonstrated by their willingness to 378 EDMUND A•.OPITZ pay for them, the producer makes a profit. But in a political setup where the politicians stand by to confer economic advantage in return for lobbying and pressure group activity, material rewards may accrue to a man, even if consumers have returned a negative vote by not buying his goods or services. When there is general acceptance of the idea that it is the function of the State to dispense economic priv ilege to its partisans, there will be competition among "businessmen" for political largesse. This is a departure from capitalism into the practice of an under-the-coun ter socialism. The practice has been all too prevalent during the past century, and is one of the main influ ences feeding into the socialist trend. No businessman wants over-all socialism, but many a businessman wants a little piece of socialism where it is to his immediate advantage. Add up all· these little pieces and the society is no longer liberal. It may be called liberal· by some merely because the word has a favorable connotation, but it is not liberal in the limited government sense of the word.

The Costs of Freedom Classic liberalism meant freedom: freedom to write and speak, to worship and teach, and, most neglected freedom of all, freedom of economic enterprise, i.e., consumer sovereignty in the market place. A believer in free speech accepts this principle even though he is fully aware that its exercise will result in campaign SOCIALISM-SUBSTANCE AND LABEL 379 oratory, socialist tracts, uplift drivel, pornography, pub lic relations prose, modern poetry, and the "literature" of a beat generation. The defender of free speechrecog nizes these things as corruptions of the divine gift of communication, but they are part of the price he is will ing to pay for freedom. Freedom costs, and thus it can not endure among a people who do not understand this or, if they do, are unwilling to incur these costs. Accept the principle of religious liberty and things will happen which the civilized man will view with dis gust. There will be holy roller revivals, store-front churches, unlettered Bible thumpers, bingo, and baked bean suppers. But the man possessed of a sensitive re ligious conscience is aware that it is not up to him to tell God the kind of instruments He can use to work His mysterious ways; and he wishes to make it plain that the opponent of religious liberty, if he is logical, must invoke a kind of inquisition to curb those expres sions of religion he finds distasteful.

Acceptance of the principle of economic liberty means that the consumer has a right to demand, and the pro ducer a right to supply, any item which does not injure another-as injury is defined in laws against theft and fraud. This means that poor taste and doubtful morals will find expression here just as they do in the kindred fields of speech and religion. A rock-and-roll performer will ride around in a pink Cadillac while a symphony orchestra has to beg for funds. A race track will be built where common sense would dictate a playground. Peo ple refuse to .buy mere transportation; they want a 380 EDMUND A•.OPITZ chariot with lots of chrome and three hundred horses under the hood. Worse yet, when political subventions are available, some businessmen will seek· to get "one up" on their competitors with government help. Freedom costs, and the costs of freedom in the areas of speech, press, worship, and assemblage are generally acknowledged by a significant number of articulate peo ple. These freedoms are not under assault-not in this country, at any rate. In the case of economic freedom the situation is different. Few people mistake the abuses of free speech for the principle itself; but the abuses of economic liberty loom so large in the modern eye that it cannot detect the market principle of which they are violations.

Properly Limited Government Freedom, in sound theory, is all of a piece. It hinges on properly limiting government. A society may be called free when its government does not dictate mat ters of religion and private conscience, does not censor reading material, curb speech, nor bar lawful assem blage. But mere paper guarantees of these important freedoms are worthless if there is governmental control and bureaucratic planning of economic life. The guar antee of religious freedom is worth little if the devotees are denied the economic means to build their temples, print their literature, and pay their spiritual guides. How meaningful is freedom of the press if there are no private means to buy paper and presses? And there is no SOCIALISM-SUBSTANCE AND LABEL 381 full right to assemble if buildings, street corners, and vacant lots are government owned. "Whoso controls our subsistence controls us."

If government is properly limited, men are free. In a free society a certain pattern of economic activity will be precipitated. This pattern will change constantly. It will respond as men have less or more political liberty. It will be modified as technology advances, taste is re fined, and morals improve. Properly speaking, the eco nomic pattern of a free society is capitalism, or the mar ket economy. Under capitalism the people are eco nomically free, exercising control over their own sub sistence, and thus they become self-controlling in other freedoms as well.