PROPOSED ROADS TO FREEDOM(通往自由之路)

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PROPOSED ROADS TO FREEDOM

PROPOSED ROADS TO

FREEDOM

BY BERTRAND RUSSELL, F.R.S.

PROPOSED ROADS TO FREEDOM

INTRODUCTION

THE attempt to conceive imaginatively a better ordering of human

society than the destructive and cruel chaos in which mankind has hitherto

existed is by no means modern: it is at least as old as Plato, whose

``Republic'' set the model for the Utopias of subsequent philosophers.

Whoever contemplates the world in the light of an ideal--whether what he

seeks be intellect, or art, or love, or simple happiness, or all together--must

feel a great sorrow in the evils that men needlessly allow to continue, and-

-if he be a man of force and vital energy--an urgent desire to lead men to

the realization of the good which inspires his creative vision. It is this

desire which has been the primary force moving the pioneers of Socialism

and Anarchism, as it moved the inventors of ideal commonwealths in the

past. In this there is nothing new. What is new in Socialism and Anarchism,

is that close relation of the ideal to the present sufferings of men, which

has enabled powerful political movements to grow out of the hopes of

solitary thinkers. It is this that makes Socialism and Anarchism important,

and it is this that makes them dangerous to those who batten, consciously

or unconsciously upon the evils of our present order of society.

The great majority of men and women, in ordinary times, pass through

life without ever contemplating or criticising, as a whole, either their own

conditions or those of the world at large. They find themselves born into a

certain place in society, and they accept what each day brings forth,

without any effort of thought beyond what the immediate present requires.

Almost as instinctively as the beasts of the field, they seek the satisfaction

of the needs of the moment, without much forethought, and without

considering that by sufficient effort the whole conditions of their lives

could be changed. A certain percentage, guided by personal ambition,

make the effort of thought and will which is necessary to place themselves

among the more fortunate members of the community; but very few

among these are seriously concerned to secure for all the advantages

which they seek for themselves. It is only a few rare and exceptional men

who have that kind of love toward mankind at large that makes them

PROPOSED ROADS TO FREEDOM

unable to endure patiently the general mass of evil and suffering,

regardless of any relation it may have to their own lives. These few, driven

by sympathetic pain, will seek, first in thought and then in action, for some

way of escape, some new system of society by which life may become

richer, more full of joy and less full of preventable evils than it is at

present. But in the past such men have, as a rule, failed to interest the very

victims of the injustices which they wished to remedy. The more

unfortunate sections of the population have been ignorant, apathetic from

excess of toil and weariness, timorous through the imminent danger of

immediate punishment by the holders of power, and morally unreliable

owing to the loss of self-respect resulting from their degradation. To create

among such classes any conscious, deliberate effort after general

amelioration might have seemed a hopeless task, and indeed in the past it

has generally proved so. But the modern world, by the increase of

education and the rise in the standard of comfort among wage-earners, has

produced new conditions, more favorable than ever before to the demand

for radical reconstruction. It is above all the Socialists, and in a lesser

degree the Anarchists (chiefly as the inspirers of Syndicalism), who have

become the exponents of this demand.

What is perhaps most remarkable in regard to both Socialism and

Anarchism is the association of a widespread popular movement with

ideals for a better world. The ideals have been elaborated, in the first

instance, by solitary writers of books, and yet powerful sections of the

wage-earning classes have accepted them as their guide in the practical

affairs of the world. In regard to Socialism this is evident; but in regard to

Anarchism it is only true with some qualification. Anarchism as such has

never been a widespread creed, it is only in the modified form of

Syndicalism that it has achieved popularity. Unlike Socialism and

Anarchism, Syndicalism is primarily the outcome, not of an idea, but of an

organization: the fact of Trade Union organization came first, and the

ideas of Syndicalism are those which seemed appropriate to this

organization in the opinion of the more advanced French Trade Unions.

But the ideas are, in the main, derived from Anarchism, and the men who

gained acceptance for them were, for the most part, Anarchists. Thus we

PROPOSED ROADS TO FREEDOM

may regard Syndicalism as the Anarchism of the market-place as opposed

to the Anarchism of isolated individuals which had preserved a precarious

life throughout the previous decades. Taking this view, we find in

Anarchist-Syndicalism the same combination of ideal and organization as

we find in Socialist political parties. It is from this standpoint that our

study of these movements will be undertaken.

Socialism and Anarchism, in their modern form, spring respectively

from two protagonists, Marx and Bakunin, who fought a lifelong battle,

culminating in a split in the first International. We shall begin our study

with these two men--first their teaching, and then the organizations which

they founded or inspired. This will lead us to the spread of Socialism in

more recent years, and thence to the Syndicalist revolt against Socialist

emphasis on the State and political action, and to certain movements

outside France which have some affinity with Syndicalism-- notably the I.

W. W. in America and Guild Socialism in England. From this historical

survey we shall pass to the consideration of some of the more pressing

problems of the future, and shall try to decide in what respects the world

would be happier if the aims of Socialists or Syndicalists were achieved.

My own opinion--which I may as well indicate at the outset--is that

pure Anarchism, though it should be the ultimate ideal, to which society

should continually approximate, is for the present impossible, and would

not survive more than a year or two at most if it were adopted. On the

other hand, both Marxian Socialism and Syndicalism, in spite of many

drawbacks, seem to me calculated to give rise to a happier and better

world than that in which we live. I do not, however, regard either of them

as the best practicable system. Marxian Socialism, I fear, would give far

too much power to the State, while Syndicalism, which aims at abolishing

the State, would, I believe, find itself forced to reconstruct a central

authority in order to put an end to the rivalries of different groups of

producers. The BEST practicable system, to my mind, is that of Guild

Socialism, which concedes what is valid both in the claims of the State

Socialists and in the Syndicalist fear of the State, by adopting a system of

federalism among trades for reasons similar to those which are

recommending federalism among nations. The grounds for these

PROPOSED ROADS TO FREEDOM

conclusions will appear as we proceed.

Before embarking upon the history of recent movements In favor of

radical reconstruction, it will be worth while to consider some traits of

character which distinguish most political idealists, and are much

misunderstood by the general public for other reasons besides mere

prejudice. I wish to do full justice to these reasons, in order to show the

more effectually why they ought not to be operative.

The leaders of the more advanced movements are, in general, men of

quite unusual disinterestedness, as is evident from a consideration of their

careers. Although they have obviously quite as much ability as many men

who rise to positions of great power, they do not themselves become the

arbiters of contemporary events, nor do they achieve wealth or the

applause of the mass of their contemporaries. Men who have the capacity

for winning these prizes, and who work at least as hard as those who win

them, but deliberately adopt a line which makes the winning of them

impossible, must be judged to have an aim in life other than personal

advancement; whatever admixture of self-seeking may enter into the detail

of their lives, their fundamental motive must be outside Self. The pioneers

of Socialism, Anarchism, and Syndicalism have, for the most part,

experienced prison, exile, and poverty, deliberately incurred because they

would not abandon their propaganda; and by this conduct they have shown

that the hope which inspired them was not for themselves, but for

mankind.

Nevertheless, though the desire for human welfare is what at bottom

determines the broad lines of such men's lives, it often happens that, in the

detail of their speech and writing, hatred is far more visible than love. The

impatient idealist--and without some impatience a man will hardly prove

effective--is almost sure to be led into hatred by the oppositions and

disappointments which he encounters in his endeavors to bring happiness

to the world. The more certain he is of the purity of his motives and the

truth of his gospel, the more indignant he will become when his teaching

is rejected. Often he will successfully achieve an attitude of philosophic

tolerance as regards the apathy of the masses, and even as regards the

whole-hearted opposition of professed defenders of the status quo. But the

PROPOSED ROADS TO FREEDOM

men whom he finds it impossible to forgive are those who profess the

same desire for the amelioration of society as he feels himself, but who do

not accept his method of achieving this end. The intense faith which

enables him to withstand persecution for the sake of his beliefs makes him

consider these beliefs so luminously obvious that any thinking man who

rejects them must be dishonest, and must be actuated by some sinister

motive of treachery to the cause. Hence arises the spirit of the sect, that

bitter, narrow orthodoxy which is the bane of those who hold strongly to

an unpopular creed. So many real temptations to treachery exist that

suspicion is natural. And among leaders, ambition, which they mortify in

their choice of a career, is sure to return in a new form: in the desire for

intellectual mastery and for despotic power within their own sect. From

these causes it results that the advocates of drastic reform divide

themselves into opposing schools, hating each other with a bitter hatred,

accusing each other often of such crimes as being in the pay of the police,

and demanding, of any speaker or writer whom they are to admire, that he

shall conform exactly to their prejudices, and make all his teaching

minister to their belief that the exact truth is to be found within the limits

of their creed. The result of this state of mind is that, to a casual and

unimaginative attention, the men who have sacrificed most through the

wish to benefit mankind APPEAR to be actuated far more by hatred than

by love. And the demand for orthodoxy is stifling to any free exercise of

intellect. This cause, as well as economic prejudice, has made it difficult

for the ``intellectuals'' to co-operate prac- tically with the more extreme

reformers, however they may sympathize with their main purposes and

even with nine-tenths of their program.

Another reason why radical reformers are misjudged by ordinary men

is that they view existing society from outside, with hostility towards its

institutions. Although, for the most part, they have more belief than their

neighbors in human nature's inherent capacity for a good life, they are so

conscious of the cruelty and oppression resulting from existing institutions

that they make a wholly misleading impression of cynicism. Most men

have instinctively two entirely different codes of behavior: one toward

those whom they regard as companions or colleagues or friends, or in

PROPOSED ROADS TO FREEDOM

some way members of the same ``herd''; the other toward those whom

they regard as enemies or outcasts or a danger to society. Radical

reformers are apt to concentrate their attention upon the behavior of

society toward the latter class, the class of those toward whom the ``herd''

feels ill-will. This class includes, of course, enemies in war, and criminals;

in the minds of those who consider the preservation of the existing order

essential to their own safety or privileges, it includes all who advocate any

great political or economic change, and all classes which, through their

poverty or through any other cause, are likely to feel a dangerous degree

of discontent. The ordinary citizen probably seldom thinks about such

individuals or classes, and goes through life believing that he and his

friends are kindly people, because they have no wish to injure those

toward whom they entertain no group-hostility. But the man whose

attention is fastened upon the relations of a group with those whom it

hates or fears will judge quite differently. In these relations a surprising

ferocity is apt to be developed, and a very ugly side of human nature

comes to the fore. The opponents of capitalism have learned, through the

study of certain historical facts, that this ferocity has often been shown by

the capitalists and by the State toward the wage-earning classes,

particularly when they have ventured to protest against the unspeakable

suffering to which industrialism has usually condemned them. Hence

arises a quite different attitude toward existing society from that of the

ordinary well-to-do citizen: an attitude as true as his, perhaps also as

untrue, but equally based on facts, facts concerning his relations to his

enemies instead of to his friends.

The class-war, like wars between nations, produces two opposing

views, each equally true and equally untrue. The citizen of a nation at war,

when he thinks of his own countrymen, thinks of them primarily as he has

experienced them, in dealings with their friends, in their family relations,

and so on. They seem to him on the whole kindly, decent folk. But a

nation with which his country is at war views his compatriots through the

medium of a quite different set of experiences: as they appear in the

ferocity of battle, in the invasion and subjugation of a hostile territory, or

in the chicanery of a juggling diplomacy. The men of whom these facts are

PROPOSED ROADS TO FREEDOM

true are the very same as the men whom their compatriots know as

husbands or fathers or friends, but they are judged differently because they

are judged on different data. And so it is with those who view the capitalist

from the standpoint of the revolutionary wage-earner: they appear

inconceivably cynical and misjudging to the capitalist, because the facts

upon which their view is based are facts which he either does not know or

habitually ignores. Yet the view from the outside is just as true as the view

from the inside. Both are necessary to the complete truth; and the Socialist,

who emphasizes the outside view, is not a cynic, but merely the friend of

the wage-earners, maddened by the spectacle of the needless misery which

capitalism inflicts upon them.

I have placed these general reflections at the beginning of our study, in

order to make it clear to the reader that, whatever bitterness and hate may

be found in the movements which we are to examine, it is not bitterness or

hate, but love, that is their mainspring. It is difficult not to hate those who

torture the objects of our love. Though difficult, it is not impossible; but it

requires a breadth of outlook and a comprehensiveness of understanding

which are not easy to preserve amid a desperate contest. If ultimate

wisdom has not always been preserved by Socialists and Anarchists, they

have not differed in this from their opponents; and in the source of their

inspiration they have shown themselves superior to those who acquiesce

ignorantly or supinely in the injustices and oppressions by which the

existing system is preserved.

PROPOSED ROADS TO FREEDOM

PART I

HISTORICAL

CHAPTER I

MARX AND SOCIALIST DOCTRINE

SOCIALISM, like everything else that is vital, is rather a tendency

than a strictly definable body of doctrine. A definition of Socialism is sure

either to include some views which many would regard as not Socialistic,

or to exclude others which claim to be included. But I think we shall come

nearest to the essence of Socialism by defining it as the advocacy of

communal ownership of land and capital. Communal ownership may

mean ownership by a democratic State, but cannot be held to include

ownership by any State which is not democratic. Communal ownership

may also be understood, as Anarchist Communism understands it, in the

sense of ownership by the free association of the men and women in a

community without those compulsory powers which are necessary to

constitute a State. Some Socialists expect communal ownership to arrive

suddenly and completely by a catastrophic revolution, while others expect

it to come gradually, first in one industry, then in another. Some insist

upon the necessity of completeness in the acquisition of land and capital

by the public, while others would be content to see lingering islands of

private ownership, provided they were not too extensive or powerful.

What all forms have in common is democracy and the abolition, virtual or

complete, of the present capitalistic system. The distinction between

Socialists, Anarchists and Syndicalists turns largely upon the kind of

democracy which they desire. Orthodox Socialists are content with

parliamentary democracy in the sphere of government, holding that the

evils apparent in this form of constitution at present would disappear with

the disappearance of capitalism. Anarchists and Syndicalists, on the other

hand, object to the whole parliamentary machinery, and aim at a different

method of regulating the political affairs of the community. But all alike

are democratic in the sense that they aim at abolishing every kind of

PROPOSED ROADS TO FREEDOM

privilege and every kind of artificial inequality: all alike are champions of

the wage- earner in existing society. All three also have much in common

in their economic doctrine. All three regard capital and the wages system

as a means of exploiting the laborer in the interests of the possessing

classes, and hold that communal ownership, in one form or another, is the

only means of bringing freedom to the producers. But within the

framework of this common doctrine there are many divergences, and even

among those who are strictly to be called Socialists, there is a very

considerable diversity of schools.

Socialism as a power in Europe may be said to begin with Marx. It is

true that before his time there were Socialist theories, both in England and

in France. It is also true that in France, during the revolution of 1848,

Socialism for a brief period acquired considerable influence in the State.

But the Socialists who preceded Marx tended to indulge in Utopian

dreams and failed to found any strong or stable political party. To Marx, in

collaboration with Engels, are due both the formulation of a coherent body

of Socialist doctrine, sufficiently true or plausible to dominate the minds

of vast numbers of men, and the formation of the International Socialist

movement, which has continued to grow in all European countries

throughout the last fifty years.

In order to understand Marx's doctrine, it is necessary to know

something of the influences which formed his outlook. He was born in

1818 at Treves in the Rhine Provinces, his father being a legal official, a

Jew who had nominally accepted Christianity. Marx studied jurisprudence,

philosophy, political economy and history at various German universities.

In philosophy he imbibed the doctrines of Hegel, who was then at the

height of his fame, and something of these doctrines dominated his

thought throughout his life. Like Hegel, he saw in history the development

of an Idea. He conceived the changes in the world as forming a logical

development, in which one phase passes by revolution into another, which

is its antithesis--a conception which gave to his views a certain hard

abstractness, and a belief in revolution rather than evolution. But of

Hegel's more definite doctrines Marx retained nothing after his youth. He

was recognized as a brilliant student, and might have had a prosperous

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PROPOSEDROADSTOFREEDOM1PROPOSEDROADSTOFREEDOMBYBERTRANDRUSSELL,F.R.S.PROPOSEDROADSTOFREEDOM2INTRODUCTIONTHEattempttoconceiveimaginativelyabetterorderingofhumansocietythanthedestructiveandcruelchaosinwhichmankindhashithertoexistedisbynomeansmodern:itisatleastasoldasPlato,whose``Republic'setthemodelf...

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