SOCIALISM FURTHER EXAMINED.

Shannon News, 9 May 1922, Page 3

SOCIALISM FURTHER EXAMINED.

,(To the Editor.)

Sir,—While thanking you for publishing my last letter on the fallacy of Socialism, may I trespass again on your space to carry my argument a step further. Socialism . claims to promote the good of the whole as opposed to that of privileged individuals or classes, and it seeks to do this, not by reforming the present system, but by a complete change cf system. In the ideal socialistic state, sympathy, communism of feelings, will be so strong, that each man will do his best independent of reward. “Inequality of aptitude will result in inequality of duties but not of rights.” Just as the able-bodies work for the needs of the whole family, so in the communistic system the same reward will be given to skilled and unskilled, to industrious and idle, to the genius who adds enormously to public wealth and to the fool who does nothing by squander it. An hour’s painting 'by Raphael and an hour’? painting by a sign-board painter will be paid at the same rate; a song by a Caruso and. one by the latest aspirant to vocal honours will command the same recompense. For each man has done according to his capacity, and must receive according to his needs. There will be no money whereby to hide extortion, no competition with its attendant waste, no pauperism—for all will be State officials with a salary during working years and a pension afterwards;—no debt, for the State will advance gratuitously what is required. Individual ambitions will be no more, for the good of all will be the dominating motive. Each member, like a soldier in the ‘army, will perform his allotted task, so that by the exertion of only a small fraction of the present amount, of labour all will live together in comfort, contentment and peace. The obstacle to the realisation ol this Arcadia is the fact that even in a Socialistic state, men must be fed and clothed and sheltered. That is, the annual production must cope with the annual consumption. Ihe com and cattle which feed the millions, the clothes that cover them, even the houses they inhabit, are not the products of a remote past, but of immediately preceding years; and the greatdriving power in the productions ol the world is the interest the worker has in improving his own or his family’s circumstances. If—along with private property—we remove the hopes and fears that educe and sti mulate ambition, energy, enterprise, thrift and self-sacrifice, cannot but faik Public spirit, the idea of doing one’s best; for the community, would, to the ordinary man, be quite inadequate substitute for the motives connected with private property, which now gives us at. times an even morbid desire to labour and save. Production is, indeed, never far m excess of consumption, and if anything should occur by which it were slackened, there must inevitably be a shortage in the supply of food, clothing and shelter. The distribution of a few very large incomes would temporarily go a little way towards meeting the deficiency, but if labour is much lessened no possible redistribution can prevent a dearth from becoming manifest. And the certainty of a greatly accelerated growth of population must be Tacefl. Prudence, foresight, the keen sense of responsibility, the desire to maintain a high standard of comfort, all act strongly to retard marriage and diminish birth but such feelings would be absent from the Socialist state, where subsistence was assured and individual responsibility was superseded by national responsibility. In the most 1 favourable case there would be a difficulty about, the allocation of the most desirab e things— those of which the supply did not reach demand, such as ie best sites for dwellings and the plea- ■ santest parts of the country to live in. This difficulty would be intensified as the number of claimants increased, and would extend to more and more things till ultimately there would be a difficulty in deciding to whom the barest necessities were to be distributed. It is a large assumption that the limited capacity of man could manage the complicated machinery necessitated by a Socialistic scheme- ' except, indeed, by Anarchism, which would abolish government altogether, and return to the “state of natural in nocency” as it genially calls the day when the strong hand ruled, when might, was right and justice lay wi 1 the most powerful. But even taking it for granted that the whole coun ry could be organised as a vast cooperative society, in which all worked according to their capacity and • 6 ceivecl according to their needs, e Socialistic “regime” would prove. a disastrous failure, owing to the m-

ability of nature to cope with the multiplied calls upon her. The, population question, is, as in most social questions, at the base 1 . Either the propagation- of the species must be a? strictly and sternly regulated as the operation of industry, or population would surpass subsistence. If society undjertakes tp provide' for all who are 1 born, it must, to fulfil the obligation, decide how many shall be born, the interference of the State, that is, must extend far beyond, working hours and reach to the controlling of all actions of all individuals within it.—l am, etc., RATIONIS.