DOCTRINAIRE DELIRIUM.

Taranaki Daily News, 30 April 1921, Page 10

DOCTRINAIRE DELIRIUM.

THE FANATICISM OF “CLASS CONSCIOUSNESS.”

(Contributed by the N.Z. Welfare League.)

The most dangerous person in existence is the individual who knows everything. Such a person was the ex-Kai-ser William of Germany. He had mapped out the universe as a new German Confederacy, with himself as the AllHighest Ruler. There was no subject but what he was complete master of. As the commencement of this satanic pride was in lunacy, the end of it came in world disaster. True science has its roots in humility, whilst ignorant assumption is built upon the foundations of dogmatic pride and assertiveness. If one person who knows everything is dangerous, how much greater is the danger when a number of these persons get together and agree that their doctrines are all that is required. This is the great source of evil in the Russian Bolshevist movement. It arose in a revolution as a wild outburst of doctrinaire delirium. The fanaticism of what they call proletarian class consciousness took charge under the inspiration of the Marxian leaders, Lenin and Trotsky. The assumed all-sufficiency of the manual workers was manifested in handing over to committees of same the management of works of all kinds. This experiment has proven a complete failure, resulting as it did in a tremendous decrease in production and the starvation of the industrial masses in Russia. In order to try and save the nation Lenin and his colleagues have been forced to resort to tyrannic methods of administration. Conscription, military rule in the field of industry, and one man dictatorship has been applied. In addition the Soviet Republic has called upon the muchabused capitalist nations, to save them from the ruin which was fast approaching. It is most astonishing to find that in spite of all the disaster that has folded in the train of the application of

jtrinaire methods of economics in Rus- , sin there yet exist great numbers of English-speaking Laborites who think the nation’s affairs can be .run on abstract theory. The “bed-rock, iconoclastic, class-conscious, revolutionary socialist” conception is being promulgated widely in Australia and New Zealand. Some of the largest unions in both of these countries are in charge of executive officers who are out and out doctrinaire advocates of class rule. Their collectivism is a collectivism not of the whole nation and people, but a delirious idea that those who are in unions should have charge of the State as “the working class” and govern it according to their union standards. This is a fanaticism of class consck sness because it ignores the fact that our people are citizens first of all and unionists or nonunionists after. The doctrinaire conception that postulates the manual workers as “the workers” and ignores the exist.pnpp nf nil nf.llpra ia a anniol Fnlla/iTr

istence of all others is a social fallacy that requires, constantly to be exposed. Further, when we are dealing with economic affairs it is a most dangerous idea to assume that these can be dealt with on the basis of a mechanical democracy of numbers such as we apply in our politics. It is not true, and never has been, that one man is squal to any other in the sphere of industry. For the purpose of supplying human wants, which is the objective of industry, one inventor or administrator may actually produce more than thousands of other individuals. The view that the value of a class of people is to be estimated on the basis of the number of individuals comprising it is a doctrinaire conception that we may apply in politics, though even there 'it produces many bad results. It is, however, a most‘dangerous thing when a political democracy starts in to apply this class value doctrine to economic affairs. This is just the danger we are faced with in these new countries. In seeking to do justice to the wage-earners we have extended their political power until they have come to regard themselves as a class which should be catered for, appeased and served at all times. The tendency’is thus engendered to place class above country. As an antidote we require to inculcate, the truth that the truest unionism is that of loyalty to the State; and when we come to deal with economic affairs it is not numbers that count, but quality of intellect of character, and of experience. Only in this way does it seem to us can we avoid the daiigers of doctrinaire fanaticism.