Political Ideals | Page 7

for organizations, would leave fewer occasions when governments were called upon to
make decisions as to other people's concerns. And the abolition of capitalism and the
wage system would remove the chief incentive to fear and greed, those correlative
passions by which all free life is choked and gagged.
Few men seem to realize how many of the evils from which we suffer are wholly
unnecessary, and that they could be abolished by a united effort within a few years. If a
majority in every civilized country so desired, we could, within twenty years, abolish all
abject poverty, quite half the illness in the world, the whole economic slavery which
binds down nine tenths of our population; we could fill the world with beauty and joy,
and secure the reign of universal peace. It is only because men are apathetic that this is
not achieved, only because imagination is sluggish, and what always has been is regarded
as what always must be. With good-will, generosity, intelligence, these things could be
brought about.

Chapter II
: Capitalism and the Wage System

I
The world is full of preventible evils which most men would be glad to see prevented.
Nevertheless, these evils persist, and nothing effective is done toward abolishing them.
This paradox produces astonishment in inexperienced reformers, and too often produces
disillusionment in those who have come to know the difficulty of changing human
institutions.
War is recognized as an evil by an immense majority in every civilized country; but this
recognition does not prevent war.
The unjust distribution of wealth must be obviously an evil to those who are not
prosperous, and they are nine tenths of the population. Nevertheless it continues
unabated.
The tyranny of the holders of power is a source of needless suffering and misfortune to
very large sections of mankind; but power remains in few hands, and tends, if anything,
to grow more concentrated.
I wish first to study the evils of our present institutions, and the causes of the very limited
success of reformers in the past, and then to suggest reasons for the hope of a more
lasting and permanent success in the near future.
The war has come as a challenge to all who desire a better world. The system which
cannot save mankind from such an appalling disaster is at fault somewhere, and cannot
be amended in any lasting way unless the danger of great wars in the future can be made
very small.
But war is only the final flower of an evil tree. Even in times of peace, most men live
lives of monotonous labor, most women are condemned to a drudgery which almost kills
the possibility of happiness before youth is past, most children are allowed to grow up in
ignorance of all that would enlarge their thoughts or stimulate their imagination. The few
who are more fortunate are rendered illiberal by their unjust privileges, and oppressive
through fear of the awakening indignation of the masses. From the highest to the lowest,
almost all men are absorbed in the economic struggle: the struggle to acquire what is their
due or to retain what is not their due. Material possessions, in fact or in desire, dominate
our outlook, usually to the exclusion of all generous and creative impulses.
Possessiveness--the passion to have and to hold--is the ultimate source of war, and the
foundation of all the ills from which the political world is suffering. Only by diminishing
the strength of this passion and its hold upon our daily lives can new institutions bring

permanent benefit to mankind.
Institutions which will diminish the sway of greed are possible, but only through a
complete reconstruction of our whole economic system. Capitalism and the wage system
must be abolished; they are twin monsters which are eating up the life of the world. In
place of them we need a system which will hold in cheek men's predatory impulses, and
will diminish the economic injustice that allows some to be rich in idleness while others
are poor in spite of unremitting labor; but above all we need a system which will destroy
the tyranny of the employer, by making men at the same time secure against destitution
and able to find scope for individual initiative in the control of the industry by which they
live. A better system can do all these things, and can be established by the democracy
whenever it grows weary of enduring evils which there is no reason to endure.
We may distinguish four purposes at which an economic system may aim: first, it may
aim at the greatest possible production of goods and at facilitating technical progress;
second, it may aim at securing distributive justice; third, it may aim at giving security
against destitution; and, fourth, it may aim at