British Socialism. J. Ellis Barker
rel="nofollow" href="#ulink_c5d98dfc-c30e-5341-9aec-d688505c72ed">[253] Leatham, The Evolution of the Fourth Estate, p. 3.
[254] Fabianism and the Fiscal Question, p. 19.
[255] Gronlund, Co-operative Commonwealth, p. 41.
[256] Leatham, The Evolution of the Fourth Estate, p. 3.
[257] Leatham, Was Jesus a Socialist? p. 4.
[258] Blatchford, Competition, p. 15.
[259] See Chapters VII & XXIII.
[260] English Progress towards Social-Democracy, p. 14.
[261] Ibid. p. 13.
[262] Keir Hardie, From Serfdom to Socialism, p. 15.
[263] Macdonald, Socialism, p. 3.
[264] McClure, Socialism, p. 13.
[265] Kautsky, The Class Struggle, p. 24.
[266] Kautsky, The Socialist Republic, p. 21.
[267] Hyndman, Historic Basis of Socialism, p. 435.
[268] Justice, October 12, 1907.
[269] Justice, October 12, 1907.
[270] The Social Democrat, November 1907, p. 676.
[271] Report on Fabian Policy, 1896, p. 6.
[272] G.B. Shaw, quoted in Jackson, Bernard Shaw, p. 100.
[273] Proudhon, What is Property? pp. 252–256.
[274] Ibid. p. 37.
[275] Ibid. p. 184.
[276] Snowden, The Christ that is to be, p. 6.
[277] Bax and Quelch, A New Catechism of Socialism, p. 32.
[278] Blatchford, What is this Socialism? p. 11.
CHAPTER VToC
THE AIMS AND POLICY OF THE SOCIALISTS
Those people who formerly called themselves Communists now call themselves Socialists. Marx and Engels wrote in their celebrated "Manifesto": "The theory of the Communists may be summed up in the single sentence: Abolition of private property."[279] The policy of modern British Socialism may be summed up in the identical words. Indeed, we are told by one of its most eager champions that "The programme of Socialism consists essentially of one demand—that the land and other instruments of production shall be the common property of the people, and shall be used and governed by the people for the people."[280] "We suggest that the nation should own all the ships, all the railways, all the factories, all the buildings, all the land, and all the requisites of national life and defence."[281]
According to the Socialist doctrines which have been given in Chapter IV, private property is the enemy of the workers. Therefore they quite logically demand that all private property must be abolished. "The problem has to be faced. Either we must submit for ever to hand over at least one-third of our annual product to those who do us the favour to own our country without the obligation of rendering any service to the community, and to see this tribute augment with every advance in our industry and numbers, or else we must take steps, as considerately as may be possible, to put an end to this state of things."[282] "The modern form of private property is simply a legal claim to take a share of the produce of the national industry year by year without working for it. Socialism involves discontinuance of the payment of these incomes and addition of the wealth so saved to incomes derived from labour. The economic problem of Socialism is thus solved."[283]
A general division of the existing private property among all the people is not intended, because it is considered to be impracticable. "Socialism does not consist in violently seizing upon the property of the rich and sharing it out amongst the poor."[284] "Plans for a national 'dividing up' are not Socialism. They are nonsense. 'Dividing up' means individual ownership. Socialism means collective ownership."[285] "It is obvious that, in the present stage of economic development, individual ownership is impossible. All the great means of production are collectively owned now. Individual liberty based upon individual property is therefore out of the question, and the emancipation of the working class can only be achieved in social freedom, based upon social property, through the transformation of privately owned collective property into publicly owned collective property."[286]
Starting from these premisses, the Socialists arrive at the demand that "all the means of production and distribution, all the machinery, all the buildings, everything that is necessary to provide the fundamental necessaries of life, must be common property."[287] "We want all the instruments for the purposes of trade to be the property of the State. With that will have come at the same time the abolition of power permitting any individual to exact rent or interest for the loan of land or of the implements of production. The abolition of all private property will mean the extinction of the parasite."[288]