Evening star., 1934-08-05
From an etching by Martin Lew.

FROM an py MaTtln LEWIS
cialism, economic democracy, guild
socialism and the proletarian state?
Neither could Lenin and Trotsky.
Even the old distinction between
communism as a crude scheme for
dividing all wealth and socialism as
a scheme for the-orderly extension of
government ownership has been lost
in the chaos of postwar violence
and revolution.
We cannot learn the answers to
these questions from mems experience
with communism. The condemnation
of socialism because of the failure
of hundreds of communistic expert
ments is quite illogical. 1t Is true
that for 5000 years before 1917 they
did fail. But they we're doomed to
failure from the start, from the half
mythical communist experiment in
Sparta 800 years before Christ to the
Oneida community in New York.
They we're all impractical affairs
set up under the emotional stimulus
of religious zeal, military aim, sex
theory or escape from wretched en-
vironment. When this stimulus ex-
pired the experiment died. Some OF
them, like the remarkable Jesuit
commonwealth in Paraguay and the
Moravian settlement of Bethlehem,
Pa. 200 years ago, were surprisingly
successful. The only large-scale ex-
pertinent began with Kerensky in
Russia in 1917, and it has not yet
collapsed. 1t probably will, but it has
survived after fashion for II years.
Desire to Own Natural.
This brings us to the heart of the
matter. The human animal Is de-
scended from wolfish ancestors who
took what they could by violence and
defended it to the death. The desire
for private possession is natural and
Unborn. Man survived because Of
this inherent impulse. 1t is not a
pretty characteristic when put under
the philosophers microscope. Races
of men ate other men for ages, en-
shaved them through history, ex-
plotted them by war, peonage, Gus
tom and contract. The exploiters
have always established police to en-
force their hold and always had a
religion that sanctioned it.
The MARKHAM Socialist theory Of
class exploitation of labor by capital
is wholly unsound 1t is not matter
of classes, but of individuals and op-
portunity. Some labor unions are
vicious exploiters of their own class,
and they in turn are exploited by
their own members. The hardest
taskmasters are men who have risen
from the ranks. The sentimental
abolitionists before the Civil War
were terribly shocked to discover that
the highest ambition of numerous
freed Negroes was to own slaves.
Many did.
The problem Of civilization has been
TO maintain this driving impulse Of
personal advantage undiminished and
at the same time to soften. refine,
sublimate, restrain and direct it in
the interests of justice and better
ment. So far the only decent civili-
cations in history have been built
upon just this plan. The only good
job of it has been done by the ma
tions of Western Europe and their CO.
lonial descendants. and if the truth
must be told, the best attainment has
been reached by the Anglo-Saxon
stocks. Note that in these peoples
there has been the least interference
with economic individualism by King,
church and state, and the greatest
interference with personal distress and
helplessness.
Competition Is Eased.
The greatest single achievement of
civilization has been the reduction in
cruelty, especially to women and chill
dren. In their clumsy way social leg
islation. public enterprises, organized
labor, charities, taxation and philan-
throphy have mitigated the severity
Of economic competition enormously.
Defective and unjust as 1t is in some
respects, the capitalist system in the
United States provides a life so far
superior in security, comfort and
equality to any other in the history
of mankind that its condemnation by
soft-headed pseudo economists is evi-
dence of oblique mentality They
might at least read Lecky's History
of Civilization" to learn what went
on before capitalism.
In this inherent tendency of men
to individual acquisition for them
selves and their families We have the
one driving-force of progress. In the
present stage of social development
it is the only motor-force to keep the
engine running The Socialist doctrine
of wage-slavery under our present
system and a population driven to
labor only by fear of starvation Is
contradicted by history and by COM
mon observation. Il Is the prospect
(Coutinued on Fourth Page.)