The Impossibilities of Anarchism

Some years ago, as the practical policy of the Socialist party in England began to shape itself more and more definitely into the program of Social-Democracy, it became apparent that we could not progress without the gravest violations of principles of all sorts. In particular, the democratic side of the program was found to be incompatible with the sacred principle of the Autonomy of the Individual. It also involved a recognition of the State, an institution altogether repugnant to the principle of Freedom. Worse than that, it involved compromise at every step; and principles, as Mr. John Morley once eloquently showed, must not be compromised. The result was that many of us fell to quarrelling; refused to associate with one another; denounced each other as trimmers or Impossibilists, according to our side in the controversy; and finally succeeded in creating a considerable stock of ill-feeling.

My own side in the controversy was the unprincipled one, as Socialism to me has always meant, not a principle, but certain definite economic measures which I wish to see taken. Indeed, I have often been reproached for limiting the term Socialism too much to the economic side of the great movement towards equality. That movement, however, appears to me to be as much an Individualist as a Socialist one; and though there are Socialists, like Sir William Harcourt, to whom Socialism means the sum total of humanitarian aspiration, in which the transfer of some millions of acres of property from private to public ownership must seem but an inessential and even undesirable detail, this sublimer shade of Socialism suffers from such a lack of concentration upon definite measures, that, but for the honor and glory of the thing, its professors might as well call themselves Conservatives.