Economics for Helen by Hilaire Belloc

It remains to deal with a certain remedy which some people have imagined would get rid of all the disadvantages of Capitalism once and for all. This remedy is called _Socialism_, and Socialism, as we shall see in a moment, must mean ultimately _Communism_.

No one has ever succeeded in putting this remedy for the evils of Capitalism into practice, and (though the matter is still very much disputed) it looks more and more as though no one would ever be able to put it into practice.

We have seen what the evils of Capitalism were and how they have exasperated nearly everyone who has become subject to a capitalist state of society. There is the increasing insecurity which everybody feels -- all the Proletariat and many of the Capitalists as well -- whilst there is the necessary tendency of Capitalism to leave a larger and larger proportion of people unproductive, not making the wealth which is necessary for their support, and therefore either kept in idleness by Doles out of the wealth which is still produced (a process which cannot go on for ever) or starving. Pretty well everyone wants to get rid of these evils and to get out of the Capitalist system, and this idea of Socialism which we are going to examine seemed, when it was first put forward, an easy and obvious shortcut out of the Capitalist muddle. When we have looked into it, we shall see how and why Socialism does not, in practice, turn out to be a shortcut at all, but a blind alley.

Ever since men began to live in societies and to leave records, you will find the poorer people, when their poverty became intolerable, clamouring for a division of the wealth which the more fortunate enjoy.

That is the main, obvious remedy to inequality of wealth; to divide it up again. But such a scheme has nothing to do with Socialism, and must not be mistaken for Socialism.

The Socialist theory was invented, or at any rate was first put clearly, by a man of genius, Louis Blanc, who was Scotch on his father's side and French on his mother's. He lived rather less than a hundred years ago and the scheme which he and those around him started was this: --

The Officers of the State were to own all the Means of Production -- machinery and land and stores of food, etc. -- and they alone should be allowed to own it. Individuals and families and corporations might consume that portion of produced wealth allotted them by the State after it had been produced, _but they might not use it for making future wealth_. ANY WEALTH USED FOR THE MAKING OF FUTURE WEALTH, THAT IS, CAPITAL IN ANY FORM, WAS TO BE HANDED OVER TO THE OFFICERS OF THE STATE; AND ALL LAND AND NATURAL FORCES WERE TO BE OWNED FOR EVER BY THE STATE. That scheme is Socialism, and from that principle all Socialist ideas flow.

In this way, it was claimed, there would be no division of society into Capitalists and Proletarians, no chaos of competition with its alternating riches and ruin; insecurity would be done away with, and insufficiency as well. Everyone in the country would be a worker, the State itself would be the Universal Capitalist. So there would be no struggle of capitalists going up and down one against the other, and no unemployment or lack of necessaries for anyone.

Among the energetic and keen set of men who surrounded Blanc in Paris was a certain Mordecai, who wrote under the name his father had assumed, that of "Marx. " He wrote (in German) a very long and detailed book describing the whole scheme, as well as describing the evils of Capitalism, and showing how this scheme would remedy those evils. His book was pushed forward by the people who were converted to the idea, and that is why the theory of Socialism is now often called "Marxism."

For instance: the coal-mines and all the machinery of the coal-mines and the houses in which the miners live and the stores of food and the clothing, etc., which keep the miners alive while the coal is being mined, that is during the process of production -- all these, which now belong to capitalists who make a profit out of the miners' labour, would then belong to the State, which would allot the coal produced to all who needed it. So it would be with all farms, farming implements, and cattle and horses and the stores of food and clothing and houses necessary to the labourers on the land during the process of production. So it would be with all stone-quarrying and timber-felling, and carpentry and brick-making for the continued production of the houses necessary to the producers during production. So it would be with all corresponding material for making cloth for clothing. So it would be with everything which was made in the whole country. The officers of the State would share out the wealth produced, so that it would be consumed by all the citizens, and there would be an end to the exploitation of one man by another and to the uncertainty of living.

Communism is simply that form of Socialism in which all that is thus shared out by the State would be shared equally, the State giving every family an equal share in proportion to the numbers of people which had to be supported in the family, from one upwards.

The reason I have called Communism the logical and only possible ultimate form of Socialism is that there could be under Socialism no reason for any other form of distribution.