[This is Chapter One of Murphey’s
book Socialist Thought.]
Chapter 1
OF GREEKS
Modern socialist thought has been
fed by certain springs that are more or less unique to our own age. In the
Introduction to their Socialist Thought: A
Documentary History, Albert Fried and Ronald Sanders argue that socialism
is best understood as a nineteenth and twentieth century phenomenon. They point
both to the democratic upward thrust and to the growing belief that immediate
and extensive reform is possible. But more than anything else, socialism is to
them a "reaction against the industrial revolution," a revolution
that they say has posed many subtle new problems for those who have been
concerned about meaningful human freedom.1
We should add that only the modern
age has experienced the intense alienation of the intellectual against a
predominant bourgeois culture, accompanied by an on-going seeking-out of an
alliance between the intellectual and the have-nots. Most socialist thought has
been shaped by these two tandem factors. Any intellectual tradition that
existed before, or that otherwise has been separated
from, the alienation and alliance-seeking will necessarily lack many of the
features of modern socialist thought.
Despite these historically more recent
springs, however, this differentiation can be overdone. While some springs may
be uniquely modern, there are others that are equally important to the
socialist tradition and that have been influential for thousands of years. The
germinal ideas of socialism were not originated by eighteenth century thinkers.
They were present among the ancient Greeks, existed among the early Christians,
and found expression in the various communal "utopias" that were
written hundreds of years ago.
More
fundamentally, we can see that socialist conceptions are among those that come
naturally to mind when someone thinks about how a social order can be
organized. The idea that people would get along well if they pooled their
resources and shared the risks has a ready appeal. Considerable pooling occurs
even in a capitalistic society, where a large insurance industry serves a
number of pooling needs. Beyond the aspect of pooling, there is considerable
appeal in "an integrated society that pulls together." This is the
tribal concept, and it finds expression even in advanced civilization in the
feeling that exists among members of a team, a race, a class, a nation, a
religion, and the like. If a reader
immerses himself in the literature of something like nineteenth century German
Volkish thought, he begins to see how natural such commonality feels. He
understands how it is that, from such a perspective, the classical liberal
notion of a "framework for a wide play of individual choice" seems
almost a nihilistic denial of
cherished values.
There
is also an organizational immediacy that lends itself to collective action. On
a college examination a few years ago, I asked: "Assuming that you were
the city manager of a brand new city that had just been built under some sort
of 'planned city' concept, and assuming that the city was located in a climate
where there would be several snowfalls during the winter, what would you
present to the city commission as alternative ways that the snow could be
removed from the sidewalks?" Almost
all members of the class answered that they would assign the residents to
snow-removal battalions to shovel the snow. Only one student mentioned the
method that our society uses, which is to allow private ownership of land and
anticipate that each will see to it, mostly under his own impetus, that his
walks are shovelled. The concept that came quickly to the students' minds was
the concept of centralized action under leadership, of working under common
direction. The idea of decentralized action within a framework where no one was
giving a command was apparently too subtle. A command relationship is tangible,
whereas a framework for individual action lacks focus.
These psychological springs will
suggest collectivist methods at any juncture in history. They do not depend
upon the specific features of modern society. It is true that they feed into a
conservative's "organic society" approach as much as they do into the
more egalitarian collectivism people associate with socialism; but this just highlights
some of the ways in which traditional conservatism and socialism are similar.
Both deny the individualist perspective; both want a "pulling
together," a heightened sense of community; both operate largely on
command relationships. Modern socialism
is a combination of factors from traditional conservatism and classical
liberalism. It has much in common with
traditional conservatism, and much at odds with it.
The ancient Greeks were so fertile
mentally that they expressed virtually every later point of view. Karl Popper points out that Lycophron, a
Sophist, was an early proponent of the classical liberal "protectionist
theory of the state," by which the state and the law are essentially
charged with assuring a system of mutual and equal rights.2 What interests us most in our present
discussion, though, is that egalitarian socialist views were also present.
When
I read Joseph Gittler's Social Thought Among the Early Greeks, I was delighted by the
passage he includes from Aristophanes' comedy Ecclesiazusae. A character
named Praxagora is describing a model society that she would like to see
established:
PRAXAGORA:
First, I’ll provide.
That the silver, the land, and whatever
beside
Each man shall possess, shall be common and
free,
One fund for the public; then out of it we
Will feed and maintain you, like
housekeepers true,
Dispensing, and sparing, and caring for
you...
All pressure from want will be o'er.
Now each will
have all that a man can desire,
Cakes,
barley-leaves, chestnuts, abundant attire,
Wine,
garlands, and fish…
BLEPYROS: If a youth to a girl his
devotion would show,
He surely must woo her with presents.
PRAXAGORA:
O no.
All women and
men will be common and free,
No marriage or other restraint there will
be...
No girl will of course be permitted to mate
Except in
accord with the rules of the State.
By the side
of her lover, so handsome and tall,
Will be
stationed the squat, the ungainly and small,
And before
she’s entitled the beau to obtain,
Her love she
must grant to the awkward and plain.
BLEPYROS:
O then such a nose as Lyisicrates shows
Will vie with the fairest and best, I
suppose.
PRAXAGORA: O yes ‘tis a nice
democratic device…
BLEPYROS:
But how, may I ask, will the children be known?
And how can a father distinguish his own?
PRAXAGORA: They will never be
known: it can never be told
All youths will in common be sons of the
old…
BLEPYROS:
But what if Leucolophus claim me for sire,
Or
vile Epicurus?
I think you'll agree
That a great and unbearable nuisance 'twould be.3
I have
included just a few of the passages, which are enough to spell out the
socialist nature of the scheme and the fun Aristophanes had with it. The ideas
of common property and sexual availability bring to mind Plato's Republic,
even though are told that Aristophanes' play appeared several years before
Plato's work.
Plato has
been called the "ancient father" of collectivist ideology.5
His influence has been immense, heightened by what Popper has called the
long-standing "prejudice in favor of idealizing Plato."6
Plato's
political thinking was related to his broader philosophical position. He
believed that empirical reality is an imperfect and decayed counterpart of a
world of perfect forms. This led him to believe that history is a process of
decay from an ideal society that existed in an earlier golden age. The perfect
state enjoyed "the kingship of the wisest and most godlike of men."
The ensuing process of decay that Plato described is similar to the historical
process envisioned by Marx. Popper says that the main dynamic in society with
Plato was "internal strife, class war, fomented by self-interest and
especially material or economic self-interest." He observes that this
comports fully with Marx's statement that "The history of all hitherto existing
societies is a history of class struggle." Plato's solution for this
deterioration was to reaffirm the absolute leadership of a guardian class and
to stop all further political change. There would be rigid class distinctions,
and a form of communism among the warrior and ruler classes, although not among
the other members of society. This communism consisted of living together in
community houses, meeting at common meals, owning no private property, having
wives and children in common,
with "no parent to know his own child, nor any child his parent."
Plato wanted to use this sexual community for genetic breeding. "The best
of either sex," he said, "should be united with the best as often,
and the inferior with the inferior as seldom, as possible." He defined
"justice" and "morality" as equivalent to whatever served
the interest of the state. Overriding value was assigned to the "bond of
unity," and he especially emphasized the principle of leadership:
"The greatest principle of all is that nobody, whether male or female,
should ever be without a leader. Nor should the mind of anybody be habituated
to letting him do anything at all on his own initiative, neither out of zeal,
nor even playfully. But in war and in the midst of peace -- to his leader he shall
direct his eye, and follow him faithfully. And even in the smallest matters he
should stand under leadership. For example, he should get up, or move, or wash,
or take his meals... only if he has been told to do so."7
In
light of these opinions, it is not surprising that Plato favored
In
a broader context, it is well to notice that the overwhelming experience of
Western civilization both in ancient society and during the Middle Ages was
with a command-centered, integrative type of social order.
In his book The
Law, the nineteenth century French economist Frederic Bastiat, an
articulate opponent of socialism, quoted at length from authors who admired the
ancients precisely because of their all-powerful political systems. Bastiat
wrote that "actually it is not strange that during the seventeenth and
eighteenth centuries the human race was regarded as inert matter, ready to
receive everything -- form, face, energy, movement,
life -- from a great prince or a great legislator or a great genius." These centuries," he said, "were
nourished on the study of antiquity. And antiquity presents everywhere -- in
A
later socialist humanist such as Erich Fromm will
acknowledge that there is a lot in the ancient and medieval examples that he
would not want an advanced socialism to copy. Nevertheless, Bastiat's
point is a valid one. It shows the relationship between our past and the
imperative to "mold mankind" that is felt by the modern socialist,
including Fromm.
Our
Judaic-Christian heritage has also made its contribution. Norman Thomas says
that the socialist theory that has come from Christian and Jewish sources has
been able to find "plenty of effective texts" in the Bible. Thomas
points to the economic determinism inherent in the Biblical statement
"Where your treasure is there will your heart be also." He observes
that common ownership of property was typical of early Christians, and that
Christians have several times established ''more or less communistic
communities." There is a long history of Christians opposing
"exploitation."11
Monastic life
played a large role in Christianity and the Middle
Ages in western Europe after the fall of
The main
literary expressions of the socialist point of view were the utopian models
that were painted in such glowing terms in the sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries
by such thinkers as More and Campanella.
Sir
Thomas More published his Utopia in 15l6. It is worth noticing that he
referred back to Plato for his reasons for opposing private property. "I
grow more favorable to Plato, and do not wonder that he resolved not to make
any laws for such as would not submit to a community of all things: for so wise
a man could not but foresee that the setting all upon a level was the only way
to make a nation happy."
Economic
life in the utopia would center around
families. If a young person chose a trade that was different from his family's, he would be transferred to another family. Each
family would take its produce to a central marketplace, where anyone could take
what he wanted for his own use without needing to pay for it. More hoped that
this would do away with greed, which comes from a fear or privation, and with the pride that consists of wanting
"to excel others in pomp and excess."
More
showed a strong desire to "intellectualize" the public. Thus, he was
a precursor of countless later socialists, such as Chernyshevsky
and Theobald, who have wanted to remake mankind in
the image of the intellectual. More
supposed that there would be ample leisure. People were to be required to use
this leisure "in some proper exercise according to their various
inclinations, which is for the most part reading. It is ordinary to have public
lectures every morning before daybreak..."
In What is to be Done?, the nineteenth century Russian socialist Chernyshevsky supposed that seamstresses would want to have
classics read to them while they worked, once they owned the shop in common.
This assumption that the average person will want to follow intellectual tastes
is persistent in socialist thought. We will see later that it relates to the
basic dynamic of socialism.12
It
should also be noted that More expected the more
onerous labor to be performed by slaves. This reminds me that slavery was to
have been the basis for the egalitarian society that Aristophanes had so much
fun with:
BLEPYROS:
But who will attend to the work or the farm?
PRAXAGORA:
All labor and toil to your slaves you will leave.13
The
implications have considerable significance:
·
It
means that the central economic problem will be understood as one of how to
distribute goods rather than of how people are to be motivated to provide ample
production in the first place.
·
Slavery
makes leisure possible for the free man. This in turn abolishes by a single
stroke one of the main problems that has hurt bourgeois liberalism: the
"rat race" quality of a hurried economic existence centered around a preoccupation with material pursuits.
·
The
slavery is also revealing with regard to the compassion that has been so
important a part of modern socialist ideology. It shows us that there is
nothing intrinsic in a communal system that excludes oppression and
"exploitation." (
More
differed from the Spartan model by opposing the glorification of war.14
His values were peaceable. Socialists have differed widely on this point. Many
have been pacifists; many others have considered war the epitome of collective
elan.
Campanella's City of the Sun ("Civitas Solis") was published slightly more than a
century later, in 1623. In his introduction to Famous Utopias, Charles
Andrews has placed Campanella in a useful perspective by giving both a backward
and a forward glance. He highlights the monastic influence on socialist thought
when he observes that Campanella's imagined
"city with its seven walls, its compact organization, its carefully
divided labors, and rigorous discipline reflects the
monastic experiences of the writer."
Then, looking toward later history, he says that Campanella had
"formulated for the first time a complete socialistic system on a
scientific foundation" and that this had "in
Campanella
hardly deviated from Plato's model in the Republic. Andrews' summary of
the City of the Sun is that: "Government is intrusted to the wisest
and ablest, and laws are made and administered only so far as they promote the
object for which all are laboring. The essences of
life are equality, sacrifice of self for community, the banishment of egotism;
and peculiar features are the community of wives and goods, common meals, state
control of produce, and of children after a certain age, dislike of commercial
exchange, depreciation of money, love of all for manual labor, and the high
regard which all show for intellectual and artistic pursuits."15
One feature
was communal ownership of property.
"All things are common with them," Campanella wrote, "and
their dispensation is by the authority of the magistrates." The rationale lay in Campanella's
collectivist preference: "When we have taken away self-love, there remains
only love for the state.”
The
totalitarian nature of this collective is revealed almost casually.
"Cripples are well treated, and some become spies, telling the officers of
the state what they have heard.” And there is militaristic tinge, which appears
when the inhabitants go farming to the accompaniment of martial music. They "go out armed, for
the purpose of plowing..." This is in the spirit of the German Youth
Movement and National Socialism under Hitler. It shows the easy identification
that can exist between socialism and its fascist species.
Again
there was to be slavery. "They...sell those whom they have taken in war or keep them for digging
ditches and other hard work." And again the society is insulated from
outside influences: "They are unwilling that the state should be corrupted
by the vicious customs of slaves and foreigners.”
Nevertheless,
there was an egalitarian flavor. This is apparent in
common ownership, but it also appears in the attitude toward manual labor:
"They laugh at us in that
we consider our workmen ignoble, and hold those to be noble who have mastered
no pursuit.”
The
community of wives is again a feature, as is Plato's goal of proper eugenics.
"They deny at we hold --viz, that it is natural
to man to recognize his offspring and to educate them, and to use his wife and
house and children as his own. For they say that children are bred for the
preservation of the species and not for individual pleasure, as
Campanella
shared with More the expectation of considerable
leisure. This again is made the basis for intellectualizing the society.
"In the City of the Sun, while duty and work is distributed among all, it
only falls to each one to work for about four hours every day. The remaining
hours are spent in learning joyously, in debating, in reading, in reciting, in
writing, in walking, in exercising the mind and body, and with play."16
This corresponds to the later visions held by such authors as Bellamy, Fourier
and Marcuse.
The
utopian model-building spirit captured the imagination of several thinkers in
the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries; and no doubt it remains a necessary part of the thinking of everyone
who wishes a radical reconstruction of society, unless the thinker simply
eschews any theorizing about what is to take the place of the present society
that he so greatly dislikes .
About the footnotes: To avoid the pedantry of multiplying footnotes, I will cite a source just once for each chapter, unless the division of the chapter makes addit1onal citations useful. The footnote will cite all of the pages to which I would otherwise refer by individual footnotes. This will cause the footnotes to be more in the nature of bibliographical references.