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Here Mr. Wells shows that, while the practical difficulties of making collectivism serve all the people were ignored on the one hand, the first need of the people, political education, was neglected on the other.
A temporary but fierce attack of militant imperialism coupled with the very general acceptance of an empiric collectivism has sufficed to destroy old ideas and to make the road to victory easier for a determined and relentless working class movement.
On the first parade of a new camel transport corps before Lord Kitchener, the leading driver stopped his animal, and therefore all that followed, immediately in front of the Sirdar, in order to light a cigarette. It is needless to say, the cigarette was not lighted, but the would-be smoker had his first lesson as to the superiority of the claims of collectivism over the whims of the individual .
The theory of collectivism, that the functions of the State ought to be widely extended, had long been popular among the capitalists themselves.
If private manufacturers, whose success in life depends upon their appreciation of talent and inventiveness, could be assured that in dealing with public officials they would be brought into contact with men of the standing indicated, instead of being confronted so frequently with the demand for commissions and other kinds of solatium on account of the risks undertaken in recommending anything new, they would soon largely modify their distrust of what is known as collectivism.
The change from the capitalist system to a complete organization of industry under voluntary associations of producers was to 'come suddenly upon society like a thief in the night.... It is impossible not to regret that the first introduction of the English Trade Unionist to Socialism should have been effected by a foredoomed scheme which violated every economic principle of collectivism, and left the indispensable political preliminaries to pure chance."
There is no necessity to-night to plunge into a discussion of the philosophical divergencies between Socialism and Liberalism. It is not possible to draw a hard-and-fast line between individualism and collectivism. You cannot draw it either in theory or in practice. That is where the Socialist makes a mistake. Let us not imitate that mistake.
But social science is by no means always content with the normal human soul; it has all sorts of fancy souls for sale. Man as a social idealist will say "I am tired of being a Puritan; I want to be a Pagan," or "Beyond this dark probation of Individualism I see the shining paradise of Collectivism." Now in bodily ills there is none of this difference about the ultimate ideal.
In that sense, again, it must stimulate "collectivism" at the expense of a crude individualism, and condemns the doctrine which, as Professor Huxley puts it, would forbid us to restrain the member of a community from doing his best to destroy it. To restrain such conduct is surely to carry on the conflict against all anti-social agents or tendencies.
Some ascribed it to pure "khaki cussedness"; others maintained that the Military aimed at stretching the duration of the Siege to six months that they might be lifted by a short cut to promotion. Such were our views of collectivism; and if the Military left ear did not tingle it must have been frost-bitten. Mr. Rhodes liked the latest inscription on the Statute book as little as anybody else.
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