ABSTRACT

The author argues that the logic of universal suffrage is either an equal society or such a continuous expansion of material welfare as softens the contrast between rich and poor in any given state, and that the operation of the profit-making motive is an essential contradiction of this motive. He then explains further, that the temper of Western civilisation displays precisely those features which, in previous periods, have signalised the onset of a revolutionary epoch. He have sought to show that the common agreement upon which capitalist democracy depends is in process of rapid dissolution. Capitalist values are challenged at their foundations. Capitalism is presented with the choice of co-operating in the effort at socialist experiment, or of fighting it; and he have given reasons for believing that it may well prefer the alternative of fighting. Another argument draws attention to the price involved in a forcible transition to a new social order.