ABSTRACT
So far we have traced in brief outline the distortions to which a disinterested science of political economy has been subjected by the intellectual volunteer forces of the propertied classes enlisted for the defence of ‘vested interests’.1 But the difficulties which beset this branch of ‘social science’ would be realised very imperfectly if we failed to recognise the similar process of distortion from the hands of the intellectuals of the proletariat, engaged in the assertion of the claims of labour, and the assault upon ‘vested interests’. Labour movements, in the form of tradeunion policy and tactics, co-operation, or political action for raising the standard of working conditions, are doubtless conducted with a very fragmentary minimum of ‘conscious’ theory on the part of the rank and file, or even of their leaders. But little groups of theorists have always marched along with the organised workers, furnishing such intellectual comfort as seemed serviceable. For though simple, uneducated folk manifest suspicion, often coupled with contempt, for all forms of ‘higher learning’, these feelings conceal a strongly superstitious respect for the mysterious virtue of high-sounding formulas, and an eagerness to conciliate and attach them to their cause. There is a pathetic naïveté in the fact that ‘scientific socialism’ pretended to draw its first spiritual sustenance from the barren ground of Hegelian dialectics. The sheer delight in abstract terminology, and the enunciation of ‘highfalutin’ laws and principles, irrespective of the attribution of any clear meaning, right or wrong, has nowhere been better illustrated than in the hold of ‘scientific socialism’ upon its adherents. Historians may perforate the principles of economic determinism, the phases of social evolution, and the law of ‘increasing misery’: class-economists may expose the fallacies of the Marxian theory of value and surplus-value: psychologists may disclose the unworkability of an economic society by the single incentive of Social Service. But many thoughtful workers, who seek a larger meaning for their movement than is furnished by the fragmentary opportunism of their trade union, are drawn irresistibly to the intellectual ‘myths’ that exhibit present capitalist robbery and future triumphant proletarianism in the aspect of a great spiritual drama where the instincts of self-assertion and hard feeling are enlisted in the service of reason and justice. In part it is a habit of hasty generalisation, in part that admiration of large showy formulas which comes with the attainment of a low level of literary education, the hypnotism of ‘good words’. But the main impelling motive to the acceptance of this ‘science’ is an emotional blend of combativeness and humanity. By this latter I mean the natural craving for a fuller life with more security, comfort, interest, and enjoyment; by the former I mean the appeal of the collective struggle for the attainment of these ‘rights’. The sharp antitheses of bourgeoisie and proletariat, capitalist-exploitation and wage-slavery, the class-war and the establishment of the dictatorship of the proletariat, in a society where
the instruments of production would be socially owned and operated for the service of all, instead of for the profit of a few-such a social picture cannot fail to appeal to the dawning intelligence of ‘the masses’, newly exposed to the rich possibilities of life in a world of newspapers, cinemas, motor-cars, telephones, aeroplanes, wars, sporting events, and other sensational apparatus. What wonder they should gulp in doctrines, theories, formulas, and plans of campaign, designed to give intellectual and moral confidence to a policy of quick transformation of the social-economic order! If an economic science can help to establish this ‘confidence’, and so evoke energy for action, it must win wide acceptance. Quite irrespective of its truth? Certainly not. Just as in our investigation of the ‘classical’ political economy we found a genuinely disinterested study struggling to preserve its virtue against the inroads of the interests and passions, so with this proletarian ‘science’. As the former has been perverted and distorted for the purposes of defence, so the latter for purposes of attack. The positive tactics of assault demand bolder, simpler, and more inflammatory myths than the more passive tactics of defence. But in each case the ‘science’ must desert its proper rôle of disinterestedness, in order to furnish ammunition to the combatants. In each case it will conceal, both from itself and others, this act of desertion by some specious intellectual covering. In the case of capitalist economics, the earlier cover was a genuine faith in the determinant part played by the capitalist in the economic system. His virtuous saving ‘produced’ the means by which labour could be employed, and so increased the reward of labour. His self-sacrifice was the driving and directive force of the system. Among the capitalist class and their educated supporters this doctrine was able to win easy real acceptance. More recently, however, the defence has shifted on to another centre. With no formal or clear abandonment of the creative rôle attached to capital, the more mechanical structure of modern joint stock capitalism ascribes less importance to those who furnish the capital, more to those who furnish business ability. Modern psychology has helped to win recognition for the attributes of the business man, his inventiveness, initiative, audacity, responsibility, foresight, organising power, as the creative energy of the economic system. Socialism, and in general the labour movement, by interference with this intellectual and moral control, and by encroachment upon the ‘profits’ which evoke this personal productivity, would slow down the wheels of industry and retard the process of material advance! The business man is dramatised as the sole and rare repository of these creative gifts, and profit as the key that winds him up and makes him function. The nucleus of truth in this capitalist myth is sufficiently substantial to establish the required confidence in those whose interests inspire them with the ‘will to believe’.
