Socialism And Character PDF Download

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can usually download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1912 edition. Excerpt: ... CHAPTER II THE ETHICS OF INEQUALITY In seeing that the "Coming Slavery " of the socialist state may become the " service that is perfect freedom," we have dissipated one of the strongest elements in the religious distrust of socialism. But our pilgrim, pausing between two ideals, can hardly be ready to accept the new faith yet. For he cannot forget the lovely light in which the Apologia of Religion placed the moral achievements of the old order, --too fine to abandon without regret even on lower levels, and offering a counsel of perfection full of rare spiritual beauty. The unexplored country ahead is more alluring than we had anticipated; yet from the dear land in which we are abiding, how well we have discerned the stars! We will not move on while our hearts would still be drawn to wistful retrospect; rather let us look around us once more, and scrutinize the moral assets of our present-day civilization more closely, on the lower levels first and then on the higher. The primary fact about our civilization is that it is founded, like all others from time immemorial, on social and industrial inequality. This broad point of agreement between capitalism and former society, notably in the Middle Ages, is our reason for not rejecting at once that Apologia of Religion which points us to the spiritual victories of the past as a reason for refusing to change the basis of the social structure in the future. It is of course the socialist aim to diminish such inequalities, and what we have to do is to inquire whether such a change would help or hinder spiritual life: we must compare the ethics actually attendant on social inequality with those which equality is likely to engender. Just because our present ethics are rooted in economic inequality, ...