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By JOHN DEWEY *

The Quest for Certainty

Indiaid,ualism Old, and New

Philosophy and, Ciailization

Art as Experience Liberalism anil, Social Action

LIBERALISM ANI)

SOCIAL ACTION

By JOHN DEWEY

The Page-Barbour Lectures

kAv^t&. .* {F

-H#" C. P. Putnam's Sons

NEW YORK

TO THE MEMORY JANE ADDAMS

PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

rl N o 0\

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il ii tl

PRE FAC E

T"" chapters that follow were delivered as lectures at the University of Virginia upon the Page-Barbour Foundation. Sorne passages have been rewritten and the last chapter somewhat enlarged for publication. I wish to express my thanks to the friends, old and new, who did so much to make my stay at the University an enjoyed occasion. I wish also to thank Herbert W. Schneider and Sidney }trook for reading the rnanuscript and for criticisrn and comments of v'hich I have freely availed myself. Needless to say, they are not responsible for what I have written. No reference to literature seems to be required, but I am glad to have an opportunity to express rny sense of the incalculable wonh of the En- cyclopaed,ia of the Socia'|, Sciences to all students.

There are two requests I shouid like to make of read- ers of the volume? not to forestall criticism but that it may be rendered, perhaps, more pertinent. Three lec- tures do not permit one to say all he thinks, nor even all that he trelieves that he knows. Omission of topics and themes does not, accordingly, signify that I should have passed them by in a more extended treatrnent. tr par- ticularly regret the enforced omission of reference to

VIII PREFACE

the relation of liberalism to international affairs. I should also like to remind readers that not everlthing can be said in the same breath and that it is necessary to stress first one aspect and then another of the general subject. So I hope that what is said will be taken as a whole and also in comparison and contrast with alterna- tive methods of social action. Now Yonx Crtv, May, 1935. CHAPTER

III

C O NTE NTS

fi{E HISTORY OF TIBERALISM

THE CRISIS IN LIBERALISM

RENASCENT LIBERALISM

PAGE

*I*

THE HISTORY OF LIBERALISM

Lr""*n.rsnr has long been accustomed to onslaughts proceeding from those who oppose social change. It has long been treated as an enemy by those who wish to maintain the status quo.But today these attacks are mild in comparison with indictments proceeding from those who want drastic social changes effected in a twinkling of an eye, and who believe that violent overthrow of existing institutions is the right method of effecting the required changes. From current assaults, I select two as typical: "A liberal is one who gives lip approval to the grievances of the proletariat, but who at the critical moment invariably runs to cover on the side of the masters of capitalism." Again, a liberal is defined as "one who professes radical opinions in private but who never acts upon them for fear of losing entr6e into the courts of the mighty and respectable." Such statements might be cited indefinitely. They indicate that, in the minds of many persons, liberalism has fallen between two stools, so that it is conceived as the refuge of those unwilling to take a decidedrstand in the social conflicts

2 LIBERALISM AND going on. It is called mealy-mouthed, a milk-and-water doctrine and so on.

Popular sentiment, especially in this country, is sub- ject to rapid changes of fashion. It was not a long time ago that liberaiism was a term of praise; to be liberal was to be progressive, forward-looking, free from prejudice, characterized by all admirable qualities. I do not think, however, that this particular shift can be dis. rnissed as a mere fluctuation of intellectual fashion. Three of the great nations of Europe have sumrnarily suppressed the civil liberties for which liberalism valiantly strove, and in few countries of the Continent are they rnaintained with vigor. It is true that none of the nations in question has any long history of devotion to liberal ideals. But the new attacks proceed f,rom those who profess they are concerned to change not to preserve old institutions. It is well known that everything for which liberalism stands is put in peril in times of war. In a world crisis, its ideals and rnethods are equally challenged; the belief spreads that liberalism flourishes only in times of fair social weather.

It is hardly possible to refrain from asking what liberalism really is; what elements, if any, of permanent value it contains, and how these values shall be rnain- tained and developed in the conditions the world now faces. On my own account, I have raised these ques- tions. I have wanted to find out whether it is possible for a person to continue, honestly and intelligently, to be a liberal, and if the answer be in the affirmative, what kind of liberal faith should be asserted today.

SOCIAL ACTION 3 Since I do not suppose that I am the only one who has put such questions to himself, I am setting forth the conclusions to which my examination of the problem has led me. If there is danger, on one side, of cowardice and evasion, there is danger on the other side of losing lhe sense of historic perspective and of yielding precipi- tately to short-time contemporary currents, abandon- ing in panic things of enduring and priceless value.

The natural beginning of the inquiry in which we are cngaged is consideration of the origin and past develop- ment of liberalism. It is to this topic that the present chapter is devoted. The conclusion reached f,rom a brief survey of history, namely, that liberalisrn has had a chequered career, and that it has meant in practice things so different as to be opposed to one another, might perhaps have been anticipated without prolonged examination of its past. But location and description of the ambiguities that cling to the career of liberalism will be of assistance in the attempt to determine its significance for today and tomorrow.

The use of the words liberal and liberalism to denote a particular social philosophy does not appear to occur earlier than the first decade of the nineteenth century. But the thing to which the words are applied is older. It might be traced back to Greek thought; some of its ideas, especially as to the importance of the free play of intelligence, may be found notably expressed in the funeral oration attributed to Pericles. But for tLre present purpose it is not necessary to go back of John Locke, the philosopher of the "glorious revolution" of 1588.

4 LIBERALISM AND The outstanding points of Locke's version of liberalism are that governments are instituted to protect the rights that belong to individuals prior to political organization of social relations. These rights are those summed up a century later in the American Declaration of Independ- ence: the rights of life, liberty and the pursuit of happi- ness. Among the "natural" rights especially emphasized by Locke is that of property, originating, according to him, in the fact that an individual has "mixed" himself, through his labor, with some natural hitherto unappro- priated object. This view was directed against levies on property made by rulers without authorization from the representatives of the people. The theory culminated in justifying the right of revolution. Since governments are instituted to protect the natural rights of individuals, they lose clairr. to obedience when they invade and destroy these rights instead of safeguarding them: a doctrine that well served the aims of our forefathers in their revolt against British rule, and that also found an extended application in the French Revolution of 1789.

The impact of this earlier liberalism is evidently political. Yet one of Locke's greatest interests was to uphold toleration in an age when intolerance was rife, persecution of dissenters in faith almost the rule, and. when wars, civil and between nations, had a religious color. In serving the immediate needs of England-and then those of other countries in which it was desired to substitute representative for arbitrary government- it bequeathed to later social thought a rigid doctrine of natural rights inherent in individuals independent

S0(]IAL ACTION 5 ,,l sot:ial organization. It gave a directly practical import l,r llrc older semi-theological and semi-metaphysical con- lr,;rlion of natural law as supreme over positive law rrrrrl gave a new version of the old idea that natural lrrw is the counterpart of reason? being disclosed by the rrrtrrral light with which man is endowed.

'l'he whole temper of this philosophy is individualistic irr lhe sense in which individualism is opposed to or- lirrrrized social action. It held to the primacy of the irrrlividual over the state not only in time but in moral rrrrthority. It defined the individual in terms of liberties ,,1' thought and action already possessed by him in some rrrysterious ready-made fashion, and which it was the solc business of the state to safeguard. Reason was also rrurde an inherent endorvment of the indivl"dual, ex- Irrr:ssed in men's moral relations to one another, but rrot sustained and developed because of these relations. It that th divi

/ *,, to be of \ 1., upon of

l,ater liberalism inherited this conception of a natural runtagonism between ruler and ruled, interpreted as a rratural opposition between the individual and organized sr-rciety. There still lingers in the minds of some the notion that there are two different "spheres" of action and of rightful claims; that of political society and that of the individual, and that in the interest of the latter the former must be as contracted as possible. Not tili the second half of the nineteenth century did the idea trise that government might and should be an instru-

6 LIBERALISM AND ment for securing and extending the liberties of indi

viduals. This later aspect of liberalism is perhaps foreshadowed in the clauses of our Constitution that confer upon Congress power to provide for "public welfare" as well as for public safety'*

What has already been said indicates that with Locke

the inclusion of the economic factor, property' among

rnatural rights had a political animus' However' Locke

,i at times goes so far as to designate as property every-

I thins thai is included in ..life, liberties and estates" l

i the individual has property in himself and in his life

and activities; property in this broad sense is that which

political society should protect' The importance attached

io the right of property within the political area was

withoutdoubtaninfluenceinthelaterdefinitelyeco. nomic formulation of liberalism' But Locke was inter-

ested in property already possessed' A century later industry und "o-*"rce

were sufficiently advanced in

Great iritain so that interest centered in prod'uction of

wealth, rather than in its possession' The conception of

labor as the source of right in property was employed

not so much to protect property from confi'scation by

the ruler (that right was practically secure in England)

as to urge and justify freedom in the use and invest'

ment of capital and the right of laborers to move about

and seek ,r"* -od", of employment-claims denied by

* Probably in the minds of the framers o{ the constitution not much

*o.t *", "lt t"*pl"t"J- by this clause than the desirability of permit-

,1"*-C"t*."* to inuk"-upptopriations for.roads' rivers and harbors' In ."lr"t*d; ;""ti"", ttt"^po*i"t hu' rtot been used much heyond

pro-

"iC""'"f limited social services {or those at an economic disadvantage'

S0CIAL ACTION llrr: r:ornmon law that came down from semi-feudal lorrrlitions. The earlier economic conception may fairly lr,' r:rrllcd static; it was concerned with possessions and r.r+lrrlcs. The newer economic conception was dyrramic. lt wirs concerned with release of productivity and ex- llrrrrrgo from' a cumbrous complex of restrictions that lrrrrl the force of law. The enemy was no longer the rrrlrilrary special action of rulers. It was the whole sys- tr,rrr ol'common law and judicial practice in its adverse lrr:rrring upon freedom of labor, investment and ex- clrrurge .

'l'hc transformation of earlier liberalism that took plircc because of this new interest is so tremendous that its story must be told in some detail. The concern for, lilxrrty and for the individual, which was the basis of l,or:keian liberalism, persisted; otherwise the newer tlrr:ory would not have been liberalism. But liberty was 6ivcn a very different practical meaning. In the end, llrc cffect was to subordinate political to economic activ' ity; to connect natural laws with the laws of production urrrl exchange, and to give a radically new significance to the earlier conception of reason. The name of Adam Smith is indissolubly connected with initiation of this lransformation. Although he was far from being an rrrrqualified adherent of the idea of laissez faire, he held

Ithat the activity reed a ible I fro- political r chief cial I welfare and the of soc He held that there is a "natural" or native tendency in cvery individual to better each his own estate through

LIBERALISM AND rputting forth effort (labor) to satisfy his natural wants. :social welfare is promoted because the cumulative, but tiirdesigned and unplanned, effect of the convergence of a multitude of individual efforts is to increase the com- modities and services put at the disposal of men col- lectively, of society. This increase of goods and services creates new wants and leads to putting forth new modes of productive energy. There is not only a native impulse to exchange, to "truckr" but individuals are released by the processes of exchange from the necessity for labor in order to satisfy all of the individual's own wants; through division of labor, productivity is enormously increased. Free economic processes thus bring about an endless spiral of ever increasing change, and through the guidance of an "invisible hand" (the equivalent of the doctrine of predstablished harmony so dear to the eighteenth century) the efforts of individuals for per- sonal advancement and personal gain accrue to the benefit of society, and create a continuously closer knit interdependence of interests.

The ideas and ideals of the new political economy were congruous with the increase of industrial activity that was marked in England even before the invention of the steam engine. They spread rapidly. Their power was furthered when the great industrial and commercial expansion of England ensued in the wake of the substitu- tion of mechanical for human energy, first in textiles and then in other occupations. Under the influence of the in- dustrial revolution the old argument against political ac- tion as a social agency assumed a new form. Such action

, S0CIAL ACTION 9 rvrrs not only an invasi iberty but it was ir r r,ll'cct a conspiracy a that tring about ",,r,irrl progress. The L atural laws took

rrr,rritl meaning. They were identified with the laws ,'l' I'rce industrial production and free commercial ex_ ,'lr;rrrge. however, did not originate this lrrttcr id over from the French physiocrats, rvlrr,, as plies, believed in rule of social rclirtions by natural law and who identified natural rvith economic law.

lirance was an agricultural country, and the economy ,,1' the physiocrats was conceived and formulated in the intt:rest of agriculture and mining. Land, according to tlrcm, is the source of all wealth; from it.o-". r.lti_ rrrrrtely all genuinely productive force. fndustry, as dis_ tirrct from agriculture, merely reshapes what nature |r'ovides. The movemen t against grvernmental measures the agri_ rrrrlturalist and that e But its rrnderlying philosophy was the idea that economic laws rrre the true natural laws while other laws are artificial rrnd hence to be limited in scope as far as possible. In irn ideal society politicai organization will be modeled rrpon the economic pattern set by nature. Ex natura, ius.

Locke had taught that labor, not land, is the source of wealth, and Errgland was passing from an agrarian

LIBERALISM AND to an industrialized community. The French doctrine in its own form did not fit into the English scene. But there was no great obstacle against translating the under- lying ideal of the identity of natural law with economic law into a form suited to the needs of an industrial community. The shift from land to labor (the expendi- ture of energy for the satisfaction of wants) required only, from the side of the philosophy of economics, that attention be centered upon human nature, rather than upon physical nature. Psychological laws, based on human nature, are as truly natural as are any laws based on land and physical nature. Land is itself pro- ductive only under the influence of the labor put forth in satisfaction of intrinsic human wants. Adam Smith was not himself especially interested in elaborating a formulation of laws in terms of human nature. But he explicitly fell back upon one natural human tendency, sympathy, to find the basis for morals, and he used other natural impulses, the instincts to better one's condi- tion and to exchange, to give the foundation of economic theory. The laws of the operations of these natural tend- encies, when they are freed from artificial restraints, are the natural laws governing men in their relations to one another. In individuals, the exercise of sympathy in accordance with reason (that is, in Smith's conception, from the standpoint of an impartial spectator) is the norm of virtuous action. But government cannot appeal to sympathy. The only measures it can employ affect the motive of self-interest. It makes this appeal most effec- tively when it acts so as to protect individuals in the

SOCIAL ACTION I1 r,xr,rr:isc of their natural self-interest. These ideas, im_plir:ir in Smith, were made explicit ty fri. successors: in lrrrr.l lry the classical school of

"ro.ro_ists and in partlry llcntham and the Mills, father ur,a ,or,. For a con_rirlcrable period these two schools *ork"d hand in hand.f,i:onomists developed the principle of the free eco-rrorrrir: activity of individu"lr; .i.,"" this freedom wasirlr.rrtified with absence of gorre.rrmerrtal action, con-.r.ivr,d as an interference *itti'u,rrul lib"rty, the resultwrrs tlrc formulation of laissez faireliberalism. Bentham,'rrrricd the same conception, though from a different

;roirrt of view, into a vigorous movJment for reform ofllrr, r;ommon law and ludiciat pro""ir.e by means ofl,.gislative action. The Mills d*;"p"d the psychological rrrrrl logical foundation implicit i., tfr" theories of ther,r,onomists and of Bentham.

I begin with Bentham. The existing legal system wasirrtimately bound up with a p"firi""i-r-ystem based upontlrr: predominance of the great l"ira"a proprietors llrrough the rotten_borough Jr*"-- The operation ofllrr: new industrial fo."J, i; t"; production andcx<:hange was checked and deflected at almost every Point by a r.nass of customs that formed the coreol'common law. Bentham approached-the situation notl'xrm the standpoint of individu"t fin".ty but from thenlundpoint of the effect of th"." .".trictions upon theh.rppiness enjoyed by individu"lr-- E*;;.estriction uponlilrerty_is ipso facto a source of pain and a limitationof a pleasure that might otherwise belnjoyed. Hencelhc effect was the same in the two doctrines as far as the

T2 LIBERALISM AND

rightful province of governmental action is concerned'

Bentham's assault *l''"i*"a directly' not indirectly'

Iike the theory of the economists, upon evelything in

existing law and loii"iul procedure. that inflicted un-

necessary pain ""d*-;; ii'nit"d th" acquisition of

;;;;;: by individuals' Moreover' his psvchologv

i""""t*a the impulse to improve one's condition' upon

which Adam S*iti ttua boilt' i"to the doctrine that

desire for pleasure and aversion to pain are the sole

forces that govern ;;;"; action' fhe psychological

theory implicit in the idea of industry and exchange

controlled by desire for gain was-then worked out upon

,i"' n"itr"ui ut'd legal side' Moreover' the constant

expansion or *ut'oil?t"'i"* and trade put the force of

a powerful "r"" l"t"'"ti iehi"d the new version

liberalism. Thit ttut*ent does not imply that-the inJel'

lectual leaders of*ttt" ""* Iiberalism were themselves

moved by hope of i'ut"'itt gain'.On the contrary' they

formed a group ""i*"i"a by"a strikingly unselfish spirit'

in contrast with their p'ofttt"d- theories' Their very

detachment fto* th" im^mediate interests of the market

place liberated them from the narrowness and short'

sightedness tft"t *"'ft"d the trading class-a class that

John Stuart MiU "iu"rted to with €ven more bitterness

than did Adam Smith' This emanci- ation enabled them

to detect uoa *"t" articulate the nascent movements of

their time-" f;;-it*'a"n""t the genuine To+ of

the intellec,""r "r".r-", any period'-But they might

have

been as voices ;; i"'tt'" wilderness if what they

SOCIAL ACTION 13 t,rrrglrt had not coincided with the interests of a class tlrrt was constantly rising in prestige and power.

According to Bentham, the criterion of all law and .l cvcry administrative effort is its effect upon the sum ,'l lrappiness enjoyed by the greatest possible number. lrr rrirlculating this sum, every individual is to count as ,,rrr, irrrd only as one. The mere formulation of the doc- Ir irrc was an attack upon every inequality of status that lrrrrl the sanction of law. In effect, it made the well-being ,,l tlrc individual the norm of political action in every rrrr,rr in which it operates. In effect, though not wholly in li'rrlham's express apprehension, it transferred atten- tiorr from the well-being already possessed by indi- vi,lrrals to one they might attain if there were a radical ,'lrirrrge in social institutions. For existing institutions ,'rrirbled a small number of individuals to enjoy their lrlr:asures at the cost of the misery of a much greater rrrrrnber. While Bentham himself conceived that the clrtnges to be made in legal and political institutions w,,re mainly negative, such as abolition of abuses, cor- lrrptions and inequalities, nevertheless (as we shall see l:rtcr) there was nothing in his fundamental doctrine tlrlt stood in the way of using the power of government lo create, constmctively and positively, neru institutions il'und when it should appear that the latter would con- llibute more effectively to the well-being of individuals.

Bentharn's best known work is entitled Principles of Morals and, Legislation.In his actual treatment "morals rrnd legislation" form a single term. It was the morals ol legislation, of political action generally, with which

he occupied himself, his standard being the simple one

of determination of its effect upon the greatest possible

abuses, in his various works, in detail, one by one' But

his attacks were cumulative in effect since he applied a sm. He was? we

;1".1*""1.1:;' he proposed a remedy. FIe was an inventor in law and

administration, as much so as any contemporary in

mechanical production. He said of himself that his ambi-

tion was to "extend the experimental method of reason-

ing from the physical branch to the ps1sl"-lteaning'

in common with English thought of the eighteenth cen-

tury, by the moral the human. He also compared his

own work with what physicists and chemists were doing

in their fields in invention of appliances and processes that increase human welfare. That is, he did not limit

his method to mere reasoning; the latter occurred only

for the sake of instituting changes in actual practice' History shows no mind m an his in invention of legal and administra Of him and his ."hool Graham

'Wallas fact that the fall from power of the British aristocracy in 1832 led neither

to social revolution or administrative chaos at home' nor

to the break-up of the new British Empire abroad was

largely due to the political expedients-local govern-

S0(:IAL ACTION I5 rrrr,rrt rcform, open competition in the civil service, olilnlific health and police administration, colonial n,'ll'-government, Indian administrative reform-which ll,'ntlrtrn's disciples either found in his writings, or rl,,v,,loped, after his death, by his methods." *

'l'hc work of Bentham, in spite of fundamental defects irr lris underlying theory of human nature, is a demon- nlrrrlion that liberalism is not compelled by anything in ils own nature to be impotent save for minor reforms. li'rrtham's influence is proof that liberalism can be a powcr in bringing about radical social changes:-pro- v ir krd it combine capacity for bold and comprehensive so- ,'irr I inventionwithdetailed study of particulars and with r'()rrrage in action. The history of the legal and adminis- trrrtive changes in Great Britain during the first half of tlrr: nineteenth century is chiefly the history of Bentham rrrrtl his school. I think there is something significant for tlrc liberalism of today and tomorrow to be found in llrrr fact that his group did not consist in any large rlrcasure of politicians, legislators or public officials. ( )n the American principle of "Let George do itr" lilrerals in this country are given to supposing and lroping that some Administration when in power will take the lead in formulating and executing liberal poli- cies. I know of nothing in history that justifies the belief and hope. A liberal program has to be developed, and in a good deal of particularity, outside of the immediate realm of governmental action and enforced upon public

* Article on Bentham in the Encyclopeilin ol the Social Sciences, Vol. II, p. 5I9.

T4 LIBERALISM AND

16 LIBERALISM AND attention, before direct political action of a thorough- going liberal sort will follow. This is one lesson we have to learn from early nineteenth-century liberalism. Without a background of informed political intelligence, direct action in behalf of professed liberal ends may end in development of political irresponsibility.

Bentham's theory led him to the view that all or- ganized action is to be judged by its consequences, con- sequences that take effect in the lives of individuals. His psychology was rather rudimentary. It made him conceive of consequences as being atomic units of pleasures and pains that can be algebraically summed up. It is to this aspect of his doctrines that later writers, especially moralists, have chiefly devoted their critical attention. But this particular aspect of his theory, if we view it in the perspective of history, is an adventitious accretion. I{is enduring idea is that customs, institutions, laws, social arrangements are to be judged on the basis of their consequences as these come home to the indi- viduals that compose society. Because of his emphasis upon consequences, he made short work of the tenets of both of the two schools that had dominated, before his day, English political thought. He brushed aside, almost contemptuously, the conservative school that found the source of social wisdom in the customs and precedents of the past. This school has its counterpart in those empiricists of the present day who attack every measure and policy that is new and innovating on the ground that it does not have the sanction of experience, when what they really mean by "experience" is patterns

S0(JIAL ACTION I7 ,'l rrrirrrl that were formed in a past that no longer exists.

llrrt llentham was equally aggressive in assault upon tlrrrt rrspect of earlier liberalism which was based upon tlrr. r:orrception of inherent natural rights-following in llris lrspect a clew given by David Hume. Natural rights irrr,l rrrtural liberties exist only in the kingdom of mytho- l,,liicrl social zoology. Men do not obey laws because tlr,.y think these laws are in accord with a scheme of rrrrtrrral rights. They obey because they believe, rightly ,,r' wrongly, that the consequences of obeying are upon llrr: whole better than the consequences of disobeying. ll tlrr: consequences of existing rule become too intoler- rrlrlr:, they revolt. An enlightened self-interest wiil induce n rrrlcr not to push too far the patience of subjects. The ,.rrlightened self-interest of citizens will lead them to 'lrtirin by peaceful means, as far as possible, the changes llrrrt will effect a distribution of political power and tlrc publicity that will lead political authorities to work lirr rather than against the interests of the people-a sitrration which Bentham thought was realized by govern- rrrcnt that is representative and based upon popular srrffrage- But in any case, not natural rights but conse- (lucnces in the lives of individuals are the criterion and rncasure of policy and judgment.

Because the liberalism of the economists and the llenthamites was adapted to contemporary conditions in Great Britain, the influence of the liberalism of the school of Locke waned. By 1820 it was practically cxtinct. Its influence lasted much longer in the United States. W.e had no Bentham and it is doubtful whether

d q4n-+ _- naaD

18 LIBERALISM AND he would have had much influence if he had appeared' Except for movements in codification of law, it is hard to find traces of the influence of Bentham in this country'

As was intirnated earlier, the philosophy of Locke bore much the same relation to the American revolt of the colonies that it had to the tsritish revolution of almost a century earlier. Up to, say, the time of the Civil War, the United States were predominantly agrarian. As they

became industrialized, the philosophy of liberty of indi- viduals,' expressed especialiy in freedom of contract, provided the doctrine needed by those who controlled the econornic system. It was freely employed by the courts in declaring unconstitutional legislation that limited this freedom. The ideas of Locke embodied in the Declaration of Independence were congenial to our pioneer conditions that gave individuals the opportunity

to carve their own careers. Political action was lightly thought of by those who lived in frontier conditions' A political career was very largely annexed as an adjunct

to the action of individuals in carving their own careers' The gospel of self-help and private initiative was prac- ticed so spontaneously that it needed no special intellec- tual support. Finally, there was no background of feudalism to give special leverage to the Benthamite system of legal and administrative reform.

The United States lagged more than a generation behind Great Britain in promotion of social legislation' Justice Holmes found it necessary to remind his fellow Justices that, after all, the Social Statics of Herbert Spencer had not been enacted into the American Con-

S()CIAL ACTION 19 ,,titrrtion. Great Britain, Iargely under Benthamite influ- ,'rr,'r', built up an ordered civil service independent of 1',,litical party control. With us, political emoluments, IrIr: <:conomic pecuniary rewards, went to the most enter-

1,r ising competitor; to the victor belong the spoils. The 1'rirrciple of the greatest good to the greatcst number t,,rrrk:d to establish in Great Britain the supremacy of rurlional over local interests. The political history of the llrritcd States is largely a record of dornination by r,'ylional interests. Our fervor in law-making might be rrllictl to Bentham's principle of the "omnicompetence" ,,l the legislative body. But we have never taken very ,,'r'iously the laws we make, while there has been little .orrrparable in our history to the importance attached to rrrlrninistration by the English utilitarian school.

I have mentioned two schools of liberalism in Great llritain, that of the economists and of the utilitarians. A t lirst they walked the same path. The later history of lilrcralism in that country is largely a matter of a grow- irrg divergence, and finally of an open split. While llontham personally was on the side of the classical rrconomists, his principle of judgment by consequences Ir:nds itself to opposite application. Bentham himself rrrged a great extension of putrlic education and of action in behalf of public health. 'When he disallowed the <loctrine of inalienable individual natural rights, he removed, as far as theory is concerned, the obstacle to positive action by the state whenever it can be shown that the general well-being will be promoted by such action. Dicey in his Law and, Opinion in England, has

LIBERALISM AND shown that collectivist legislative policies gained in force for at least a generation after the sixties. It was stimu- lated, naturally, by the reform bills that greatly broad- ened the basis of suffrage. The use of scientific method, even if sporadic and feeble, encouraged study of actual consequences and promoted the formation of legisla- tive policies designed to improve the consequences brought about by existing institutions. At all events, in connection with Benthamite influence, it greatly weak- ened the notion that Reason is a remote majestic power that discloses ultimate truths. It tended to render it an agerrcy in investigation of concrete situations and in projection of measures for their betterment.

I would not, however, give the impression that the trend away from individualistic to collectivistic liber- alism was the direct effect of utilitarianism. On the con- trary, social legislation was fostered primarily by Tories, who, traditionally, had no love for the industrialist class. Benthamite liberalism was not the source of factory laws, laws for the protection of child and women, pre- vention of their labor in mines, workmen's compensation acts, employers' liability laws, reduction of hours of Iabor, the dole, and a labor code. All of these measures went contrary to the idea of liberty of contract fostered by lai s s e z f air e lib er alism. i Humanitarianism, in ailiance with evangelical piety and -with romanticism, gave chief support, from the intellectual and emotional side, to these measures, as the Tory party was their chief political agent. No account of the rise of humanitarian sentiment as a force in creation of the new regulations

',1 rrrrlrrstry would be adequate that did not include the rr,unr,s of religious leaders drawn from both dissenters ,rll tlro Established Church. Such names as W-ilberforce, I lrr rlison: Zachary, Macaulay, Elizabeth Fry, Flannah Al.rr,, us well as Lord Shaftesbury, come to mind. The IrrrrL,s unions were gaining power and therc was an ir'tivr: socialist movement, as represented by Robert I lrvr.rr. But in spite of, or along with, such movements, ru,. lurvc to remember that liberalism is associated with t,,'rrcr',rsity of outlook as well as with liberty of belief rrrrrl lction. Gradually a change came over the spirit and lrr,rrrrirrg of liberalism. ft came surely, if gradually, to 1,,, ,lisirssociated from the laissez faire creed and to be ,r'*or:iated with the use of governmental action for aid l, 1f16." at economic disadvantage and for alleviation ,,1' their conditions. In this country, save for a small l,;rrrrl of adherents to earlier liberalism, ideas and poli_ ,'ir,s of this general type have virtually come to define llrr: rnsaning of liberal faith. American liberalism as illrrstrated in the political progressivism of the early 1r..sent century has so little in common with Britisir lilrr:ralism of the first part of the last century that it rllnds in opposition to it.

'lf-re influence of romanticism, as exemplified in dif_ l'crcnt ways by Coleridge, W-ordsworth, Carlyle and l(rrskin, is worthy of especial note. These men were po- litically allied as a rule with the Tory party, if not ac_ tivcly, at least in sympathy. The romanticists were all of llrcm vigorous opponents of the consequences of the irrdustrialization of England, and directed their assaults

20 50(:IAL ACTION 2t

LIBERALISM AND at the economists and Benthamites whom they held largely responsible for these consequences. As against depend- ence upon uncocirdinated individual activities, Coleridge emphasized the significance of enduring institutions. They, according to him, are the means by which men are held together in concord of mind and purpose, the oniy real social bond. They are the force by which human relations are kept from disintegrating into an aggregate of unconnected and conflicting atoms. His work and that of his followers was a powerful counterpoise to the anti- historic quality of the Benthamite school. The leading scientific interest of the nineteenth century came to be history, including evolution within the scope of history. Coleridge was no historian; he had no great interest in historical facts. But his sense of the mission of great historic institutions was profound. Wordsworth preached the gospel of return to nature, of nature expressed in rivers, dales and mountains and in the souls of simple folk. Implicitly and often explicitly he attacked indus- trialization as the great foe of nature, without and within. Carlyle carried on a constant battle against utilitarianism and the existing socio-economic order, which he summed up in a single phrase as "anarchy plus a constable." He called for a r6gime of social authority to enforce social ties. Ruskin preached the social importance of art and joined to it a denunciation of the entire reigning system of economics, theoretical and practical. The esthetic socialists of the school of William Morris carried his teachings home to the popular mind.

S(}CIAL ACTION 23'l'lrc romantic movement profoundly affected somerrlr,r lrird grown up in the straitest .".t of hissez fairelrl,,,rrrlism. The intellectu I career of John Stuart Millrr'/rs il valiant if

, r,, r irres h" d",i":;:ffi::iii,',T#;, ll#TlJ'i;,,*: rvitlr a feeling of their hollowness *h".,

"o_pared withlltr'. vill'res of Oo::lr, of enduring lrirrori" insrirutions, ,rrr,l of the inner life, as portr"yj by th" roraanticists.ll,, rvas keenly sensitive io the br,rt"tity of life aboutlrirrr irnd its low intellectual t"u"t,

".ra saw the relatio'

lrr'twt;en these two traits. At one time, he even went solrrr rrs to say that he looked forward to the coming of,rn irf{c "when the division of the produce of labor...rvill be made by concert on an acknowledged principle,'l jrrstice." He asserted that existing institutions werelr,'rr:ly provisional, and that the ,.1#s,, gou"rning ,hJrlistribution of wealth are not .o.iul btt of man,s con_tuvance and are man's to change. A long distance lieslrr.lween the philosophy embodi"a i, ,r."h .uyirrgs andhis earlier assertion t}at ,,the ,"1" ;;; for which man_I'irrd are warranted, individually o. "ott"ctively, inirrtcrfering with the freedom of

""tion of any person isr.lf-protection.,, The romanti" ,Jorf was the chiefirrllu_ence in effecting the change.

There was in addition urroih". intellectual force atw( the which op"r,i;l)r' ims ..ir The

ttm-e attacking

,r(r ,ll:.

p a . Hill Green is r ircles. But he *", ;:t""0*t,j",l,XlTj.,lT mffil

24 LIBERALISM AND

land, in coherent formulation' the organic idealism that

originated in Germ largelY in reaction individualistic liberal

John Mill himself was grea quences that followed from the

of associationalism' Mental bonds in belief and purpose

;lil ;." the product of external associations can easily

be broken when circumstances change' The moral and

social consequence is a threatened destruction of all

stable bases of belief and social relationship' Green-and

his followers exposed this weakness in all phases of the

;;;;;.;i" philosophv that had developed under-the

alleged empiricism of the eral school' Th"y

";iii""a pi""" by piece al item of the theory

of mind, knowledg'e and so had grown out of

ift" i"""ftf"gs of Locke' Th"y asserted iltat relatioin's con'

stitute the reality of nature' of mind and of society'

But Green and his followers remained faithful' as the

romantic school did not' to the ideals of liberalism; the

conceptions of a common good as of politi'

cal organization and policy' of the most

;;;"ffi trait and 'n"i '""1 of Y' of the

claim of every individual to the full development of

iir 1up""iri"r- They strove to provide unshakeable ;lj"#" foundations in the very structure

of things

io, ,tt"." moral claims' instead of basing them upon

the sandy ground of the feelings of isolated human

beings. For the relations that constitute the essential

nature of things are, according to them, the expression

S0CIAL ACTION ,'l rrrr objective Reason and Spirit 'rrrrl

llrc human mind.

25 that sustains nature

'l'lr: idealistic philosophy taught that men are held l,rglllrcr by the relations that proceed frorn and that rrnrrifest an ultimate cosmic mind. It followed that the l',r'.is of society and the state is shared intelligence and lrn'l)ose, not force nor yet self-interest. The state is a rrr,,r'irl organism, of which government is one organ. I lrly by participating in the common intelligence and "lrrring in the common purpose as it works for the r'{rnunon good can individual human beings realize their trrrc individualities and become truly free. The state is lrrrt one organ among many of the Spirit and Will that lr,,lrls all things together and that makes human beings rrr,'rnbers of one another. It does not originate the moral ,'lrrim of individuals to the full realization of their lrolcntialities as vehicles of objective thought and pur- p,rst:. Moreover, the motives it can directly appeal to rrrr: not of the highest kind. But it is the business of the strrte to protect all forms and to promote all modes of lrrrrnan association in which the moral claims of the rnr:mbers of society are embodied and which serve as tlrr: means of voluntary self-realization. Its business is rrcgatively to remove the obstacles that stand in the way ,,[' individuals coming to consciousness of themselves lirr what they are, and positively to promote the cause ,rl' public education. Unless the state does this rvork it is no state. These philosophical liberals pointed out tlre restrictions, economic and political, which prevent rnany, probably the majority, of individuals from the

26 LIBERALISM AND voluntary intelligent action by which they may become what they are capable of becoming. The teachings of this new liberal school affected the thoughts and actions of multitudes who did not trouble themselves to under- stand the philosophical doctrine that underlay it. They served to break down the idea that freedom is some- thing that individuals have as a ready-made possession, and to instill the idea that it is something to be achieved, while the possibility of the aohievement was shown to be conditioned by the institutional medium in which an individual lives. These new liberals fostered the idea that the state has the responsibility for creating institu- tions under which individuals can effectively realize the potentialities that are theirs.

Thus from various sources and under various influ- ences there developed an inner split in liberalism. This cleft is one cause of the ambiguity from which liber- alism stili suffers and which explains a growing impo- tency. There are still those who call themselves liberals who define liberalism in terms of the old opposition between the province of organized social action and the province of purely individual initiative and effort. In the name of liberalism they are jealous of every exten- sion of governmental activity. They may grudgingly concede the need of special measures of protection and alleviation undertaken by the state at times of great social stress, but they are the confirmed enemies of social legislation (even prohibition of child labor), as standing measures of political policy. Wittingly or un- wittingly, they still provide the intellectual system of

SOCIAL ACTION 27 rrpokrgetics for the existing economic r6gime, which tlrcy strangely, it would seem ironically, uphold as a riplirne of individual liberty for all.

llut the majority who call themselves liberals today rrr,r committed to the principle that organized society nursl use its porvers to establish the conditions under wlrich the mass of individuals can possess actual as rlistinct from merely legal liberty. They define their lilrrrralism in the concrete in terms of a program of rr(.rrsures moving toward this end. They believe that tlro conception of the state which limits the activities ol' the latter to keeping order as between individuals rrrrrl to securing redress for one person when another pcrson infringes the liberty existing law has given him, is in effect simply a justification of the brutalities and iru:quities of the existing order. Because of this internal rlivision within liberalism its Iater history is wavering rrrrtl confused. The inheritance of the past still

""or",rrrany liberals, who believe in a generous use of the l)owers of organized society to change the terms on wlrich human beings associate together, to stop short with merely protective and alleviatory measures-a fact that partly explains why another school always refers to "reform" with scorn. It will be the object of the next chapter to portray the crisis in liberalism, the impasse in which it now almost finds itself, and through criticism of the deficiences of earlier liberalism to suggest the way in which liberalism may resolve the crisis, and emerge as a compact, aggressive force.

SOCIAL ACTION 29 r'.,rtainty in belief and purpose are powerful factors in grrrrcrating dogmatic faiths that are profoundly hostile lrr cverything to which liberalism in any possible for- rrrrrlation is devoted.

In a longer treatment, the crisis could be depicted in tr.rrns of the career of John Stuart Mill, during a period when the full force of the crisis was not yet clearly rrranifest. He records in his Autobiography that,

". "".1yns 7826, he asked himself this question: ..Suppos" th"t rrll your objects in life were realized: thai all the r:hanges in institutions and opinions which you are look_ irrg forward to, could be completely effected at this vcry instant: would this be a great joy and happiness lo you?" His answer was negative. The strrrggl for liberation had given him the satisfaction that comes I'rom active struggle. But the prospect of the goal tttained presented him with a scene in which .orrr"thi.rg runqualifiedly necessary for the good life was lacking. IIe found something profoundly empty in the spectacL he imaginatively faced. Doubtless physical causes had something to do with his growing doubt as to whether life would be worth living were rhe goal of his ambitions realized; sensitive youth often undergoes such crises. But he also felt that there was something inherently superficial in the philosophy of Bentharn and his father. This philosophy now seemed to him to touch only the externals of life, but not its inner springs of personal sustenance and growth. I think it a fair paraphrase to say that he found himself faced with only intellectual abstractions. criticism has made us familiar with the

* II *

THE CRISIS IN LIBERALISM

T" ,r"t effect of the struggle of early liberals to llmancipate individuals from restrictions imposed upon Ithem by the inherited type of social organization was to pose a problem, that of a new social organization. The ideas of liberals set forth in the first third of the nine- teent} century were potent in criticism and in analysis. They released forces that had been held in check. But analysis is not construction, and release of force does not of itself give direction to the force that is set free. Victorian optimism concealed for a time the crisis at which liberalism had arrived. But when that optimism vanished amid the conflict of nations, classes and races characteristic of the latter part of the nineteenth century

-a conflict that has grown more intense with the passing

years-the crisis could no longer be covered up. The beliefs and methods of earlier liberalism were ineffec- tive when faced with t}e problems of social organiza- tion and integration. Their inadequacy is a large part of belief now so current that all liberalism is an out- moded doctrine. At the same time, insecurity and un-

i" l

LIBERALISM AND abstraction known as the economic man. The utilitarians added the abstraction of tlae legal and political man. But somehow they had failed to touch man himself. Mill first found relief in the fine arts, especially poetry, as a mediurn for the cultivation of the feelings, and reacted against Benthamism as exclusively intellectualistic, a theory that identified man with a reckoning machine. Then under the influence of Coleridge and his disciples he learned that institutions and traditions are indis- pensable to the nurture of what is deepest and most worthy in human life. Acquaintance with Comte's philosophy of a future society based on the organization of science gave him a new end for which to strive, the institution of a kind of social organization in which there should be some central spiritual authority.

The life-long struggle of Mill to reconcile these ideas with those which were deeply graven in his being by his earlier Benthamism concern us here only as a symbol of the enduring crisis of belief and action brought about in liberalism itself when the need arose for uniting earlier ideas of freedom with an insistent demand for social organization, that is, for constructive s;'nthesis in the realm of thought and social institutions. The problem of achieving freedom was immeasurably widened and deepened. It did not now present itself as a conflict between goyernment and the liberty of individuals in matters of conscience and economic action, but as a problem of establishing an entire social order, possessed of a spiritual authority that would nurture and direct the inner as weII as the outer life of

irrrlividuals. The problem of science was no longer rrrcn:ly technological applications for increase of m"_ l,,r irrl productivity, but imbuing the minds of indi_ virlrrals with the spirit of reasonableness, fostered by ,,,,r:ial organization and contributing to its develop_"nr. 'f'lrc problem of democracy was seen to be not ,olu"d, lrrrrrlly more than externally touched, by the establish- rrrr:rrt of universal_ suffrage and representative govern- rrrr:rrt. As Havelock Ellis has said, ..We see now that tlrc vote and the ballot-box do not make the voter free f rrrm even external pressure; and, which is of much lllore consequence, they do not necessarily free him from lris own slavish instincts.', The problem of democracy lrr:comes the problem of that form of social orguniru- t ion, extending to all the areas and ways of living, in wlrich the powers of individuals shall not be _Jr"fy rr:lcased from mechanical external constraint but shall lrc {'ed, sustained and directed. Such an organization rlcmands much rnore of education than general school. irrg, which without a renewal of the springs of purpose irrrd desire becomes a new mode of iechanizatior,-urrd lirrmalization, as hostile to liberty as ever was govern_ rrrental constraint. It demands of science much more lhan external technical application_which again leads to mechanization of life and results in a new kind of cnslavement. It demands that the method of inquiry, of discrimination, of test by verifiable consequences, be rraturalized in all the matters, of large and of detailed scope, that arise for judgment.

The demand for a form of social organization that

30 SOCIAL ACTION 3l

32 LIBERALISM AND should include economic activities but yet should con-

, vert them into servants of the development of the higher

I capacities of individuals, is one that earlier liberalism ldid not meet. If we strip its creed from adventitious ele- ments, there are, however, enduring values for which earlier liberalism stood. These values are liberty; the development of the inherent capacities of individuals made possible through liberty, and the central r6le of free intelligence in inquiry, discussion and expression. But elements that were adventitious to these values col'

ored every one of these ideals in ways that rendered them either impotent or perverse when the new problem

of social organization arose. Before considering the three values, it is advisable to

note one adventitious idea that played a large r6le in the later incapacitation of liberalism. The earlier liberals

f lacked historic sense and interest. For a while this lack

'had an immediate pragmatic value. It gave liberals a

powerful weapon in their fight with reactionaries. For it enabled them to undercut the appeal to origin, prec' edent and past history by which the opponents of social change gave sacrosanct quality to existing ineguities and abuses. But disregard of history took its revenge. It blinded the eyes of liberals to the fact that their own special interpretations of liberty, individuality and intelligence were themselves historically conditioned, and were relevant only to their own time. They put forward their ideas as immutable truths good at all times and places; they had no idea of historic relativity, either in general or in its application to themselves.

:jOCIAL ACTION 33 Wlrcn tleir ideas and plans were projected they were

rrrr irl.tack upon the interests that were vested in estab_ linlrr:rl institutions and that had the sanction of custom. 'l'lrrr rrew forces for which liberals sought an entrance rv,'rt: incipient; the status quo was arrayed against their r,.h:asc. By the middle of the nineteenth century the r'ontcmporary scene had radically altered. The economic rrrrrl political changes for which they strove were so l;rlgely accomplished that they had become in turn the vlsled interest, and their doctrines, especially in the l,,r'rn of laissez faireliberalism, now provided the intel- l,'r:tual justification of the status quo. This creed is still powerful in this country. The earlier doctrine of ..natural liglrts," superior to legislative action, has been given a rkrfinitely economic meaning by the courts, and used by jrrtlges to destroy social legislation passed in the inter- r:st of a real, instead of purely formal, liberty of con- tract. Under the caption of "rugged. individualism,, it irrveighs against all new social policies. Beneficiaries of the established economic r6gime band themselves to. gcther in what they call Liberty Leagues to perpetuate the harsh regimentation of millions of their fellows. I rlo not imply that resistance to change would not have rppeared if it had not been for the doctrines of earlier liberals. But had the early liberals appreciated the historic relativity of their own interpretation of the meaning of liberty, t}e later resistance would certainly have been deprived of its chief intellectual and moral suppoft. The tragedy is that although these liberals were the sworn foes of political absolutism, they were them-

34 LIBERALISM AND selves absolutists in the social creed they formulated'

Thisstatementdoesnotmean,ofcourse'thatthey were opposed to social change; the opposite is evi-

rlently ih" "u.".

But it does mean they held that bene- ficial social change can come about in but one way' the

way of private economic enterprise, socially undirected'

b"."d ,rpon "nd resulting in the sanctity of private

property-that is to say, freedom from social control'

bt i"a"y those who profess the earlier type of liber' alism ascribe to this one factor all social betterment t}at has occurred; such as the increase in productivity

tnd i*p.oued standards of living' The liberals did not

try to prevent change, but they did try to limit its course

to , .irrgl" channel and to immobilize the channel' If the early liberals had put forth their special inter-

pretation of liberty as something subject to historic rela-

iirrity th"y would not have frozen it into a doctrine to be

"ppii"d at all times under all social circumstances'

Speciflcally, they would have recognized that effective

lib"tty is a function of the social conditions existing

; ";y time. If they had done this, they would have

known that as economic relations became dominantly

controlling forces in setting the pattern of human rela'

tions, the ,r"""..ity of liberty for individuals which they

fro"i"i*"d will require social control of economic

^for"", in the interest of the great mass of individu'

als. Because the liberals failed to make a distinction

b"t*""r, purely formal or legal liberty and effgc' tive liberiy of thought and action' the history of the

last one hundred years is the history of non'fulfillment

SOCIAL ACTION 35 ,,1' tlrcir predictions. It was prophesied that a r6gime of ,','oromic liberty would bring about interdependence ililr()ng nations and consequently peace. The actual scene lrrrs been marked by wars of increasing scope and rllstructiveness. Even Karl Marx shared the idea that tlrr: new economic forces would destroy economic nation- irlisrn and usher in an era of internationalism. The dis- l,lrry of exacerbated nationalism now characterizing the rvorld is a sufficient comment. Struggle for raw materials rrrrrl markets in backward countries, combined with for- ,'ign financial control of their domestic industrial de- vr:lopment, has been accompanied by all kinds of rh:vices to prevent access of other advanced nations to tlrc national market-place.

The basic doctrine of early economic liberals was that the r6gime of economic liberty as they conceived it, would almost automatically direct production through r:ompetition into channels that would provide, as ef- l'cctively as possible, socially needed commodities and scrvices. Desire for personal gain early learned that it could better further the satisfaction of that desire by stifling competition and substituting great combinations of non-competing capital. The liberals supposed the motive of individual self-interest would so release pro- ductive energies as to produce ever-increasing abun- dance. They overlooked the fact that in many cases personal profit can be better served by maintaining artificial scarcity and by what Veblen called systematic sabotage of production. A-bove all, in identifying the extension of liberty in all of its modes with extension of

36 LIBERALISM AND SOCIAL ACTION 37 ('(lrrally necessary if anything approaching economic ,.,1rrality and liberty is to be reahzed.

llentham did believe that increasing equalization of r.r:onomic fortunes was des stified his opin- iorr of its desirability on of the g."",", lrrrppiness of the greater put the matter

j #jTj'fii:',:ifl':T' r the use of organized social l)ower to promote equalization on the ground that such rrction would disturb the.,security,, thatis even a greater condition of happiness than is equality.

justifiable consequence of the free play of these inherent differences. Herbert Spencer even erected this idea into a principle of cosmic justice, based upon the idea of the proportionate relation existing between cause and effect. I fancy that today there are but few who are hardy enough, even admitting the principal of natural irr"qrui_ ities, to assert that the disparities of property and in-

their particular brand of economic liberty, they com- pteteli failed to anticipate the bearing o{ private control

"f ,ft" means of production and distribution upon the

effective liberty of the masses in industry as well as irr

cultural goods. An era of power possessed by the few

took the f,l"." of the era of liberty for all envisaged by

the iiberals of the early nineteenth century'

These statements do not imply that these liberals

should or could have foreseen the changes that would

occur, due to the impact of new forces of production'

The point is that their failure to grasp the historic posi-

tion of the interpretation of liberty they put forth served

later to solidify a social r6gime that was a chief ob-

stacle to attainment of the ends they professed. one aspect of this failure is worth especial mention' No one

has ever seen more clearly than the Benthamites that the

political self-interest of rulers, if not socially checked and controlled, leads to actions that destroy liberty for

the mass of people. Their perception of this fact was a

chief grouncl for their advocacy of representative gov-

"**"i , for they saw in this measure a means by which

the self-interest of the rulers would be forced into con-

formity with the interests of their subjects" But they h*d "o

glimpse of the fact that private control of the

,r"* forJ", of production, forces which affect the life of every one, would operate in the sam€ way as private

unch"cked control of political power' They saw the need

of new legal institutions, and of different political con-

ditions as a means to political liberty' But they failed

to perceive that social control of econornic forces is

90 e-rc) LIBERALISM AND

come bear any commensurate ratio to inequalities in thc native constitution of individuals. If we suppose tbrrl there is in fact such a ratio, the consequences are s() intolerable that the practical inference to be drawn is that organized social effort should intervene to prevenl the alleged natural law from taking full effect.

The other line of defense is unceasing glorification of the virtues of initiative, independence, choice antl responsibility, virtues that center in and proceed from individuals as such. f am one who believes that we neecl more, not fewer, "rugged individuals" and it is in the name of rugged individualism that I challenge the argu- ment. Instead of independence, there exists parasitical dependence on a wide scale-witness the present need for the exercise of charity, private and public, on a vast scale. The current argument against the public dole on the ground that it pauperizes and demoralizes those who receive it has an ironical sound when it comes from those who would leave intact the conditions that cause the necessity for recourse to the method of support of millions at public expense. Servility and regimentation are the result of control by the few of access to means of productive labor on the part of the many. An even more serious objection to the argument is that it con- ceives of initiative, vigor, independence exclusively in terms of their least significant manifestation. They are limited to exercise in the economic area. The meaning of their exercise in connection with the cul- tural resources of civilization, in such matters as com- panionship, science and art, is all but ignored. It is at

SOCIAL ACTION 39 llris last point in particular that the crisis of liberalism rrrr,l the need for a reconsideration of it in,"._. oiri" plr,rrrrine liberation of individuals are most evident. The.'normous exaggeration of material and materialistic ,,r,,rrromics that now prevails at the expense of cultural vrrlrres, is not itself the resu of

"".1i", liberalism. But,

onal crisis through which tion which is favored, both

, by fixation of the early This fact induces a natural transition from the con. "/r:( o that of the individual. Th" ,rrd"rlyirrg

t,l psychology of eurli". tiberalism led toIr individuality as somethir,g ,"uay__"d", ,rlready possessed, ,nd .r""dirrg only,iu

""*orr.l of cer_tlin legal restrictions to come into full play. It was notconceived as a moving thin only by continuous growth. rlependence in fact of ind

of the early of the effect s among in_ of ttcircum-

stances" is significant. It suggests_and the contextbears out the suggestion_that ".l"iul "rrurrg"_"rrts andwere thou erate fromt entering y into the

ke-up and Social ar-rangements were treated not as positive forces but asexternal limitations. Some passag", io Mi[," discussion

40 LIBERALISM AND of the logic of the social sciences are pertinent' "Metr

in a state of society are still men; their actions antl

passions are obedient to the laws of individual humatr

nature. Men are not, when brought together' convertetl

into a different kind of substance, as hydrogen and oxygen differ from water' ' ' ' Human beings in society h"uJ t o properties but those which are derived from'

urrd *uyi" l"rolu"d into, the laws of individual men'" And again he says: "The actions and feelings of men

the social state are entirely governed by psychological

laws." * There is an implication in these passages that liberals

will be the last to deny' This implication is directly in line with Mill's own revolt against the creed in which

he was educated. As far as the statements are a warning

against attaching undue importance to merely external

iristitutional changes, to changes that do not enter into

the desires, purposes and beliefs of the very constitu'

tion of individuals, they express an idea to which liber'

alism is committed by its own nature' But Mill means something at once less and more than this' While he

would probably have denied that he held to the notion

of a state of nature in which individuals exist prior to

entering into a social state, he is in fact giving a psy'

chological version of that doctrine' Individuals' it is imptied, have a full-blown psychological and moral na'

tore, huving its own set laws, independently of their association with one another. It is the psychological laws

ofthisisolatedhumannaturefromwhichsociallawsare * The quotations are from Mill's Logic, Book VI' chs' vii and ix'

SOCIAL ACTION 4L rlrrived and into which they may be resolved. His own illrrstration of water in its difference from hydrogen rrrrd oxygen on separation might have taught him better, il'it had not been for the influence of a prior dogma. 'l'lrat the human infant is modified in mind and character lry his connection with others in family life and that tho modification continues throughout life as his con- rrcctions with others broaden, is as true as that hydrogen is modified when it combines with oxygen. If we gen- crtlize the meaning of this fact, it is evident that while llrere are native organic or biological structures that lt:main fairly constant, the actual "laws" of human rrrrture are laws of individuals in association, not of lrcings in a mythical condition apart from association. ln other words, liberalism that takes its profession of the importance of individuality with sincerity must be deeply concerned about the structure of hurnan asso- ciation. For the latter operates to affect negatively and positively, the development of individuals. Because a wholly unjustified idea of opposition between indi- viduals and society has become current, and because its currency has been furthered by the underlying philos- ophy of individualistic liberalism, there are many who in fact are working for social changes such that rugged individuals may exist in reality, that have become con- temptuous of the very idea of individuality, while others suppofi in the name of individualism institutions that militate powerfully against the emergence and growth of beings possessed of genuine individuality.

It remains to say something of the third enduring

42 LIBERALISM AND value in the liberal creed:-intelligence. Grateful recog- nition is due early liberals for their valiant battle irr behalf of freedom of thought, conscience, expressiorr and communication. The civil liberties we possess, how- errer precariously today, are in large measure the fruit of their efforts and those of the French liberals wh<r engaged in the same battle. But their basic theory as to the nature of intelligence is such as to offer no surc foundation for the permanent victory of the cause they espoused. They resolved mind into a complex of ex- ternal associations among atomic elements, just as they resolved society itself into a similar compound of ex- ternal associations among individuals, each of whom has his own independently fixed nature. Their psy- chology r,r'as not in fact the product of impartial inquiry into human nature. It was rather a political weapon devised in the interest of breaking down the rigidity of dogmas and of institutions that had lost their relevancy. Mill's own contention that psychological laws of the kind he laid down were prior to the laws of men living and communicating together, acting and reacting upon one another, was itself a political instrument forged in the interest of criticism of beliefs and institutions that he believed should be displaced. The doctrine was po- tent in exposure of abuses; it was weak for constructive purposes. Bentham's assertion that he introduced the method of experiment into the social sciences held good as far as resolution into atoms acting externally upon one another, after the Newtonian model, was concerned. It did not recognizethe place in experiment of compre-

SOCIAL ACTION 43 lrr:nsive social ideas as working hypotheses in direction ol'irction.

44 LTBERALISM ANI) conception was fortified by the interest in history anrl irr evolution so characteristic of the later nineteenth ct:rr- tury. The materialistic philosophy of Spencer joirr,',| hands with the idealistic doctrine of Hegel in throwing t lr,'

burden of social direction upon powers that are beyorrrl deliberate social foresight and planning. The economirr dialectic of history, substituted by Marx for the Heg,,- lian dialectic of ideas, as interpreted by the socill- democratic party in Europe, was taken to signify arr equally inevitable movement toward a predestined goal-

Moreover, the idealistic theory of objective spirit pro- vided an intellectual justification for the nationalisms that were rising. Concrete manifestation of absolutc mind was said to be provided through national states- Today, this philosophy is readily turned to the support of the totalitarian state.

The crisis in liberalism is connected with failure to develop and lay hold of an adequate conception of intel- ligence integrated with social movements and a factor in giving them direction. We cannot mete out harsh blame to the early liberals for failure to attain such a concep- tion. The first scientific society for the study of anthro- pology was founded the year in which Darwin's Origin of Species saw the light of day. I cite this particular fact to typify the larger fact that the sciences of society, the controlled study of man in his relationships, are the product of the later nineteenth century. Moreover, these disciplines not only came into being too late to influence the formulation of liberal social theory, but they them' selves were so much under the influence of the more

SOCIAL ACTION 45 rrrlvanced physical sciences that it was supposed that tlrr:ir' findings were of merely theoretic import. By this Htrrtcment, I mean that although the conclusions of the x,,cial disciplines were about man, they were treated as

,il' th me nature as the conclusions of /t,lrls remote galaxies of stars. Social \rrrrtl is in fact a part of the social pr'ocess itself, not something outside of it. The conse_ (lrrcnce of not perceiving this fact was that the conclu_ sions of the social sciences were not made (and still are rrot made in any large measure) integral members of r program of social action. When the conclusions of irrquiries that deal with man are left outside the program oI social action, social policies are necessarily left without the guidance that knowledge of man can provide, , rurd that it must provide if social action is not to be directed either by mere precedent and custom or else by the huppy intuitions of individual minds. The social conception of the nature and work of intelligence is stiil immature; in consequence, its use as a director of social action is inchoate and sporadic. It is the tragedy of earlier liberalism that just at the time when the problem of social organization was most urgent, liberals could bring to its solution nothing but the conception that intelligence is an individual possession.

It is all but a commonplace thar today physical knowledge and its technical applications have far out- run our knowledge of man and its application in social invention and engineering. What I have just said indi- cates a deep source of the trouble. After all, our

46 LIBERALISM AND SOCIAL ACTION 47 would be reviewed to see its bearing upon the habits rrntl ideas from which it sprang. Until science is treated crlucationally in this way, the introduction of what is crrlled science into the schools signifies one more oppor- trrnity for the mechanization of the material and methods o[ study. When "learning" is treated not as an expan- sion of the understanding and judgment of meanings lrut as an acquisition of information, the method of <:oiiperative experimental intelligence finds its way into the working structure of the individual only incidentally and by devious paths.

Of the place and use of socially organized. intelligence in the conduct of public affairs, through legislation and administration, I shall have something to say in the next chapter. At this point of the discussion I am con- tent to ask the reader to compare the force it now exerts in politics with that of the interest of individuals and parties in capturing and retaining office and power, with that exercised by the propaganda of publicity agents and that of organized pressure groups. '' Humanly speaking, the crisis in liberalism was a product of particular historical events. Soon after liberal tenets were formulated as eternal truths, it became an instrument of vested interests in opposition to further social change, a ritual of lip-service, or else was shat- tered by new forces that came in. Nevertheless, the idea$ of iiberty, of individuality and of freed intelligence have an enduring value, a value never more needed than now. It is the business of liberalism to state these values in ways, intellectual and practical, that are rele-

accumulated knowledge of man and his ways' furnishctl

invention in improved operations in practice' There is

next to nothing of the same sort with respect to knowl-

edge of man and human affairs. Although the latter is

,"iognired to concern man in the sense of being about

him, it is of less practical effect than are the much more remote findings of physical science'

The inchoate state of social knowledge is reflected in

the two fields where intelligence might be supposed to

be most alert and most continuously active, education

and the formation of social policies in legislation' Science is taught in our schools' But very largely it

intelligence itself in action, then the method of science would be incarnate in every branch of study and every

detail of learning. Thought would be connected with the possibility of action' and every mode of action

48 LIBERALISM AND vant to present needs and forces. If we employ the corr- ception of historic relativity, nothing is clearer thrtrr that the conception of liberty is always relative to forccs that at a given time and place are increasingly felt t<,

. be oppressive. Liberty in the concrete signifies releast: from the impact of particular oppressive forces; eman-

, cipation from something once taken as a normal part o['

,/ hu*un life but now experienced as bondage. At ont: time, liberty signified liberation from chattel slavery; at another time, release of a class from serfdom. During the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries it meant liberation from despotic dynastic rule. A century later it meant release of industrialists from inherited legal customs that hampered the rise of new forces of production. Today, it signifies liberation from material insecurity and from the coercions and repressions that prevent multitudes frorn participation in the vast cul- tural resources that are at hand. The direct impact of liherty always has to do with some class or group that is suffering in a special way from some form of con- straint exercised by the distribution of powers that exists in contemporary society. Should a classless society ever come into being the formal concept of liberty would lose its significance, because the fact for which it stantis would have become an integral part of the established relations of hurnan beings to one another.

Until such a time arrives liberalism will continue to have a necessary social office to perform. Its task is the

mediation of social transitions. This phrase may seem to some to be a virtual admission that liberalism is a

SOCIAL ACTION 49 lolorless "middle of the road,' doctrine. Not so, even tlrough liberalism has sometimes taken that form in lrlactice. We are always dependent upon the experience that has accumulated in the past and yet there are rr lways new forces coming in, new needs arising, that rlcmand, if the new forces are to operate and the new rrceds to be satisfied, a reconstruction of the patterns o[ old experience. The old and the new have forever to lrc integrated with each other, so that the values of old cxperience may become the servants and instrurnents of rrew desires and airns. We are always possessed by habits rrnd customs, and this fact signifies that we are always influenced by the inertia and the momentum of forces temporally outgrown but nevertheless still present with rrs as a part of, our being. Human life gets set in pat- terns, institutional and moral. But change is also with us and demands the constant remaking cf old habits and old ways of thinking, desiring and acting. The effective ratio between the old and the stabilizing and the new and disturbing is very different at different times. Some- times whole communities seem to be dominated by cus- tom, and changes are produced only by irruptions and invasions f;'rm outside. Sometimes, as at present, change is so varied and accelerated that customs seem to be dis- solving before our very eyes. But be the ratio little or great, there is always an adjustment to be made, and as soon as the need for it becomes conscious, liberalism has a function and a meaning. It is not that liberalism creates the need, but that the necessity for adjustrnent defines the office of liberalism.

LIBERALISM AND For the only adjustment that does not have to lrr'

made over again, and perhaps even under more lrrr- favorable circumstances than when it was first attemptcrl. is that effected through intelligence as a method' In its large sense, this remaking of the old through union willr

the new is precisely what intelligence is. It is conversiorr of past experience into knowledge and projection ol' that knowledge in ideas and purposes that anticipate whll

may come to be in the future and that indicate how to realize what is desired. Every problem that arises, per'-

sonal or collective, simple or complex, is solved only by

selecting material from the store of knowledge amassed

in past experience and by bringing into play habits already formed. But the knowledge and the habits have to

be modified to meet the new conditions that have arisen'

In collective problems, the habits that are involved are traditions and institutions. The standing danger is either

that they will be acted upon implicitly, without recon- struction to meet new conditions, or else that there will be an impatient and blind rush forward, directed only by some dogma rigidly adhered to. The office of intelli gence in every problem that either a person or a com- munity meets is to effect a working connection between

old habits, customs, institutions, beliefs, and new condi-

tions. What I have called the mediating function of liberalism is all one with the work of intelligence. This fact is the root, whether it be consciously realized or not, of the emphasis placed by liberalism upon the r6le of freed intelligence as the method of directing social action.

SOCIAL ACTION 51 Objections that are brought against liberalism ignore

llu,. fact that the only alternatives to dependence upon irrtelligence are either drift and casual improvisation, or llrc use of coercive force stimulated by unintelligent emo- lion and fanatical dogrnatism-the latter being intoler- nnt by its very constitution. The objection that the method

^ol intelligence has been tried and failed is wholly aside

/lro- the point, since the crux of the present situation lis that it has not been tried under such conditions as rrow exist. It has not been tried at any time with use of all the resources that scientific material and the t:xperimental method now put at our disposal. It is also said that inteiligence is cold and that persons are moved to new ways of acting only by emotion, just as habit makes them adhere to old ways. Of course, intelligence does not generate action except as it is enkindled by feeling. But the notion that there is some inherent opposition between emotion and intelligence is a relic of the notion of mind that grew up before the experi- mental method of science had emerged. For the latter method signifies the union of ideas with action, a union that is intimate; and action generates and supports emo- tion. Ideas that are framed to be put into operation for the sake of guiding action are imbued with all the emotional force that attaches to the ends proposed for action, and are accompanied with all the excitement and inspiration that attends the struggle to realize the ends. Since the ends of liberalism are liberty and the oppor- turrity of individuals to secure full realization of their potentialities, all of the emotional intensity that belongs

52 LIBERALISM ANI) to these ends gathers about the ideas and acts that rrr,' necessary to make them real.

Again, it is said that the average citizen is not r:rr- dowed with the degree of intelligence that the usc ol it as a method demands. This objection, supported lry alleged scientific findings about heredity and by imprcs- sive statistics concerning the intelligence quotients ol' the average citizen, rests wholly upon the old notiorr that intelligence is a ready-made possession of inrli- viduals. The last stand of oligarchical and anti-socil| seclusion is perpetuation of this purely individualisti,: notion of intelligence. The reliance of liberalism is not upon the mere abstraction of a native endolvmcnt unaffected by social relationships, but upon the fact

1 that native capacity is sufficient to enable the averagc

/ individual to respond to and to use the knowledge anrl j the skill that are embodied in the social conditions in

which he lives, rnoves and has his being. There are few individuals who have the native capacity that was re- quired to invent the stationary stearn-engine, locornotive, dynamo or telephone. But there are none so mean that they cannot intelligently utilize these embodiments of intelligence once they are a part of the organized means of associated living.

The indictments that are drawn against the intelli- gence of individuals are in truth indictments of a social order that does not permit the average individual to have access to the rich store of the accumulated wealth of

, mankind in knowledge, ideas and purposes. There does not now exist the kind of social organization that even

SOCIAL ACTION 53 lxrrmits the average human being to share the poten_ tirrlly available social intelligence. Still less is there a r.'.or;ial order that has for one of its chief purposes the r,stablishment of conditions that will move the mass of irrrlividuals to appropriate and use what is at hand. lltck of the appropriation by the few of the material r'osources of society lies the appropriation by the few irr behalf of their own ends of the cultural, the spiritual, ll)sources that are the product not of the individuals who lrtve taken possession but of the cotiperative work of lrumanity. It is useless to talk about the failure of rlcmocracy until the source of its failure has been grasped and steps are taken to bring about that type of s.cial organization that will encourage the socialized cxtension of intelligence.

The crisis in liberalism2 as I said at the outset, pro. r:eeds from the fact that after early liberalism had Jone its work, society faced a new problem, that of social organization. frc work was to liberate a group of indi- viduals, representing the new science and the new forces of productivity, from customs, ways of thinking, institu- tions, that were oppressive of the new modes of social action, however useful they may have been in their day. The instruments of analysis, of criticism, of dissolution, that were employed were effective for the work of release. But when it came to the problem of organizing the new forces and the individuals whose modes of life they radically altered into a coherent social organiza. tion, possessed of intellectual and rnoral directive power, liberalism was well-nigh impotent. The rise of national

LIBERALISM ANI)54 polities that pretend to represent the order, disciplirr'' and spiritual authority that will counteract social rlis- integration is a tragic comment upon the unpreparednt'tt

of older liberalism to deal with the new problem wlrir:lr its very success PreciPitated-

But the values of freed intelligence, of liberty, ol opportunity for every individual to realize the potcrr- tialities of which he is possessed, are too precious to lrr:

sacrificed to a r6gime of despotism, especially when tlrc

r6gime is in such large measure merely the agent of rr

dominant economic class in its struggle to keep artrl extend the gains it has amassed at the expense of genuinc

social order, unity, and development' Liberalism has trr

gather itself together to formulate the ends to which it is devoted in terms of means that are relevant to the corr-

situation. The only form of enduring social n that is now possible is one in which thtr of productivity are coiiperatively controlled

and used in the interest of the effective liberty and the

cultural devel that constitute society. Such established bY an unplanned of the actions of separate individuals, each of whom is bent on per- sonal private advantage. This idea is the Achilles heel

of early liberalism' The idea that liberalism cannot ' maintain its ends and at the same time reverse its con-

T::;,H*?jl;1 m was committed.

Organized social planning, put into effect for the crea-

SOCTAL ACTION 55 lion of an order in which industry and finance are socially directed in behalf of institutions that provide lhe material basis for the cultural liberation and growth o[' individuals, is now the sole method of social action lry which liberalism can realize its professed aims. Such Jrlanning demands in turn a new conception and logic of freed intelligence as a social force. To these phases of a renascent liberalism, I turn in the chapter that follows.

+III*

RENASCENT LIBERALISM

SOCIAL ACTION 57 own picture of the pattern that is required: a social olganization that will make possible effective liberty rnd opportunity for personal growth in mind and spirit in all individuals. Its present need is recognition that cstablished material security is a prerequisite of the ends which it cherishes, so that, the basis of life being secure, individuals may actively share in the wealth of cultural resources that now exist and may contribute, each in his own way, to their further enrichment.

The fact of change has been so continual and so intense that it overwhelms our minds. We are bewildered by the spectacle of its rapidity, scope and intensity. It is not surprising that men have protected themselves from the impact of such vast change by resorting to what psycho-analysis has taught us to call rationaliza- tions, in other words, protective fantasies. The Victorian idea that change is a part of an evolution that neces- sarily leads through successive stages to sorne preor- dained divine far-off event is one rationalization. The conception of a sudden, complete, almost catastrophic, transformation, to be brought about by the victory of the proletariat over the class now dominant, is a similar rationalization. But men have met the impact of change in the realm of actuality, mostly by drift and by tem- porary, usually incoherent, improvisations. Liberalism, like every other theory of life, has suffered from the state of confused uncertainty that is the lot of a world suffering from rapid and varied change for which there is no intellectual and moral preparation.

Because of this lack of mental and moral prepara'

58 LIBERALISM AND tion the impact of swiftly moving changes produced, ls I have just said, confusion, uncertainty and drift. Charrg,' in patterns of belief, desire and purpose has laggr:rl behind the modification of the external conditions unrl.'r' which men associate. Industrial habits have changcrl most rapidly; there has followed at considerable dis- tance, change in political relations; alterations in legrrl relations and methods have lagged even more, whilc changes in the institutions that deal most directly wiLlr patterns of thought and belief have taken place t<r the least extent. This fact defines the primary, though not by any means the ultimate, responsibility of a Iiberalisrn that intends to be a vital force. Its work is first of all education, in the broadest sense of that term. Schooling is a part of the work of education, but educa- tion in its full meaning includes all the influences that go to forrn the attitudes and dispositions (of desire as well as of belief), which constitute dominant habits of mind and character.

Let me mention three changes that have taken place in one of the institutions in which immense shifts have occurred, but that are still relatively external-external in the sense that the pattern of intelligent purpose and emotion has not been correspondingly modified. Civiliza- tion existed for most of human history in a state of scarcity in the material basis for a humane life. Our ways of thinking, planning and working have been attuned to this fact. Thanks to science and technology we now live in an age of potential plenty. The imme- diate effiect of the emergence of the new possibility. was

SOCIAL ACTION 59 simply to stimulate, to a point of incredible exaggera- tion, the striving for the material resources? called wealth, opened to men in the new vista. It is a charac. teristic of all development, physiological and mental, that when a new force and factor appears, it is first pushed to an extreme. Only when its possibilities have been exhausted (at least relatively) does it take its place in the life perspective. The economic-material phase of life, which belongs in the basal ganglia of society, has usurped for more than a century the cortex of the social body. The habits of desire and effort that were bred in the age of scarcity do not readily subor- dinate themselves and take the place of the matter-of- course routine that becomes appropriate to them when machines and impersonal power have the capacity to liberate man from bondage to the strivings that were once needed to make secure his physical basis. Even now when there is a vision of an age of abundance and when t}te vision is supported by hard fact, it is material security as an end that appeals to most rather than the way of living which this security makes possible. Men's minds are still pathetically held in the clutch of old habits and haunted by old memories.

For, in the second place, insecurity is the natural. child and the foster child, too, of scarcity., Early liber- alism emphasized the importance of insecurity as a fundamentally necessary economic motive, holding that without this goad men would not work, abstain or accumulate. Formulation of this conception was new. But the fact that was formulated was nothing new. It

60 LIBERALISM ANI) was deeply rooted in the habits that were formed in llrr' long struggle against material scarcity. The system llrrrl goes by the name of capitalism is a systematic mirrri- festation of desires and purposes built up in an agc,l' ever threatening want and now carried over into a tirrrc of ever increasing potential plenty. The conditions tlrrrl generate insecurity for the many no longer spring frorrr nature. They are found in institutions and arrangemerls that are within deliberate human control. Surely this change rnarks one of the greatest revolutions that hirs taken place in all human history. Because of it, irr- security is not now the motive to work and sacrifice bul to despair. It is not an instigation to put forth energy but to an impotency that can be converted frorn death into endurance only by charity. But the habits of mind and action that modify institutions to make potential abundance an actuality are still so inchoate that most of us discuss labels like individualism, socialism and

' communism instead of even perceiving the possibility, much less the necessity for realizing what can and should be.

In the third place, the patterns of belief and purpose that still dominate economic institutions were formed when individuals produced with their hands, alone or in small groups. The notion that society in general is served by the unplanned coincidence of the consequences of a vast multitude of efforts put forth by isolated indi- viduals without reference to any social end, was also something new as a formulation. But it also forrnulated the working principle of an epoch which the advent of

SOCIAL ACTION 6I new forces of production was to bring to an end. It demands no great power of intelligence to see that under present conditions the isolated individual is well-nigh helpless. Concentration and corporate organization are the rule. But the concentration and corporate organiza- tion are still controlled in their operation by ideas that were institutionalized in eons of separate individual effort. The attempts at coiiperation for mutual benefit that are put forth are precious as experirnental moves. But that society itself should see to it that a coiiperative industrial order be instituted, one that is consonant with the realities of production enforced by an era of ma- chinery and power, is so novel an idea to the general mind that its mere suggestion is hailed with atrusive epithets-sometimes with imprisonment.

When, then, I say that the first object of a renascent liberalism is education, f mean that its task is to aid in producing the habits of mind and character, the intellec- tual and moral patterns, that are somewhere near even with the actual movements of events. It is, I r-epeat, the split between the latter as they have externally occurred and the ways of desiring, thinking, and of putting emotion and purpose into execution that is the basic cause of present confusion in rreind and paralysis in action. The educational task cannot be accornplished inerely by working upon men's minds, without action that effects actual change in institutions. The idea that dispositions and attitudes can be altered by merely "moral" rneans conceived of as something that goes on wholly inside of persons is itself one of the old patterns

62 LIBERALISM AI\D that has to be changed. Thought, desire and purpose exist in a constant give and take of interaction with environing conditions. But resolute thought is the first step in that change of action that will itself carry further the needed change in patterns of mind and character.

fn s sm must now become radical, mean_ ing by rception of the necessity of thorough- going he set-up of institutions and

"o.r"-

process of producing the changes will be, in any case, a gradual one. But "reforms', that deal now with this abuse and now with that without having a social goal based upon an inclusive plan, differ entirely from efrort at re-forming, in its literal sense, the institutional scheme of things. The lib ago were denounced in the and only when the new ec did they becorne apologists for the status quo or else content with social patchwork. If radicalism be definecl as perception of need for radical change, then today any liberalism which is not also radicalism is irrelevant and doomed.

SOCIAL ACTION 63 mitted to the organization of intelligent action as the chief method. Any frank discussion of the issue must recognize the extent to which those who decry the use of any violence are themselves willing to resort to violence and are ready to put their will into operation. Their fundamental objection is to change in the eco- nomic institution that now exists, and for its main- tenance they resort to the use of the force that is placed in their hands by this very institution. They do not need to advocate the use of force; tlreir only need is to em- ploy it. Force, rather than intelligence, is built into the procedures of the existing social system, regularly as coercion, in times of crisis as overt violence. The legal systum, conspicuousiy in its penai aspect, more subtly in civil practice, rests upon coercion. Wars are the methods recurrently used in settlement of disputes be- tween nations. One school of radicals dwells upon the fact that in the past the transfer of power in one society has either been accomplished by or attended with vio- lence. But what we need to realize is that physical force is used, at least in the form of coercion, in the very set-up of our society. That the competitive system, which was thought of by early liberals as the means by which the latent abilities of individuals were to be evoked and directed into socially useful channels, is now in fact a state of scarcely disguised battle hardly needs to be dwelt upon. That the control of the means of produc- tion by the few in legal possession operates as a stand- ing agencv of coercion of the many, may need emphasis in statement, but is surely evident to one who is willing

64 LIBERALISM AND to observe and honestly report the existing scene. It is foolish to regard the political state as the only agency now endowed with coercive power. Its exercise of this power is pale in contrast with that exercised by concen- trated and organized property interests.

It is not surprising in view of our standing depend- ence upon the use of coercive force that at every time of crisis coercion breaks out into open violence. In this country, with its tradition of violence fostered by fron- tier conditions and by the conditions under which im- migration went on during the greater part of our history, resort to violence is especially recurrent on the part of those who are in power. In times of imminent change, our verbal and sentimental worship of the Con- stitution, with its guarantees of civil liberties of ex- pression, publication and assemhlage, readily goes overboard. Often the officials of the law are the worst offenders, acting as agents of some power that rules the economic life of a community. What is said about the value of free speech as a safety valve is then forgotten with the utmost of ease: a comment, perhaps, upon the weakness of the defense of freedom of expression that values it simply as a means of blowing-off steam.

It is not pleasant to face the extent to which, as mat- ter of fact, coercive and vioient force is relied upon in the present social system as a means'of social control. It is much more agreeable to evade the fact. But unless the fact is acknowledged as a f act in its full depth and breadth, the meaning of dependence upon intelligence as the alternative method of social direction will not be

grasped. Failure in ifies, among other things, failure *ho prop"_ gate the dogma of ce have the sanction of much that is already entrenched in the ex- isting system. They would but turn the use of it to opposite ends. The assumption that the method of intel_ ligence already rules and that those who urge the use of violence are introducing a new element into the social

hypocriticai but it is unintelligently actually involved in intelligence as

od of social action. I begin with e of what is really involved in

the issue. Why from our tradition of violence, that liberty of is tolerated and even iauded when social affairs seem to Lre quiet fashion, and yet is so readily destroye mafters grow critical? The general answer, is that at bot_ .z tom social institutions have habituated us to the use of force in some veiled form. But a part of the answer is found in our ingrained habit of regarding intelligence as an individual possession and its exercise as an indi- vidual right. It is false that freedom of inquiry and of expression are not modes of action. They are exceed_

being a merely individual right. The result is that this liberty is tolerated as long as it does not seem to menace in any way the status quo of society. When it does,

SOCIAL ACTION 65

66 LIBERALISM AND every effort is put forth to identify the established ordcr with the public good. When this identification is estab- lished, it follows that any merely individual right must

r yield to the general welfare' As long as freedom o1' thought and speech is claimed as a merely individua I right, it will give way, as do other merely personal claims, when it is, or is successfully represented to bc, in opposition to the general welfare.

I would not in the least disparage the noble fight waged by early liberals in behalf of individual freedonr of thought and expression. W-e owe more to them than it is possible to record in words. No more eloquent words have ever come from any one than those of Jus- tice Brandeis in the case of a legislative act that in fact restrained freedom of political expression. He said: "Those who won our independence believed that thc final end of the State was to make men free to develop their faculties, and that in its government the delibera- tive faculties should prevail over the arbitrary. They valued liberty both as an end and as a means. They believed liberty to be the secret of happiness and colr-

l8e to be the secret of liberty. They believed that free- dom to think as you will and to speak as you think are means indispensable to the discovery and spread of political truth; that without free speech and assembly discussion would be futile; that with them, discussion affords ordinarily adequate protection against the dis- semination of noxious doctrines; that the greatest men- ace to freedom is an inert people; that public discussion is a political duty; and that this should be a funda-

SOCIAL ACTION 67 mental principle of the American government." This is the creed of a fighting liberalism. But the issue I am raising is connected with the fact that these words are found in a dissenting, a minority opinion of the Supreme Court of the United States. The public function of free individual thought and speech is clearly recognized in the words quoted. But the reception of the truth of the words is met by an obstacle: the old habit of defending liberty of thought and expression as something inhering in individuals apart from and even in opposition to social claims.

Liberalism has to assume the responsibility for mak- ing it clear that intelligence is a social asset and is clothed with a function as public as is its origin, in the concrete, in social cotiperation. ft was Comte who, in reaction against the purely individualistic ideas that seemed to him to underlie the French Revolution, said that in mathematics, physics and astronomy there is no right of private conscience. If we remove the statement from the context of actual scientific procedure, it is dangerous because it is false. The individual inquirer has not only the right but the duty to criticize the ideas, theories and "laws" that are current in science. But if we take the statement in the context of scientific method, it indicates that he carries on this criticism in virtue of a socially generated body of knowledge and by means of methods that are not of private origin and possession. He uses a method that retains public validity even when innovations are introduced in its use and application.

Henry George, speaking of ships that ply the ocean

68 LIBERALISM AND with a velocity of five or six hundred miles a day, rc- marked, "There is nothing whatever to show that thtr men who today build and navigate and use such ships are one whit superior in any physical or mental quality to their ancestors, whose best vessel was a coracle ol wicker and hide. The enormous improvement which thest:

ships show is not an irnprovement of human nature; it is an improvement of society-it is due to a wider and fuller union of individual efforts in accomplishrnent o[ common ends." This single instance, duly pondered, gives a better idea of the nature of inteliigence and its social office than would a volume of abstract disserta- tion. Consider rnerely two of the factols that enter in and their social consequences. Consider what is involved in the production of steel, from the first use of fire antl then the crude smelting of ore, to the processes that now effect the mass production of steel. Consider also thc development of the power of guiding ships across track- less wastes from the day when they hugged the shore, steering by visible sun and stars, to tlre appliances that now enable a sure course to be taken. It would require a heavy tome to describe the advances in science, in mathernatics, astronomy, physics, chemistry, that have made these two things possible. The record would be an account of a vast multitude of cotiperative efforts, in which one individual uses the results provided for him by a countless number of other individuals, and uses them so as to add to the comrnon and public store' A suxvey of such facts brings home the actual social char- acter of intelligence as it actually develops and mal<es

SOCIAL ACTION 69 its way. Survey of the consequences upon the ways of living of individuals and upon the terms on which men nssociate together, due to the new method of transporta- tion would take us to the wheat farmer of the prairies, the cattle raiser of the plains, the cotton grower of the South; into a multitude of mills and factories, and to the counting-room of banks, and what would be seen in this country would be repeated in every country of the globe.

It is to such things as these, rather than to abstract and formal psychology that we must go if we would learn the nature of intelligence: in itself, in its ori- gin and development, and its uses and consequences. At this point, I should like to recur to an idea put for- ward in the preceding chapter. I then referred to the contempt often expressed for reliance upon intelligence as a social method, and I said this scorn is due to the identification of intelligence with native endowments of individuals. In contrast to this notion, I spoke of the power of individuals to appropriate and respond to the intelligence, t}e knowledge, ideas and purposes that have been integrated in the medium in which individuals live" Each of us knows, for example, some mechanic of ordinary native capacity who is intelligent within the matters of his calling. He has lived in an environment in which the cumulative intelligence of a multitude of cociperating individuals is embodied, and by the use of his native capacities he makes some phase of this intelligence his own. Given a social medium in whose institutions the available knowledge, ideas and art of

70 LIBERALISM AND humanity were incarnate, and the average individrrrrl would rise to undreamed heights of social and politicl I intelligence.

The rub, the problem is found in the proviso. Can tlr<'

intelligence actually existent and potentially availalrlr'

be embodied in that institutional medium in which atr individual thinks, desires and acts? Before dealing di-

rectly with this question, I wish to say something aboul the operation of intelligence in our present political institutions, as exemplified by current practices of demo- cratic government. I would not minimize the advanr:t' scored in substitution of methods of discussion arll conference for the method of arbitrary rule. But thrr better is too often the enemy of the still better. Discus- sion, as the manifestation of intelligence in political life, stimulates publicity; by its means sore spots arc brought to light that would otherwise remain hidden. It affords opportunity for promulgation of new ideas. Compared with despotic rule, it is an invitation to indi- viduals to concern themselves with public affairs. But discussion and dialectic, however indispensable they are

to the elaboration of ideas and policies after ideas are once put forth, are weak reeds to depend upon for systematic origination of comprehensive plans, the plans that are required if the problem of social organization is to be met. There was a time when discussion, the comparison of ideas already current so as to purify and clarify them, was thought to be sufficient in discovery of the structure and laws of physical nature. In the lat- ter field, the method was displaced by that of experi-

SOCIAL ACTION 77 mental observation guided by comprehensive working hypotheses, and using all the resources made available by mathematics.

But we still depend upon the method of discussion, with only incidental scientific control, in politics. Our system of popular suffrage, immensely valuable as it is in comparison with what preceded it, exhibits the idea that intelligence is an individualistic possession, at best enlarged by public discussion. Existing political practice, with its complete ignoring of occupational groups and the organized knowledge and purposes that are involved in the existence of such groups, manifests a dependence upon a summation of individuals quantitatively, similar to Bentham's purely quantitative formula of the greatest sum of pleasures of the greatest possible number. The formation of parties or, as the eighteenth-century writers called them, factions, and the system of party goyern- ment is the practically necessary counterweight to a nu- merical and atomistic individualism. The idea that the conflict of parties will, by means of public discussion, bring out necessary public truths is a kind of political watered-down version of the Hegelian dialectic, with its synt}esis arrived at by a union of antithetical con- ceptions. The method has nothing in common with the procedure of organized coiiperative inquiry which has won tlle triumphs of science in the field of physical nature.

Intelligence in politics when it is identified with dis- cussion means reliance upon symbols. The invention of language is probably the greatest single invention

72 LIBERALISM AND achieved by humanity. The development of political forms that promote the use of symbols in place of artri- trary power was another great invention. The nineteenth- century establishment of parliamentary institutions, written constitutions and the suffrage as means of politi- cal rule, is a tribute to the power of symbols. But sym- bols are significant only in connection with realities behind them. No intelligent observer can deny, I think, that they are often used in party politics as a substitute for realities instead of as means of contact with them. Popular literacy, in connection with the telegraph, cheap postage and the printing press, has enormously multi- plied the number of those influenced. That which we term education has done a good deal to generate habits that put symbols in the place of realities. The forms of popular government make necessary the elaborate use of words to influence political action. "Propaganda" is the inevitable consequence of the combination of these influences and it extends to every area of life. Words not only take the place of realities but are themselves debauched. Decline in the prestige of suffrage and of parliamentary government are intimately associated with the belief, manifest in practice even if not ex. pressed in words, that intelligence is an individual pos- session to be reached by means of verbal persuasion.

This fact suggests, by way of contrast, the genuine meaning of intelligence in connection with public opin- ion, sentiment and action. The crisis in democracy de- mands the substitution of the intelligence that is exemplified in scientific procedure for the kind of intel-

SOCIAL ACTION ntI.) ligence that is now accepted. The need for this change is not exhausted in the demand for greater honesty and impartialityT even though these qualities be now cor- rupted by discussion carried on mainly for purposes of party supremacy and for imposition of some special but concealed interest. These qualities need to tre restored. But the need goes further. The social use of intelligence would remain deficient even if these moral traits were exalted, and yet intelligence continued to be identified simply with discussion and persuasion, necessary as are these things.lrApproximation to use of scientific method in investigat\on and of the engineering mind in the invention and projection of far-reaching social plans is demanded. The habit of considering social realities in terms of cause and effect and social policies in terms of means and consequences is still inchoate. The contrast between the state of intelligence in politics and in the physical control of nature is to be taken literally. What has happened in this latter is the outstanding demon- stration of the meaning of organized intelligence. The combined effect of science and technology has released more productive energies in a bare hundred years than stands to the credit of prior human history in its en- tirety. Froductively it has multiplied nine miliion times in the last generation alone. The prophetic vision of Francis Bacon of subjugation of the energies of nature through change in methods of inquiry has I'ell-nigh been realized. The stationary engine, the locomotive, the dy- namo, the motor car, turbine, telegraph, telephone, radio

and moving picture are not the products of either iso'

74 LIBERALISM AND lated individual minds nor of the particular economir; regime called capitalism. They are the fruit of methorls that first penetrated to the working causalities of natu r.c and then utilized the resulting knowledge in bold imagi- native ventures of invention and construction.

We hear a great deal in these days about class con- flict. The past history of man is held up to us as almost exclusively a record of struggles between classes, ending in the victory of a class that had been oppressed and the transfer of power to it. It is difficult to avoid reading the past in terms of the contemporary scene. Indecd, fundamentally it is impossible to avoid this course. W-ith a certain proviso, it is highly important that we arc cornpelled to follow this path. For the past as past is gone, save for esthetic enjoyment and refreshment, while the present is with us. Knowledge of the past is sig- nificant only as it deepens and extends our understand- ing of the present. Yet there is a proviso. We must grasp the things that are most important in the present when w'e turn to the past and not allow ourselves to be misled by secondary phenomena no matter how intense and immediately urgent they are. Viewed from this stand- point, the rise of scientific method and of technology based upon it is the genuinely active force in producing the vast complex of changes the world is now under- going, not the class struggle whose spirit and method are opposed to science. If we lay hold upon the causal force exercised by this embodiment of intelligence we shall know where to turn for the means of directing further change.

SOCIAL ACTION 75 When I say that scientific method and technology

have been the active force in producing the revolutionary transformations society is undereoing, I do not imply no other forces have been at work to arrest, deflect and corrupt their operation. Rather this fact is positively im- plied. At this point, indeed, is located the conflict that underlies the confusions and uncertainties of the pres- ent scene. The conflict is between institutions and habits originating in the pre-scientific and pre-technological age and the nerv forces generated by science and tech- nology. The application of science, to a consideratie degree, even its own growth, has been conditioned by the system to which the name of capitalism is given, a rough designation of a complex of political and legal arrangements centering about a particular mode of eco- nomic relations. Because of the conditioning of science and technology by this setting, the second and humanly most important part of Bacon's prediction has so far largely missed realization. The conquest of natural ener- gies has not accrued to the betterment of the common human estate in anything like the degree he anticipated.

Because of conditions that were set by the legal insti' tutions and the moral ideas existing when the scientific and industrial revolutions came into being, the chief usufruct of the latter has been appropriated by a rela- tively small class. Industrial entrepreneurs have reaped out of all proportion to what they sowed. By olrtaining private ownership of the means of production and ex- change they deflected a considerable share of the results of increased productivity to their private pockets.

76 LIBERALISM AND This appropriation was not the fruit of criminal con- spiracy or of sinister intent. It was sanctioned not only by Iegal institutions of age-long standing but by the entire prevailing moral code. The institution of private property long antedated feudal times. It is the institu- tion with which men have lived, with few exceptions, since the dawn of civilization. Its existence has deeply impressed itself upon mankind's moral conceptions. Moreover, the new industrial forces tended to break down many of the rigid class barriers that had been in force, and to give to millions a new outlook and inspire a new hope;-especially in this country with no feudal background and no fixed class system.

Since the legal institutions and the patterns of mind characteristic of ages of civilization still endure, there exists the conflict that brings confusion into every phase of present life. The problem of bringing into being a new social orientation and organization is, when reduced to its ultimates, the problem of using the new resources of production, made possible by the advance of physical science, for social ends, for what Bentham called the great- est good of the greatest number. Institutional relation- ships fixed in the pre-scientific age stand in the way of accomplishing this great transformation. Lag in mental and moral patterns provides the bulwark of the older institutionsl in expressing the past they still express present beliefs, outlooks and purposes. Here is the place where the problem of liberalism centers today.

The argument drawn from past history that radical change must be effected by means of class struggle, cul-

SOCIAL ACTION 77 minating in open war, fails to discriminate between the two forces, one active, the other resistant and deflecting,

that have produced the social scene in which we live. The active force is, as I have said, scientific method and technological application. The opposite force is that of' older institutions and the habits that have grown up around them. Instead of discrimination between forces and distribution of their consequences, we find the two things lumped together. The compound is labeled the capitalistic or the bourgeois class, and to this class as a class is imputed all the important features of present industrialized society-much as the defenders of the r6gime of economic liberty exercised for private prop- erty are accustomed to attribute every improvement made

in the last century and a half to the same capitalistic r1gime. Thus in orthodox communist literature, from the Communist Manifesto of IB48 to the present day, we are told that the bourgeoisie, the name for a dis' tinctive class, has done this and that. It has, so it is said, given a cosmopolitan character to production and con' sumptionl has destroyed the national basis of industry; has agglomerated population in urban centers; has trans-

ferred porver from the country to the city, in the process of creating colossal productive force, its chief achieve- ment. In addition, it has created crises of ever renewed intensity; has created imperialism of a new type in frantic effort to control raw materials and markets. Finally, it has created a new class, the proletariat, and has created it as a class having a common interest op- posed to that of the bourgeoisie, and is giving an irre'

78 LIBERALISM AND sistible stimulus to its organization, first as a class and then as a political power. According to the economir: version of the Hegelian dialectic, the bourgeois class is thus creating its own complete and polar opposite, and this in time will end the old power and rule. The class struggle of veiled civil war will finally burst into open revolution and the result will be either the common ruin of the contending parties or a revolutionary reconstitu- tion of society at large through a transfer of power from one class to another.

The position thus sketched unites vast sweep with great simplicity. I am concerned with it here only as far as it emphasizes the idea of a struggle between classes, culminating in open and violent warfare as being the method for production of radical social change. For, be it noted, the issue is not whether some amount of violence will accompany the effectuation of radical change of institutions. The question is whether force or intelligence is to be the method upon which we consistently rely and to whose promotion we devote our energies. fnsistence that the use of violent force is ineuitable limits the use of available intelligence, for wherever the inevitable reigns intelligence cannot be used. Commitment to inevi- tability is always the fruit of dogma; intelligence does not pretend to ltnow save as a result of experimentation, the opposite of preconceived dogma. Moreover, accept- ance in advance of the inevitability of violence tends to produce the use of violence in cases where peaceful methods might otherwise avail. The curious fact is that while it is generally admitted that this and that particu-

SOCIAL ACTION 79 lar social problem, say of the family, or railroads or banking, must be solved, if at all, by the method of intelligence, yet there is supposed to be some one all- inclusive social problem which can be solved only by the 'tlse of violence. This fact would be inexplicable were it not a conclusion from dogma as its premise.

It is frequently asserted that the method of experi- rnental intelligence can be applied to physical facts be- cause physical nature does not present conflicts of class interests, while it is inapplicable to society because the latter is so deeply marked by incompatible interests. It is then assumed that the "experimentalist" is one who has chosen to ignore the uncomfortable fact of conflicting interests. Of course, there are conflicting interests; other- wise there would be no social problems. The problem under discussion is precisely how conllicting claims are to be settled in the interest of the widest pos- sible contribution to the interests of all-or at least of the great majority. The method of democracy-inas- far as it is that of organized intelligence-is to brine these conflicts out into the open where their special claims can be seen and appraised, where thev can be discussed

and judged in the lisht of rnore inclusive interests than are represented by either of them separately. There is, for example, a clash of interests between munition manu- facturers and most of the rest of the population. The more the respective clairns of the two are publicly and scien- tifically weighed, the more likely it is that the public in- terest will be disclosed and be made effective. There is an undoubted objective clash of interests between fi.nance'

BO LIBERALISM AND capitalism that controls the means of production and whose profit is servcd by maintairring relative scarcity, and idle workers and hungry consumers. But what gen- erates violent strife is failure to bring the conflict into the light of intelligence where the conflicting interests can be adjudicated in behalf of the interest of the great majority. Those most committed to the dogma of inevi- table force recognize the need for intelligently discover- ing and expressing the dominant social interest up to a certain point and then draw back. The "experimentalist" is one who would see to it that the method depended upon by all in some degree in every democratic com- munity be followed through to completion.

In spite of the existence of class conflicts, amounting at times to veiled civil war, any one habituated to the use of the method of science will view with considerablo suspicion the erection of actual human beings into fixed entities called classes, having no overlapping interests and so internally unified and externally separated that they are made the protagonists of history-itself hypo- thetical. Such an idea of classes is a survival of a rigid logic that once prevailed in the sciences of nature, hut that no longer has any place there. This conversion of abstractions into entities smells more of a dialectic of concepts than of a realistic examination of facts, even though it makes more of an emotional appeal to many tllan do the results of the latter. To say that all past historic social progress has been the result of co<ipera- tion and not of conflict would be also an exaggeration. But exaggeration against exaggeration, it is the more

SOCIAL ACTION o1()r reasonable of the two. And it is no exaggeration to say that the measure of civilization is the degree in which the

method of cotiperative intelligence replaces the method of brute conflict.

But the point I am especially concerned with just here is the indiscriminate lumping together as a single force of two different things-the results of scientific technology and of a legal system of property relations. It is science and technology that have had the revolu- tionary social e{Iect while the legal system has been the relatively static element. According to the Marxians themselves, the economic foundations of society consist of two things, the forces of production on one side and, on the other side, the social relations of production, that is, the legal property system under which the former operates. The, latter lags behind, and "revolutions" are produced by the power of the forces of production to change the system of institutional relations. But what are the modern forces of production save those of sci- entific technology? And what is scientific technology save a large-scale demonstration of organized intelli- gence in action?

It is quite true that what is happening socially is the result of the combination of the two factors, one dy' namic, the other relatively static. If we choose to call the combination by the name of capitalism, then it is true, or a truism, that capitalism is the 'ocause" of all the important social changes that have occurred-an argument that the representatives of capitalism are eager

to put forward whenever the increase of productivity is

82 LIBERALISM Al\D in question. But if we want to understand, and not jusl to paste labels, unfavorable or favorable as the case may be, we shall certainly begin and end with discrirninu- tion. Colossal increase in productivity, the bringing o1' men together in cities and large factories, the eliminu- tion of distance, the accumulation of capital, fixed anrl Iiquid-these things would have come about, at a cer- tain stage, no matter what the established institutional systern. They are the consequence of the new means of' technological production. Certain other things have hap- pened because of inherited institutions and the habits of belief and character that accompany and supporl them. If we begin at this point, we shall see that thc release of productivity is the product of cociperatively organized intelligence, and shall also see that the institu- tional framework is precisely that which is not subjectecl as yet, in any considerable measure? to the impact of inventive and constructive intelligence. That coercion and oppression on a large scale exist, no honest person can deny. But these things are not the product of science and technology but of the perpetuation of old institu- tions and patterns untouched by scientific method. The inference to be drawn is clear.

The argurnent, drawn from history, that great social changes have been effected only by violent means, needs considerable qualification, in view of the vast scope of changes that are taking place without the use of violence. But even if it be admitted to hold of the past, the con- clusion that violence is the method now to be depended upon does not foilow-unless one is committed to a

SOCIAL ACTION 83 dogmatic philosophy of history. The radical who insists that the future method of change must be like that of the past has much in common with the hide-bound reac-

, tionary who holds to the past as an ultimate fact. Both' overlook the fact that history in being a process of

; change generates change not only in details but also in I the method, of directing social change.I recur to what I I said at the beginning of this chapter. It is true that the

social order is largely conditioned by the use of coercive force, bursting at tirnes into open violence. But what is also true is that mankind now has in its possession a new method, that of cotiperative and experimental sci' ence which expresses the method of intelligence. I should be meeting dogmatism with dogmatism if I asserted that the existence of this historically new factor completely invalidates all arguments drawn from the effect of force in the past. But it is within the bounds of reason to as- sert that the presence of this social factor demands that the present situation be analyzed on its own terms, and not be rigidly subsumed under fixed conceptions drawn from the past.

Any analysis made in terms of the present situation will not fail to note one fact that militates powerfully against arguments drawn from past use of violence. Modern warfare is destructive beyond anything known in older times. This increased destructiveness is due primarily, of course, to the fact that science has raised to a new pitch of destructive power all the agencies of armed hostility. But it is also due to the much greater interdependence of all the elements of society. The

LIBERALISM AND bonds that hold modern communities and states together

are as delicate as they are numerous. The self-sufficiency

and independence of a local community, characteristic of more primitive societies, have disappeared in every highly industrialized country. The gulf that once sepa- rated the civilian population from the military has vir- tually gone. W-ar involves paralysis of all normal social activities, and not merely the meeting of armed forces in the field. The Communist Manifesto presented two alternatives: either the revolutionary change and trans-

fer of power to the proletariat, or the common ruin of the

contending parties. Today, the civil war that would be adequate to effect transfer of power and a reconstitu- tion of society at large, as understood by official Com- munists, would seem to present but one possible consequence: the ruin of all parties and the destruction of civilized life. This fact alone is enough to lead us to consider the potentialities of the method of intelligence-

The argument for putting chief dependence upon violence as the method of effecting radical change is, moreover, usually put in a way that proves altogether too much for its own case. It is said that the dominant economic class has all the agencies of power in its hands,

directly the army, militia and police; indirectly, the courts, schools, press and radio. I shall not stop to an- alyze this statement. But if one admits it to be valid, the conclusion to be drawn is surely the folly of resorting to a use of force against force that is so well intrenched. The positive conclusion that emerges is that conditions that would promise success in the case of use of force

B4 SOCIAL ACTION B5 are such as to make possible great change without any great recourse to such a method.*

Those who uphold the necessity of dependence upon violence usually much oversimplify the case by setting up a disjunction they regard as self-evident. They say that the sole alternative is putting our trust in parlia- mentary procedures as they now exist. This isolation of law-making from other social forces and agencies that are constantly operative is wholly unrealistic. Legisla- tures and congresses do not exist in a vacuum-not even the judges on the bench live in completely secluded sound-proof chambers. The assumption that it is pos- sible for the constitution and activities of law-making bodies to persist unchanged while society itself is under- going great change is an exercise in verbal formal logic.

It is true that in this country, because of the interpre- tations made b'y courts of a written constitution, our political institutions are unusually inflexible. It is also true, as well as even more important (because it is a factor in causing this rigidity) that our institutions, democratic in form, tend to favor in substance a priv- ileged plutocracy. Nevertheless, it is sheer defeatism to assume in advance of actual trial that democratic politi- cal institutions are incapable either of further develop- ment or of constructive social application. Even as they now exist, the forms of representative government are

(\ + It should be noted that Marx himself was not completely committed t- to the dogma of the inevitability of force as the means of effecting '--' revolutionary changes in the system of "social relations." For at one ) time he contemplated that the change might occur in Great Britain and (f 1 the United States, and possibly in Holland, by peaceful means.

86 LIBERALISM AND

rule of a class signifies the dictatorship of the majority'

or dictatorship over the chosen class by a minority party;

SOCIAL ACTION 87 whether dissenters are allowed even within the class the party claims to represent; and whether the devclopment of literature and the other arts proceeds according to a formula prescribed by a party in confonnity with a doctrinaire dogma of history and of infallible leader- ship, or whether artists are free from regirnentation? Until these questions are satisfactorily anslvered, it is permissible to look with considerable suspicion upon those who assert that suppression of democracy is the road to the adequate establishment of genuine democ- racy. The one exception-and that apparent rather than real-to dependence upon organized intelligence as the method for directing social change is found when so- ciety through an authorized majority has entered upon the path of social experimentation leading to great social change, and a minority refuses by force to permit the method of intelligent action to go into effect. Then force may be intelligently employed to subdue and disarm the recalcitrant minority.

There may be some who think I am unduly dignify- ing a position held by a comparatively small group by taking their arguments as seriously as I have done. But their position serves to bring into strong relief the alter- natives before us. It makes clear the meaning of renas- cent liberalism. The alternatives are continuation of drift with attendant improvisations to meet special emer- gencies; dependence upon violence; dependence upon socially organized intelligence. The fi.rst two alterna tives, however, are not mutually exclusive, for if things are allowed to drift the result may be some sort of social

BB LIBERALISM AND change effected by the use of force, whether so plannetl or not. Upon the whole, the recent policy of liberalism has treen to further "social legislation"; that is, meas- ures which add performance of social services to thtr older functions of government. The value of this addi- tion is not to be despised. It marks a decided move away from laissez faire liberalism, and has considerable im- portance in educating the public mind to a realization of the possibilities of organized social control. It has helped to develop some of the techniques that in any case will be needed in a socialized economy. But the cause of liberalism will be lost for a considerable period if it is not prepared to go further and socialize the forces of production, now at hand, so that the liberty of indi- viduals will be supported by the very structure of eco' nomic organi,zation.

The ultimatr: place of economic organization in hu- man life is to assure the secure basis for an ordered expression of individual capacity and for the satisfac- tion of the needs of man in non-economic directions. The effort of mankind in connection with material pro' duction belongs, as I said earlier, among interests and activities that are, relatively speaking, routine in char- acter, 'oroutine" being defined as that which, without absorbing attention and energy, provides a constant basis for liberation of the values of intellectual, esthetic and companionship life. Every significant religious and moral teacher and prophet has asserted that the material

is instrumental to the good life. Nominally at least, this idea is accepted by every civilized community. The

SOCIAL ACTION B9 transfer of the burden of material production from human muscles and brain to steam? electricity and chemical processes now makes possible the effective actlalization of this ideal. Needs, wants and desires are always the moving force in generating creative action. When these wants are compelled by force of conditions to be directed for the most pafi, among the mass of man- kind, into obtaining the means of subsistence, what should be a means becomes perforce an end in itself. Up to the present the new mechanical forces of produc- tion, which are the means of emancipation from this state of affairs, have been employed to intensify and exaggerate the reversal of the true relation between means and ends. Humanly speaking, I do not see how it would have been possible to avoid an epoch having this character. But its perpetuation is the cause of the continually growing social chaos and strife. Its termina- tion cannot be effected by preaching to individuals that they should place spiritual ends above material means. It can be brought about by organized social reconstruc- tion that puts the results of the mechanism of abundance at the free disposal of individuals. The actual corrosive "materialism" of our times does not proceed from sci- ence" It springs from the notion, sedulously cultivated by the class in power, that the creative capacities of individuals can be evoked and developed only in a strug- gle for material possessions and material gain. W-e either should surrender our professed belief in the su" premacy of ideal and spiritual values and accommodate our beliefs to the predominant material orientation, or

90 LIBERALISM AND we should through organized endeavor institute thc socialized economy of material security and plenty that will release human energy for pursuit of higher values.

Since liberation of the capacities of individuals for free, self-initiated expression is an essential part of thc creed of liberalism, liberalism that is sincere must will the rreans that condition the achieving of its ends. Regimentation of material and mechanical forces is the only way by which the mass of individuals can be re- leased from regimentation and consequent suppression of their cultural possibilities. The eclipse of liberalism is due to the fact that it has not faced the alternatives and adopted the means upon which realization of its pro- fessed aims depends. Liberalism can be true to its ideals only as it takes the course that leads to their attainment. The notion that organized social control of economic forces lies outside the historic path of liberalism shows that liberalism is still impeded by remnants of its earlier laissez faire phase, with its opposition of society and the individual. The thing which now dampens liberal ardor and paralyzes its efforts is the conception that liberty and development of individuality as ends exclude the use of organized social effort as means. Earlier liberalism re- garded the separate and competing economic action of individuals as the means to social well-being as the end. We must reverse the perspective and see that socialized economy is the means of free individual development as the end.

That liberals are divided in outlook and endeavor while reactionaries are held together by community of

SOCIAL ACTION interests and the ties of custom is well-nigh a common- place. Organization of standpoint and belief among lib- erals can be achieved only in and by unity of endeavor. Organized unity of action attended by consensus of be- liefs will come about in the degree in which social control of economic forces is made the goal of liberal action. The greatest educational power, the greatest force in shaping the dispositions and attitudes of individuals, is the social medium in which they live. The medium that now lies closest to us is that of unified action for the inclusive end of a socialized economy. The attainment of a state of society in which a basis of material security will release the powers of individuals for cultural expres- sion is not the work of a day. But by concentrating upon the task of securing a socialized economy as the ground and medium for release of the impulses and capacities men agree to call ideal, the now scattered and often con- flicting activities of liberals can be brought to effective unity.

It is no part of my task to outline in detail a program for renascent liberalism. But the question of .,what is to be done" cannot be ignored. Ideas must be organized, and this organization implies an organization of indi- viduals who hold these ideas and whose faith is ready to translate itself into action. Translation into action signifies that the general creed of liberalism be formu- lated as a concrete program of action. It is in organiza- tion for action that liberals are weak, and without this organization there is danger that democratic ideals may go by default. Democracy has been a fighting faith.

92 LIBERALISM ANI) When its ideals are reijnforced by those of scientific method and experimental intelligence, it cannot be that it is incapable of evoking discipline, ardor antl organization. To narrow the issue for the future to a struggle between Fascism and Communism is to invite a catastrophe that may carry civilization down in the struggle. Vital and courageous democratic liberalism is the one force that can surely avoid such a disastrous narrowing of the issue. I for one do not believe that Americans living in the tradition of Jefferson and Lin- coln will weaken and give up without a whole-hearted effort to make democracy a living reality. This, I repeat, involves organization.

The question cannot be answered by argument. Ex- perimental method means experiment, and the question can be answered only by trying, by organized effort. The reasons for making the trial ale not abstract or recondite" They are found in the confusion, uncertainty and con{iict that mark the modern world. The reasons for thinking that the effort if made will be successful are also not abstract and remote. They lie in what the method of experimental and coiiperative intelligence has aiready accomplished in subduing to potential hurnan use the energies of physical nature. In material produc- tion, the method of intelligence is now the established rule; to abandon it would tre to revert to savagery. The task is to go on, and not backward, until the method of intelligence and experimental control is the rule in social relations and social direction. Either we take this road or we admit that the problem of social organi'

SOCIAL ACTION 93 zation in behalf of human liberty and the flowering of human capacities is insoluble.

It would be fantastic folly to ignore or to belittle the obstacles that stand in the way. But what has taken place, also against great odds, in the scientific and industrial revolutions, is an accomplished fact; the way is marked out. It may be that the way will remain untrodden. If so, the future holds the menace of confusion moving into chaos, a chaos that will be externally masked for a time by an organization of force, coercive and violent, in which the liberties of men will all but disappear. Even so, the cause of the liberty of the human spirit, the cause of opportunity of hurnan beings for full development of their powers, the cause for which liberalism enduringly stands, is too precious and too ingrained in the human constitution to be forever obscured. Intelligence after miliions of years of errancy has found itself as a method, and it will not be lost forever in the blackness of night. The business of liberalism is to bend every energy and exhibit every courage so that these precious goods may not even be temporarily lost but be intensified and ex- panded here and now.