"Political Ideals" - читать интересную книгу автора (Russell Bertrand)

probably fail to liberate creative impulses or produce a progressive
society.

Our present system fails in all four purposes. It is chiefly defended
on the ground that it achieves the first of the four purposes, namely,
the greatest possible production of material goods, but it only does
this in a very short-sighted way, by methods which are wasteful in the
long run both of human material and of natural resources.

Capitalistic enterprise involves a ruthless belief in the importance
of increasing material production to the utmost possible extent now
and in the immediate future. In obedience to this belief, new
portions of the earth's surface are continually brought under the sway
of industrialism. Vast tracts of Africa become recruiting grounds for
the labor required in the gold and diamond mines of the Rand,
Rhodesia, and Kimberley; for this purpose, the population is
demoralized, taxed, driven into revolt, and exposed to the
contamination of European vice and disease. Healthy and vigorous
races from Southern Europe are tempted to America, where sweating and
slum life reduce their vitality if they do not actually cause their
death. What damage is done to our own urban populations by the
conditions under which they live, we all know. And what is true of
the human riches of the world is no less true of the physical
resources. The mines, forests, and wheat-fields of the world are all
being exploited at a rate which must practically exhaust them at no
distant date. On the side of material production, the world is living
too fast; in a kind of delirium, almost all the energy of the world
has rushed into the immediate production of something, no matter what,
and no matter at what cost. And yet our present system is defended on
the ground that it safeguards progress!

It cannot be said that our present economic system is any more
successful in regard to the other three objects which ought to be
aimed at. Among the many obvious evils of capitalism and the wage
system, none are more glaring than that they encourage predatory
instincts, that they allow economic injustice, and that they give
great scope to the tyranny of the employer.

As to predatory instincts, we may say, broadly speaking, that in a
state of nature there would be two ways of acquiring riches--one by
production, the other by robbery. Under our existing system, although
what is recognized as robbery is forbidden, there are nevertheless
many ways of becoming rich without contributing anything to the wealth
of the community. Ownership of land or capital, whether acquired or
inherited, gives a legal right to a permanent income. Although most
people have to produce in order to live, a privileged minority are
able to live in luxury without producing anything at all. As these
are the men who are not only the most fortunate but also the most
respected, there is a general desire to enter their ranks, and a
widespread unwillingness to face the fact that there is no