Again, in the discussion about
Socialism, it is repeatedly rubbed into the public mind that we must
choose between Socialism and some horrible thing that they call
Individualism. I don't know what it means, but it seems to mean that
anybody who happens to pull out a plum is to adopt the moral philosophy of
the young Horner--and say what a good boy he is for helping himself.
It is calmly assumed that the only two possible types of society are a
Collectivist type of society and the present society that exists at this
moment and is rather like an animated muck-heap. It is quite unnecessary
to say that I should prefer Socialism to the present state of things. I
should prefer anarchism to the present state of things. But it is simply
not the fact that Collectivism is the only other scheme for a more equal
order. A Collectivist has a perfect right to think it the only sound
scheme; but it is not the only plausible or possible scheme. We might
have peasant proprietorship; we might have the compromise of Henry George;
we might have a number of tiny communes; we might have co-operation; we
might have Anarchist Communism; we might have a hundred things. I am not
saying that any of these are right, though I cannot imagine that any of
them could be worse than the present social madhouse, with its top-heavy
rich and its tortured poor; but I say that it is an evidence of the stiff
and narrow alternative offered to the civic mind, that the civic mind is
not, generally speaking, conscious of these other possibilities.
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