p. 129My Dear Mr. Blatchford,
Your invective against luxury is a bright and forcible composition, as all your writing is; but it is not written with that clearness of discrimination that constitutes the chief value of literary effort. Your statements require most important qualifications; and some statements are contrary to truth—though I am sure you never intend it. To the latter belongs the major premise of your whole argument on the subject.
You say that “the luxury of the rich is the direct cause of the misery of the poor.” If this were true, the ending of the luxury of the rich would end the misery of the poor, whereas it is notorious that if the luxury of the rich were distributed to-morrow, the misery of the poor would not be sensibly abated. A few shillings to each of the population would exhaust the fund. The money would be spent by the end of the week, and the poor would not only be where they are in the week following, but they would be much worse; for they would be without the employment which the spendings of the rich creates. They would have to say with the bewailers of Babylon’s overthrow: “No man buyeth our merchandise any more.” The articles they live by making in many cases would find no purchasers if the rich were abolished.
You object to luxury in the abstract. This is unnatural, and it is an objection you would not and could not act on in your own case if you were made President of the Socialist Republic. It is no condemnation of luxury to call it “superfluity.” It may be superfluous as regards one requirement of man and not as regards p. 130 another. Man has more than one requirement. Eating, sleeping, and clothing do not exhaust his needs. Some things are essential to his life; and if you are to limit his needs to those, no doubt all else is superfluous. But what man of judgment would propose to tie him down to food, clothing, and house-shelter? These things do not minister to all his capacities, faculties, or desires; and therefore they do not in the correct sense supply all his needs. He might manage to do without some things; but it does not follow that those are not on the list of his requirements in the full development of his being. Many things minister to his highest and noblest enjoyments which may not be essential to the continuance of his physical life.
Physical life without the mental activities, of which physical life is but the basis, would be an objectless phenomenon, not worth the trouble of its maintenance. These mental activities are as much a law of nature as the physical necessity for food and sleep, and any theory of life that would ignore or repress or violate them is an unnatural theory, and bound to be self-stultified in the working of things sooner or later. It is a law of nature, whose operation is seen in the development of all communities.
In a new country, the material wants of the settlers receive the first attention; when these are satisfied, then affairs of taste and culture begin to be considered. Would you deny taste its gratification, Mr. Blatchford? I think not. You objected to our drab clothes. You said “the Sunday clothes of the British working classes” were “ugly and mean to a degree,” “too sad for tears.” I think you asked me if I knew the meaning of the words “form and colour.” Very well, you would give form and colour their place. But we could get along without form or colour. We could live with baggy coats and drab dresses. A close fit and a right match for the complexion are not necessaries of life. They are superfluities, but you would tolerate them. They are luxuries, but you would advocate them.
Now, look here, all tastes are not the same. You have one standard; your “silly” friend has another. Are you going to impose your standard on your silly friend? Surely not, Mr. Blatchford. You would allow each man to suit himself; and in suiting himself, you would have to give liberty, not only as to the form and colour that would please him, but as to the quality, therefore p. 131 price, of the stuff, would you not? How could you object? How could you lay down a law that a man’s wife’s dress shall be so fine and no finer?
If you did not allow this liberty, but wanted to lay down a cast-iron rule that all dresses must be a certain shape, a certain colour, a certain texture, a certain price, how would you decide as to whose taste should be the standard? Would the members of the Government decide it? They might be men of no taste, though good managers of co-operative stores. Or if they were men of taste, they might differ from the bulk of the people. How then? The people might revolt from their decrees. You say, “Well, the people would have to decide.” If so, what an extraordinary prospect—the turmoil of a general election on the cut of our coats, or the shape of our wives’ caps, or the colour of their ribbons!!!
If you say, “We would allow liberty in such matters,” then I have to return to the charge: if you would leave each man and woman to settle the style of their own apparel, how could you object to other articles of attire? Some people find unspeakable satisfaction in wearing jewellery: are you to forbid this gratification? The love of ornament is not a human invention: it is a law of nature. Are you going to set the Socialist Republic against a law of nature. If so, you will find nature too strong for it. If you oppose the wearing of diamond rings, or fine studs, or gold chains, or bangles, the people would vote you out of office, and assert their natural rights; and there would be a demand not only for saucepans and brass candle sticks, but for brooches of costly stones, and earrings and gold watches. And you could not set a limit to the price to which a citizen might go in the purchase of these things. They are luxuries, and they would be bought; and those who had the most money would get the most expensive articles.
And now suppose others could afford carriages and horses, and beautiful pictures and buhl cabinets, on what principle are you to interdict their indulgence? Mr. Blatchford, you could not do it without becoming a tyrant and violating the laws of nature. You could not exclude luxury even from a Socialist state without an impossible restriction of all the people to a fixed expenditure, and the confiscation of all savings above that expenditure. You could not do it without despotism, and despotism would not last a week p. 132 in a self-governing Socialist community. It is not in human nature to consent to laws against natural wants.
And luxuries come into the class of natural wants, since they are the result of natural desires. The fact that many cannot indulge in them does not disprove that they are natural wants. There are natural wants that cannot be dispensed with, and there are natural wants that may be denied without incurring starvation; but they are none the less natural wants for being outraged. All indulgence is the gratification of natural desire. Luxury comes into this category. In excluding luxury, you would be excluding nature. You would be opposing “facts.”
Remember what you said about “facts,” and the necessity for harmonising with them. Remember your telling question: “Is not love a fact? Is not hope a fact? Is not laughter a fact?” Allow me to add to the list: Is not taste a fact? Is not the love of the beautiful a fact? Is not the desire for honour, and ease, and pomp a fact? Mr. Blatchford, you must not set yourself against facts. You must not declare war against luxury.
Even if you abolish it, luxury would insensibly creep into a Socialist Republic in another way. You could not crush out the sentiment of respect for worthy people. You could not prevent the people deferring to popular ministers of the Republic. Now, the sentiment of respect always seeks expression in ornamental ways. The Prime Minister or Minister of Agriculture visiting a town or village would be sure to receive an ovation, of course; would this be confined to shouting? Would the people not decorate the railway station a little? Perhaps lay down a bit of carpet for him to walk across the platform on? And, perhaps, even provide a carriage and pair to drive him to his hotel? Would you forbid the shouting and the flags and the conveyance for the sake of the interests of the community? Mr. Blatchford, you could not. Human nature would be too strong for you. You cannot suppress the exuberance of human generosity when its admiration is excited. You would have to submit to the ovation and the flags and the brougham; and, perhaps, if you happened to be President, you would not greatly object.
And now, would you stop short there? Would not the town officials engage the finest hotel for the President? Would there be no carpets on the stairs? no finely-upholstered chairs and sofas in p. 133 the apartments? no magnificent bedstead in the bedroom? And when he sat down to lunch, would there be no elegant service on the table, no cut-glass, no silver-plate, no shining cutlery, not even electro spoons or coffee-pot? Mr. Blatchford, all these are luxuries. Their use comes from a law of nature. You cannot fight against nature. Luxury is the natural indulgence of taste, out of respect either for yourself or your neighbour; and it will find gratification wherever the means exist. Its prohibition could only be enforced where arbitrary power existed; and such power could not exist in a Socialist Republic.
It is a mistake to blame the rich for indulging in luxury. It is what you and every Socialist would do if you had the chance. Contend, if you like (though it is a vain contention, as we have seen), that the rich have no right to the possession of money; but you cannot, as a reasonable man, object to their using the money as they like while they have it. And do admit that while the present system lasts, the purchase of luxuries by the rich provides employment for the working people. It cannot be contradicted. The question is not how things would work if another system were established, but how is it with things as they are. On this there cannot be two opinions. Of course, the Duke of Argyle is right for the time being—that if the rich were not to spend their money the money would lie idle, and thousands of working people would starve who now find remunerative employment.
To contend that it is the indulgence in luxury by the rich that is the cause of poverty in the people is really to do injustice to your own evident powers of penetration, Mr. Blatchford. Your own other argument is that it is not the spending of money by the rich that is the cause of the present evil, but the existence of a system that permits them to have money to spend. This is another thing. You are only partly right here; but still there is a semblance of sense in it which there is not in the other argument. You blame the rich for a system which they are no more responsible for than you are. They have the money and they spend it; and this is what every man in the same position would do, and what every Socialist would do if he could get the money to-morrow. And in doing so, they would provide occupation for the people under existing circumstances.
p. 134 As for the system that allows them to have the money, are you going to alter it? How? You say you are not going to seize the wealth from those who now have it. Are you going to take it over under compensation? How is this going to improve things? You would only hand them back their wealth in another form, and continue the existence of the classes in the midst of the Socialist Republic. Are you going to play a trick? Are you going to give them money in compensation, and then enact a law forbidding them to spend the money in the country, and thus deprive the money of all value and make the compensation a mockery? Or are you going to force them to leave the country with their money, and impoverish England to the advantage of other nations?
You see, Mr. Blatchford, the problem bristles with difficulties. The more you think of them the tougher they seem. You have an insoluble problem in hand. I could understand Socialism as a proposal for the seizure and re-distribution of property and the construction of a new system, without reference to present individual rights; but I cannot understand it as a proposal to take over the national industries at a valuation, with the expectation of working them at a profit, while handing over the profit to the old holders in a new form.
No doubt luxury is carried to a scandalous extravagance, and the contrast between the lavish opulence of the rich and the squalor and want of the poor is shocking and painful in the extreme; but you cannot prevent it so long as the rich are allowed to possess money. It is impossible that you can dictate to men of money how much they are to spend, and in what way. A man’s purse alone must be the measure of his expenditure. If you are going to interfere with the management of a man’s own purse, farewell to liberty.
You would like the capitalists to leave the country, but you say you would like them to leave their property behind them. Here you are again—knocking your head against the sharp corners of your problem. How can you hope that the capitalists will leave the country? Would they leave of their own accord? You know better. Would you drive them out penniless, like the nobles of France a hundred years ago? What, then, about your declaration that you do not propose to seize their property? To drive them out of the country and “nationalize” their property would be seizing it most effectually.
p. 135 To buy it from them would saddle the Socialist Republic (supposing it established) with a debt that would sink it at the start. To compensate them would have the same effect. You would create a class—an “idle” class—in the country; or else you have to perpetrate the atrocious folly and injustice of turning out of the country its most valuable citizens for no other crime than the crime of possessing what the State had given them.
Mr. Blatchford, you have hold of an impracticable scheme—an unsettleable question, a problem you cannot solve. The attempt to solve it must either end in goading the people into acts of violence against the existing order; or in filling them with dangerous anger and disappointment against the mistaken leaders that have lured them on a false hue and cry.
Your increasingly anxious friend,
JOHN SMITH.