The Psychology of Socialism
Book I: The Socialistic Theories and Their Disciples:
Chapter 1: The Various Aspects of Socialism
Gustave Le Bon
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I The factors of social evolution--Factors which direct the modern evolution of societies-In what manner they differ from the ancient factors--Economic factors--Psychological factors-Political factors. 2. The various aspects of Socialism :-The necessity of studying Socialism as a political conception, as an economic conception, as a philosophic conception, and as a belief--Conflict between these various conceptions-Philosophical definition of Socialism--The Collective Being and the Individual Being.
I. THE FACTORS OF SOCIAL EVOLUTION.
CIVILISATIONS have always had, as their basis, a certain small number of directing or controlling ideas. When these ideas, after gradually waning, have entirely lost their force, the civilisations which rest on them are doomed to change.
We are to-day in the midst of one of those phases of transition SO rare in the history of the world. In the course of the ages it has not been given to many philosophers to live at the precise moment at which a new idea shapes Itself, and to be able to study, as we can study to-day, the successive degrees of its crystallisation.
In the present condition of things the evolution of
2) societies subject to factors of three orders : political, economic, and psychological. These have existed in every period, but the respective importance of each has varied with the age of the nation.
The political factors comprise the laws and institutions. Theorists of every kind, and above all the modern Socialists, generally accord to these a very great importance. They are persuaded that the happiness of a people depends oil its institutions, and that to change these is at the same stroke to change its destinies. Some thinkers hold, on the contrary, that institutions exercise but a very feeble influence ; that the destiny of a nation is decreed by its character ; that is to say, by the soul of the race. This would explain why peoples possessing similar institutions, and living in identical environments, occupy very different places in the scale of civilisation.
To-day the economic factors have an immense importance. Very feeble at a period when the nations lived in isolation, when the divers industries hardly varied from century to century, these factors have ended by acquiring a pre-eminent influence. Scientific and industrial discoveries have transformed all our conditions of existence. A simple chemical reaction, discovered in a laboratory, ruins one country and enriches another. The culture of a cereal ill the heart of Asia compels whole provinces of Europe to renounce agriculture. The developments of machinery revolutionise the life of a large proportion of the civilised nations.
The factors of the psychological order, such as race, beliefs, and opinions, have also a considerable importance. Till quite lately their influence was preponderant, but to-day the economic factors are tending to prevail.
It is especially in these changes of relation between the directing factors to which they are subject that the societies of to-day differ from those of the past.
(3) Dominated of old above all by faiths, they have since become more and more obedient to economic necessities.
The psychological factors are nevertheless far from having lost their influence. The degree ill which man escapes the tyranny of economic factors depends on his mental constitution ; that is to say, on his race ; and this is why we see certain nations subject these economic factors to their needs, while others allow themselves to become more and more enslaved by them, and seek to react on them only by laws of protection, which are incapable of defending them against the formidable necessities which rule them.
Such are the principal motive forces of social evolution. Their action is simultaneous, but often contradictory. To ignore them, or to misconceive them, does not hinder their action. The laws of nature operate with the blind punctuality of clockwork, and he that offends them is broken by their march.
2. THE VARIOUS ASPECTS OF SOCIALISM.
This brief presentment already allows us to foresee that Socialism offers to the view different facets, which we must examine in succession. We must investigate Socialism as a political conception, as an economic conception, as a philosophic conception, and as a belief. We must also consider the inevitable conflict between these various concepts and the social realities ; that is, between the yet abstract idea and the inexorable laws of nature which the cunning of man cannot change.
The economic side of Socialism is that which best lends itself to analysis. We find ourselves in the presence of very clearly defined problem.. How is wealth to be produced and divided? What are the respective of labour, capital, and intelligence ? What is the influence
(4) of economic facts, and to what extent can they be adapted to the requirements of social evolution ?
If we consider Socialism as a belief, if we inquire into the moral impression which it produces, the conviction and the devotion which it inspires, the point of view is very different, and the aspect of the problem is entirely changed. We now no longer have to occupy ourselves with the theoretic value of Socialism as a doctrine, nor with the economic impossibilities with which it may clash. We have only to consider the new faith in its genesis, its moral progress, and its possible psychological consequences. Then only does the fatuity of discussion with its defenders become apparent. If the economists marvel that demonstrations based on impeccable evidence have absolutely no influence over those who hear and understand them, we have only to refer them to the history of all dogmas, and to the study of the psychology of crowds. We have not triumphed over a doctrine when we have shown its chimerical nature. We do not attack dreams with argument ; nothing but recurring experience can show that they are dreams.
In order to comprehend the present force of Socialism it must be considered above all as a belief, and we then discover it to be founded on a very secure psychologic basis. It matters very little to its immediate success that it may be contrary to social and economic necessities. The history of all beliefs, and especially of religious beliefs, sufficiently proves that their success has most often been entirely independent of the proportion of truth that they might contain.
Having considered Socialism as a belief we must examine it as a philosophic conception. This new facet is the one its adepts have most neglected, and yet the very one they might the best defend. They consider the realisation of their doctrines as the necessary conse-
5) -quence of economic evolution, whereas it is precisely this evolution that forms the most real obstacle. From the point of view of pure philosophy--that is to say, putting psychologic and economic necessities aside many of their theories are highly defensible.
What in effect is Socialism, speaking philosophically or, at least, what is its best-known form, Collectivism ? Simply a reaction of the collective being against the encroachments of the individual being. Now if we put aside the interests of intelligence, and the possibly immense utility of husbanding these interests for the progress of civilisation, it is undeniable that collectivity --if only by that law of the greater number which has become the great credo of modern democracies-may be considered as invented to subject to itself the individual sprung from its loins, and who would be nothing without it. For centuries, that is to say during the succession of the ages which have preceded our own, collectivity has always been all-powerful, at least among the Latin peoples. The individual outside it was nothing. Perhaps the French Revolution, the culmination of all the doctrines of the eighteenth -century writers, represents the first serious attempt at reaction of Individualism, but in enfranchising the individual (at least theoretically), it has also isolated him. In isolating him from his caste, from his family, from the social or religious groups of which he was a unit, it has left him delivered over to himself, and has thus transformed society into a mass of individuals, without cohesion and without ties.
Such a work cannot have very lasting results. Only the strong can support isolation, and rely only on themselves ; the weak are unable to do so. To isolation, and the absence of support they prefer servitude; even painful servitude. The castes and corporations destroyed by the Revolution formed, of old, the fabric which served to
(6) support the individual in life; and it is evident that they corresponded to a psychologic necessity, since they are reviving on every hand under various names to-day, and notably under that of trades-unions. These associations permit the individual to reduce his efforts to a minimum, while Individualism obliges him to increase his efforts to the maximum. Isolated, the proletariat is nothing, and can do nothing; incorporated he becomes a redoubtable force. If incorporation is unable to give him capacity and intelligence it does at least give him strength, and forbids him nothing but a liberty with which he would not know what to do.
From the philosophic point of view, then, Socialism is certainly a reaction of the collectivity against the individual : a return to the past. Individualism and Collectivism are, in their general essentials, two opposing forces, which tend, if not to annihilate, at least to paralyse one another. In this struggle between the generally conflicting interests of the individual and those of the aggregate lies the true philosophic problem of Socialism. The individual who is sufficiently strong to count only on his own intelligence and initiative, and is therefore highly capable of making headway, finds himself face to face with the masses, feeble in initiative and intelligence, but to whom their number gives might, the only upholder of right. The interests of the two opposing parties are conflicting. The problem is to discover whether they can maintain without destroying themselves, at the price of reciprocal concessions. Hitherto religion has succeeded in persuading the individual to sacrifice his personal interests to those of his fellows only to replace individual egoism by the collective egoism. But the old religions are in sight of death, and those that must replace them are yet unborn. In investigating the evolution of the social solidarity we have to consider how far
(6) conciliation between the two contradictory principles is allowed by economic necessities. As M. Léon Bourgeois justly remarked in one of his speeches : "We can attempt nothing against the laws of nature ; that goes without saying ; but we must incessantly study them and avail ourselves of them so as to diminish the chances of inequality and injustice between man and man."
To complete our examination of the various aspects of Socialism we must consider its variations in respect of race. If those principles are true that I have set forth in a previous work on the profound transformations undergone by all the elements of civilisation-institutions, religions, arts, beliefs, etc.-In passing from one people to another, we can already prophesy that, under the often similar words which serve to denote the conceptions formed by the various nations of the proper rôle of the State, we shall find very different realities. We shall see that this is so.
Among vigorous and energetic races which have arrived at the culminating point of their development we observe a considerable extension of what is confided to personal initiative, and a progressive reduction of all that is left to the State to perform; and this is true of republics equally with monarchies. We find a precisely opposite part given to the State by those peoples among whom the individual has arrived at such a degree of mental exhaustion as no longer permits him to rely on his own forces. For such peoples, whatever may be the names of their institutions, the Government is always a power absorbing everything, manufacturing everything, and controlling the least details of the citizen's life. Socialism is only the extension of this concept. It would be a dictatorship; impersonal, but absolute.
We see now the complexity of the problems we must encounter, but we see also how they resolve themselves into simpler forms when their data are separately investigated.
