268 



MY LIFE 



[Chap. 



World," by Henry Olerich, an American writer, is an 

 excellent exposition of an extreme form of what he calls 

 co-operative individualism^ which is really voluntary socialism ; 

 and I may here state for the benefit of those ignorant writers 

 who believe that socialism must be compulsory, and speak of 

 it as a form of slavery," that my own definition of socialism 

 is "the voluntary organization of labour for the good of 

 all." All the best and most thoughtful writers on socialism 

 agree in this ; and for my own part I cannot conceive it 

 coming about in any other way. Compulsory socialism is 

 to me a contradiction in terms — as much so as would be com- 

 pulsory friendship. The only modern work I have met with 

 that advocates compulsion in initiating socialism is Mr. F. W. 

 Hayes's ''Great Revolution of 1905," a very clever book, 

 but hopelessly out of tune with the socialist ideal by the 

 ruthless compulsion and punishment of the opponents of the 

 supposed social revolution. 



Among books which deal rather with the evils of the 

 present system than with constructive socialism, but which 

 nevertheless give eloquent expression to its fundamental 

 ideas and aspirations, I may mention " Darkness and Dawn, 

 the Peaceful Birth of a New Age" — an anonymous work 

 which, in its terrible description of the horrors of the 

 factory system in all its forms and ramifications, is unsur- 

 passed in our language ; and Robert Blatchford's " Merrie 

 England," issued first at a shilling, then at fourpence, then at 

 a penny, and of which three quarters of a million copies were 

 sold in about a year. 



But the most complete and thoroughly reasoned exposi- 

 tion, both of the philosophy and the constructive methods of 

 socialism, is to be found in Bellamy's later work, Equality," 

 which comparatively few, even of English socialists, are 

 acquainted with. The book is a sequel to " Looking Back- 

 ward," and contains more than twice the matter. It shows, 

 systematically, how our existing system of competition and 

 individual profit — capitalism and enormous private wealth — 

 directly lead to overwork, poverty, starvation, and crime ; 

 that it is necessarily wasteful in production and cruelly 



