Читать книгу Pictures of the Socialistic Future (freely adapted from Bebel) онлайн

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The Socialist, on the other hand, asks us to see a vision of progress in which correct social conduct appears to be habitual and almost automatic—a rule of life so firmly established that it can be cut loose from the personal responsibility and self-discipline which is its origin, and subjected to the autocratically inspired discipline that emanates from that fortuitous centre of authority which men call the State. The social liability thus undertaken for a subject population, the rate at which it is contracted, and the extent to which it may grow, is not under any control of the State, but must ever be the direct result of individual action prompted by individual motives. If the pressure of personal responsibility and self-discipline is removed, can excesses of unsocial conduct be controlled, can the risks of life be met, by a substitution of collective for personal calculation, contrivance, and effort? The Socialist is sanguine that he can give a satisfactory answer to such questionings.