Socialism and the Family (from The Case Against Socialism: A Handbook for Speakers and Candidates By the London Municipal Society 1908)
That Socialism is to be accompanied by sweeping and drastic changes as regards the existence of the home, the rights and duties of parents, and the upbringing of children, in view of Socialist writings and utterances, can admit of no doubt.
Mr. H. M. Hyndman predicts under Socialism "the complete change in all family relations," which must issue in "a widely extended communism." [The Historical Basis of Socialism, p. 452]
Anything approaching to family life draws down the fiercest denunciations on the part of some of the Socialists. For example, Mr. Belfort Bax writes: "We defy any human being to point to a single reality, good or bad, in the composition of the bourgeois family. It has the merit of being the most perfect specimen of the complete sham that history has presented to the world." [The Religion of Socialism, p. 141]
"Let us take another 'fraud' of middle-class family life,'" continues Mr. Bax, "the 'family party.'"
All that partakes of family life is under Socialism to be summarily consigned to complete and immediate destruction.
"The transformation of the current family-form . . . must inevitably follow the economic revolution. . . . The bourgeois 'hearth' . . . will then be as dead as Roman Britain."
Reasons Accounting For The Socialist's Hatred Of Family Institutions
There can be little doubt that one of the principal reasons which serves to account for the Socialist hatred of family institutions is that, in their minds, family life partakes essentially of "monopoly." What right, argues the Socialist, has any small group of persons to seek their life and happiness apart from the rest of the community? What right has any man to usurp one woman? again asserts the Socialist. What right, further, have parents to regard their offspring as private property, or in any way as belonging to themselves and not to the State? Once again, what right has a family to home joys not shared in equally by the community at large?
One and all of these sentiments inherent to Socialism are begotten of malignant jealousy, and spring from that ultra-individualism which, as Dr. Schaffle has so frequently stated, is one of the fundamental characteristics of Socialism.
The Family Under Socialism
The family, to quote the opinion of one of the great leaders of International Socialism—M. Jules Guesde—was useful and indispensable in the past, but is now only an odious form of property. It must be either transformed or totally abolished. M. Guesde conjectures that the time may come when the family relationship will be reduced to the relation of the mother to her child "at the period of lactation, and that, moreover, the sexual relations between man and woman, founded on passion or mutual inclination, should be enabled to become as free, as changeable, and as diverse as the intellectual or moral relations between individuals of the same or different sexes." [See Le Cathlchisme Socialiste, by M. Jules Guesde, pp. 72-79, quoted n Prof. Lecky's Democracy and Liberty, Cabinet edition, vol. ii. p. 350.]
Mr. H.G. Wells, the well-known English Socialist, in an article on Socialism published in The Fortnightly Review for November 1906, thus summarises the position of the family under Socialism: "My concern now is to point out that Socialism repudiates the private ownership of the head of the family as completely as it repudiates any other sort of private ownership. . . . Socialism, in fact, is the State family."
To much the same effect write Mr. William Morris and Mr. Belfort Bax. They inform us that under Socialism "property in children would cease to exist. . . ." "Thus," state these two writers, "a new development of the family would take place. . . ." [Socialism: Its Growth and Outcome, p. 299.]
Mr. O'Brien in the following passage directs attention to one of the fundamental differences which exists between Socialism and the present system: "According to Socialism, the family exists for the State. According to individualism, the State exists for the family." [Socialism Tested by Facts, p. 129.]
The consequences which flow from this essential difference between the two systems are many and far-reaching.
Under Socialism the individual is "to think, speak, train his children or even beget them, as the State directs or allows, in the interest of the common good." [Mr. Rae's Contemporary Socialism, 3rd edition, p. 16.]
That these two latter restrictions are to be imposed on the individual under Socialism, vitally though they interfere with individual liberty, will be sufficiently evident from what follows.
In place of the present home life, which has hitherto been regarded as one of the institutions on which the British have most cause to pride themselves, there is to be substituted under Socialism a universal system of Foundlings' Hospitals for the children, and not improbably a sort of barrack accommodation for the parents.
Mr. Robert Blatchford, for example, in his celebrated Merrie England, provides us with kaleidoscopic views of Socialist life spent in public dining-rooms, in public this and public that. "... We set up one great kitchen, one general dining-hall, and one pleasant tea-garden."
Such conditions Mr. Blatchford describes as "much more sociable and friendly."
Similarly Mrs. Annie Besant in Industry under Socialism furnishes us with a picture of "public meal-rooms," "large dwellings," which are to "replace old-fashioned cottages; " [Fabian Essays, p. 155.] in fact, to all the paraphernalia of the barracks, if not of the workhouse.
What is this but a sort of resurrected Socialist State of Peru, where "the people were required to dine and sup with open doors, that the judges might be able to enter freely." [See Mr. Herbert Spencer's article in The Contemporary Review for September 1881, vol. xl. p. 345. See further as to this the chapter on the" Socialist State," p. 161.]
This, then, according to the accounts of many Socialists, is to be the life of the adult population in the Socialist State. So far as the youth of the community are concerned, their upbringing from almost their very entry into life is to take place in the glorified Foundlings' Hospitals which Socialism is to establish throughout the country.
"The Socialist mothers," states the Socialist writer, Mrs. Snowden, in regard to the upbringing of children, "will take charge of the very early years." [The Woman Socialist, p. 88]
Other Socialist writers, as, for example, M. Guesde, would reduce the custody by the mothers of their children to a still shorter period from the date of birth.
Plato, in depicting his Socialistic State, speaks of the State taking every precaution to prevent any woman from recognising her own child.
From this, modern Socialist teaching appears to differ but little, if at all. Mr. William Morris and Mr. Belfort Bax, writing in conjunction, in Socialism: Its Growth and Outcome, assure us that under Socialism, "... property in children would cease to exist. . . ."
Socialism would, consequently, impose the support of the children upon the State in substitution for the liability of the parents. In so doing Socialism would, in fact, replace the existing obligation by a system infinitely less just than that which to-day prevails. No one, in a word, is to be called upon to maintain his own children, while from every one there is to be exacted the support of the children of the other members of the community.
One of the fundamental changes in connection with this branch of the present subject which Socialism would effect concerns the education of children.
In lieu of supplementing family education by State education, Socialism would bring about an entire substitution of the former by the latter. The Socialist regime "would not simply supplement family upbringing; it would of necessity weaken and ultimately supersede it." [The Impossibility of Social Democracy, by Dr. SchSffle, translated by Mr. Bosanquet, p. 153.] This would result, to quote again the words of Dr. Schaffle, in robbing "the overwhelming majority of the people, whose well-being it is designed to secure, of the highest and purest form of happiness, and of that very form which differences of outward circumstances down to the very lowest conditions almost entirely fail to touch. . . ."
Further, "it would tend either to make parents indifferent to the lot of their children, which would be prejudicial both to the child's happiness and to its good upbringing, or to set the parents constantly in arms against the organs of public education. . . ." In addition, "it would destroy the love of parents for their children, and of children to their parents, and by sapping all the springs of individuality would prevent all possibility of an individualising system of education on the part of the State."
Such a system would, in short, profoundly alter for the worse the characters of both children and parents alike.
Professor Woolsey in his valuable history treating of Communism [Communism and Socialism, p.71], specially calls attention to the fact that the history of the communistic societies goes to show that "family affections—one essential means by which man rises above the brute, and religion with all human improvements finds a home in the world—are nearly undeveloped."
That Socialism is to be accompanied by sweeping and drastic changes as regards the existence of the home, the rights and duties of parents, and the upbringing of children, in view of Socialist writings and utterances, can admit of no doubt.
Mr. H. M. Hyndman predicts under Socialism "the complete change in all family relations," which must issue in "a widely extended communism." [The Historical Basis of Socialism, p. 452]
Anything approaching to family life draws down the fiercest denunciations on the part of some of the Socialists. For example, Mr. Belfort Bax writes: "We defy any human being to point to a single reality, good or bad, in the composition of the bourgeois family. It has the merit of being the most perfect specimen of the complete sham that history has presented to the world." [The Religion of Socialism, p. 141]
"Let us take another 'fraud' of middle-class family life,'" continues Mr. Bax, "the 'family party.'"
All that partakes of family life is under Socialism to be summarily consigned to complete and immediate destruction.
"The transformation of the current family-form . . . must inevitably follow the economic revolution. . . . The bourgeois 'hearth' . . . will then be as dead as Roman Britain."
Reasons Accounting For The Socialist's Hatred Of Family Institutions
There can be little doubt that one of the principal reasons which serves to account for the Socialist hatred of family institutions is that, in their minds, family life partakes essentially of "monopoly." What right, argues the Socialist, has any small group of persons to seek their life and happiness apart from the rest of the community? What right has any man to usurp one woman? again asserts the Socialist. What right, further, have parents to regard their offspring as private property, or in any way as belonging to themselves and not to the State? Once again, what right has a family to home joys not shared in equally by the community at large?
One and all of these sentiments inherent to Socialism are begotten of malignant jealousy, and spring from that ultra-individualism which, as Dr. Schaffle has so frequently stated, is one of the fundamental characteristics of Socialism.
The Family Under Socialism
The family, to quote the opinion of one of the great leaders of International Socialism—M. Jules Guesde—was useful and indispensable in the past, but is now only an odious form of property. It must be either transformed or totally abolished. M. Guesde conjectures that the time may come when the family relationship will be reduced to the relation of the mother to her child "at the period of lactation, and that, moreover, the sexual relations between man and woman, founded on passion or mutual inclination, should be enabled to become as free, as changeable, and as diverse as the intellectual or moral relations between individuals of the same or different sexes." [See Le Cathlchisme Socialiste, by M. Jules Guesde, pp. 72-79, quoted n Prof. Lecky's Democracy and Liberty, Cabinet edition, vol. ii. p. 350.]
Mr. H.G. Wells, the well-known English Socialist, in an article on Socialism published in The Fortnightly Review for November 1906, thus summarises the position of the family under Socialism: "My concern now is to point out that Socialism repudiates the private ownership of the head of the family as completely as it repudiates any other sort of private ownership. . . . Socialism, in fact, is the State family."
To much the same effect write Mr. William Morris and Mr. Belfort Bax. They inform us that under Socialism "property in children would cease to exist. . . ." "Thus," state these two writers, "a new development of the family would take place. . . ." [Socialism: Its Growth and Outcome, p. 299.]
Mr. O'Brien in the following passage directs attention to one of the fundamental differences which exists between Socialism and the present system: "According to Socialism, the family exists for the State. According to individualism, the State exists for the family." [Socialism Tested by Facts, p. 129.]
The consequences which flow from this essential difference between the two systems are many and far-reaching.
Under Socialism the individual is "to think, speak, train his children or even beget them, as the State directs or allows, in the interest of the common good." [Mr. Rae's Contemporary Socialism, 3rd edition, p. 16.]
That these two latter restrictions are to be imposed on the individual under Socialism, vitally though they interfere with individual liberty, will be sufficiently evident from what follows.
In place of the present home life, which has hitherto been regarded as one of the institutions on which the British have most cause to pride themselves, there is to be substituted under Socialism a universal system of Foundlings' Hospitals for the children, and not improbably a sort of barrack accommodation for the parents.
Mr. Robert Blatchford, for example, in his celebrated Merrie England, provides us with kaleidoscopic views of Socialist life spent in public dining-rooms, in public this and public that. "... We set up one great kitchen, one general dining-hall, and one pleasant tea-garden."
Such conditions Mr. Blatchford describes as "much more sociable and friendly."
Similarly Mrs. Annie Besant in Industry under Socialism furnishes us with a picture of "public meal-rooms," "large dwellings," which are to "replace old-fashioned cottages; " [Fabian Essays, p. 155.] in fact, to all the paraphernalia of the barracks, if not of the workhouse.
What is this but a sort of resurrected Socialist State of Peru, where "the people were required to dine and sup with open doors, that the judges might be able to enter freely." [See Mr. Herbert Spencer's article in The Contemporary Review for September 1881, vol. xl. p. 345. See further as to this the chapter on the" Socialist State," p. 161.]
This, then, according to the accounts of many Socialists, is to be the life of the adult population in the Socialist State. So far as the youth of the community are concerned, their upbringing from almost their very entry into life is to take place in the glorified Foundlings' Hospitals which Socialism is to establish throughout the country.
"The Socialist mothers," states the Socialist writer, Mrs. Snowden, in regard to the upbringing of children, "will take charge of the very early years." [The Woman Socialist, p. 88]
Other Socialist writers, as, for example, M. Guesde, would reduce the custody by the mothers of their children to a still shorter period from the date of birth.
Plato, in depicting his Socialistic State, speaks of the State taking every precaution to prevent any woman from recognising her own child.
From this, modern Socialist teaching appears to differ but little, if at all. Mr. William Morris and Mr. Belfort Bax, writing in conjunction, in Socialism: Its Growth and Outcome, assure us that under Socialism, "... property in children would cease to exist. . . ."
Socialism would, consequently, impose the support of the children upon the State in substitution for the liability of the parents. In so doing Socialism would, in fact, replace the existing obligation by a system infinitely less just than that which to-day prevails. No one, in a word, is to be called upon to maintain his own children, while from every one there is to be exacted the support of the children of the other members of the community.
One of the fundamental changes in connection with this branch of the present subject which Socialism would effect concerns the education of children.
In lieu of supplementing family education by State education, Socialism would bring about an entire substitution of the former by the latter. The Socialist regime "would not simply supplement family upbringing; it would of necessity weaken and ultimately supersede it." [The Impossibility of Social Democracy, by Dr. SchSffle, translated by Mr. Bosanquet, p. 153.] This would result, to quote again the words of Dr. Schaffle, in robbing "the overwhelming majority of the people, whose well-being it is designed to secure, of the highest and purest form of happiness, and of that very form which differences of outward circumstances down to the very lowest conditions almost entirely fail to touch. . . ."
Further, "it would tend either to make parents indifferent to the lot of their children, which would be prejudicial both to the child's happiness and to its good upbringing, or to set the parents constantly in arms against the organs of public education. . . ." In addition, "it would destroy the love of parents for their children, and of children to their parents, and by sapping all the springs of individuality would prevent all possibility of an individualising system of education on the part of the State."
Such a system would, in short, profoundly alter for the worse the characters of both children and parents alike.
Professor Woolsey in his valuable history treating of Communism [Communism and Socialism, p.71], specially calls attention to the fact that the history of the communistic societies goes to show that "family affections—one essential means by which man rises above the brute, and religion with all human improvements finds a home in the world—are nearly undeveloped."
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