If organized labor wishes to create them, nothing
could stand in its way. The difficulty involved is merely the
difficulty of inspiring men with hope, of giving them enough
imagination to see that the evils from which they suffer are
unnecessary, and enough thought to understand how the evils are to be
cured. This is a difficulty which can be overcome by time and energy.
But it will not be overcome if the leaders of organized labor have no
breadth of outlook, no vision, no hopes beyond some slight superficial
improvement within the framework of the existing system.
Revolutionary action may be unnecessary, but revolutionary thought is
indispensable, and, as the outcome of thought, a rational and
constructive hope.
Chapter III: Pitfalls in Socialism
I
In its early days, socialism was a revolutionary movement of which the
object was the liberation of the wage-earning classes and the
establishment of freedom and justice. The passage from capitalism to
the new r?gime was to be sudden and violent: capitalists were to be
expropriated without compensation, and their power was not to be
replaced by any new authority.
Gradually a change came over the spirit of socialism. In France,
socialists became members of the government, and made and unmade
parliamentary majorities. In Germany, social democracy grew so strong
that it became impossible for it to resist the temptation to barter
away some of its intransigeance in return for government recognition
of its claims.
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