A CRITICAL BIOGRAPHY OF EDWIN JAMES BRADY - Mallacoota ...

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Of course it is possible to make and justify such criticisms, but instead of giving
capitalism real credit for its achievements, or instead of looking for ways to overcome
its weaknesses while still maintaining its productive efficiency, Brady wants to see it
thrown out in toto. He is in grave danger of throwing out the baby with the bathwater,
as the old saying goes.
Further, Brady sees capitalism (“individual ownership and competitive production for
profits”) unemployment, waste, financial panics, human misery, immorality, crime
and evils untold” whereas collective ownership would abolish most of these
unnecessary wrongs, minimise others, and “advance the material, intellectual and
spiritual standards of the human race”. He also denigrates capitalism for its
involvements in the brutalities of way and blames it for the inequalities which lead the
children of the rich to gain a more advantageous education than the children of the
poor. One cannot help being reminded of Roosevelt’s definition of a radical as a man
with both feet planted firmly in the air. No good purpose is served by a wholesale
condemnation of a system because of some weaknesses. It is difficult to substantiate
the view (indeed Brady does not really try) that a socialistic society, had Australia
been one, would not have had similar weaknesses, would not have been involved in
way, and would have had any more equality of education than already provided under
the Education Act of 1880 which made education, in New South Wales at least, free,
secular and compulsory.
It is evident that when Brady thus attempts to explain his political credo he displays a
large degree of ingenuousness and political naivety, superficiality in his criticisms and
vague hypothesising about possible achievements of an idealistic, largely untried
social alternative. But theoretically at least he is on sounder ground when he supports
the economic aspects of the socialist or communist doctrine “As I see it, the economic
difference between Socialism and Communism is the difference between one side of
the blade of a table knife and the other” 1 ), because it seems to him to have a greater
affinity with the basic philosophy of Christian ethics which is the ultimate yardstick
of his social criticism. While this yardstick may be a fine measure on the general
level one can run into difficulties when applying it to specific aspects of society. He
calls Lady Astor as Witness to his view that socialism is really a religion:
Is it any wonder that Lady Astor, after seeing Collectivism in being, and
hearing the firm convictions of the workers and peasants, could only keep
repeating – ‘It is a religion!’ Yes, socialism is a religion……You cannot make
men honest by an Act of Parliament, but by an economic act, which removes
the cause of dishonesty, you can. You cannot make men and women good by a
political code, but by a social code, which holds the causes of evil in check,
you can, at least, make them infinitely better. Long before I became
associated with the propaganda, I perceived in socialism a living plant, beside
which the lip religions of my youth appeared as withered leaves. 2
1 “Scrutator Explains”, The Labor Call, 23.7.1931
2 “Psychology of Socialism”, The Red Objective. Brady uses the terms “Socialism”, “Communism”
and “Collectivism” interchangeably, and equates these with the Labor doctrine in its pure form, when
speaking or writing of its early socialistic aims and ideals.