PUBLIC OPINION by WALTER LIPPMANN TO FAYE LIPPMANN ...

then as the master key to social processes the theory fails. That
theory assumes that men are capable of adopting only one version of
their interest, and that having adopted it, they move fatally to
realize it. It assumes the existence of a specific class interest.
That assumption is false. A class interest can be conceived largely or
narrowly, selfishly or unselfishly, in the light of no facts, some
facts, many facts, truth and error. And so collapses the Marxian
remedy for class conflicts. That remedy assumes that if all property
could be held in common, class differences would disappear. The
assumption is false. Property might well be held in common, and yet
not be conceived as a whole. The moment any group of people failed to
see communism in a communist manner, they would divide into classes on
the basis of what they saw.
In respect to the existing social order Marxian socialism emphasizes
property conflict as the maker of opinion, in respect to the loosely
defined working class it ignores property conflict as the basis of
agitation, in respect to the future it imagines a society without
property conflict, and, therefore, without conflict of opinion. Now in
the existing social order there may be more instances where one man
must lose if another is to gain, than there would be under socialism,
but for every case where one must lose for another to gain, there are
endless cases where men simply imagine the conflict because they are
uneducated. And under socialism, though you removed every instance of
absolute conflict, the partial access of each man to the whole range
of facts would nevertheless create conflict. A socialist state will
not be able to dispense with education, morality, or liberal science,
though on strict materialistic grounds the communal ownership of
properties ought to make them superfluous. The communists in Russia
would not propagate their faith with such unflagging zeal if economic
determinism were alone determining the opinion of the Russian people.
5
The socialist theory of human nature is, like the hedonistic calculus,
an example of false determinism. Both assume that the unlearned
dispositions fatally but intelligently produce a certain type of
behavior. The socialist believes that the dispositions pursue the
economic interest of a class; the hedonist believes that they pursue
pleasure and avoid pain. Both theories rest on a naive view of
instinct, a view, defined by James, [Footnote: _Principles of
Psychology_, Vol. II, p. 383.] though radically qualified by him,
as "the faculty of acting in such a way as to produce certain ends,
without foresight of the ends and without previous education in the
performance."
It is doubtful whether instinctive action of this sort figures at all
in the social life of mankind. For as James pointed out: [Footnote: