GUIDE TO THE PHILOSOPHY 1938 - 1947.pdf - Rare Books at ...

THEORY OF COMMUNISM 705
love of power as an end with less disfavour than the love
of material goods, while a State dominated by soldiers
would almost certainly have appeared to him more admirable
than one dominated by the third or worker class*
For the worker is, in Plato's view, always a money*
grubber, and he loves money in order that he may gratify
his many unruly appetites for the things that money can
buy. This reflection suggests the first of three important
differences between Plato's political theory and that of
Differences Between Platonic Theory and Modern
Communism. (I) DIFFERENCE IN REGARD TO
ENDS. The multiplication and equal distribution of
material goods, which is the immediate object of Communism,
would have seemed to Plato an unworthy ideal,
appropriate only to members of his third class. The
driving force behind the propaganda and effort of Communism
is hatred of economic injustice. It is intolerable,
says the Communist in effect, that the material rewards
of human effort should be so inequitably distributed, and
that the poverty and misery of the toiling many should be
outraged by the pride and luxury of the idle few. Hence
the main endeavour of the leaders of Communism, in the
one country in which they have obtained power, has been
to utilise man's newly-won ability to tap the material
resources of the planet with a view to increasing the available
wealth of the community. The results of scientific
research are used to increase production, in order that the
sum of desirable material commodities may be so multi-
plied that there is enough and to spare for all. In brief,
then, the use of man's increased power over nature in
order to increase wealth is the immediate object of communist
endeavour. But this is also the object of Capitalism.
The immediate purpose of Onmm>m 'ffrn is, then, to
outstrip Capitalism in production. It is true that it would
seek to distribute more equitably what is produced, but
by reason of the stress which it lays upon material goods
Z*