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

THEORY OF DEMOCRACY 783
by the State, is hostile to Socialism.1 The main ground for
this charge is that the benefits which political democracy
has succeeded in obtaining for the working classes, by
taking the revolutionary edge off poverty and discontent,
militate against the effectiveness of socialist propaganda.
The charge seems to the present writer to be unjustified.
The goods which political democracy has obtained for
the mass of the people are admittedly political rather than
economic goods, but they are none the less important.
They include equality before the law, the right to elect
and of
representatives, and freedom of speech, of reading
writing. The right to elect and the right to freedom of
speech, reading and writing have a special relevance in
this connection. The feet that they exist and are enjoyed
means that those who desire economic change are able
freely to propagate their opinions, freely to choose as their
representatives those who, if elected to Parliament, will
voice their opinions, and freely to vote for the representatives
they have chosen. If they send to Parliament a sufficent
number ofthose who share their desire for economic change,
then there is at least some prospect of the change being
effected. Nor is the prospect necessarily chimerical.
Changes of the kind in question have been effected in
the past, and are being effected in the present
with such
rapidity that what is known as social reform legislation
has been the distinguishing characteristic of the present
epoch. As a consequence, the lot of the working classes
has substantially improved during the last hundred years.
It has also improved relatively to that of the moneyed
classes A steeply graded income tax, an excess profits
tax, death duties, and estate duties have depressed the
e^ornic position of the wealthy, wHle the provision of
social services in the shape ofOld Age Pensions, Unemployment
and Health Insurance benefits, free education and
State-aided grants and scholarships has unproved the
economic parition of the **
poor.
income haTrtsulted is generally agreed. Nor is there any
tSee Chapter XVII, pp. 687-689,
for * development of thi. view.