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

784
ETHICS AND POLITICS: THE MODERNS
reason to suppose that these economic changes have reached
their limit. On the contrary, if we may trust Mr. Keynes's
prophecy that "in a hundred years 9
time the standard of
life in progressive countries will be between four and eight
9
times as high as it is to-day/ they may, ifwe are spared the
catastrophe of war or revolution, be expected to continue.
How have they been effected? By arguments addressed
to men's reason, by appeals to their sense of justice,
and by the resultant pressure of voting power exercised
through the ballot-box in a word, by the exercise of
precisely those political liberties which the inspiration
of liberal and individualist thought won for the democracies
in the nineteenth century, and which the Continental
dictatorships deny.
The Method of Change in a Democracy. Nothing,
indeed, in this connection is clearer than that the methods,
by which in democratic countries social reforms have been
effected and the resultant economic amelioration of the
position of the working classes has been achieved, could not
have been followed under a dictatorship. Social reforms are
born initially of a burning sense of resentment against the
injustices and inequalities of the existing regime, expressing
itself in a stream of speeches, articles and books. Men listen
to the speeches; they read the articles and the books, and
some are converted to the views of their authors. In course
of time sufficient converts are made to elect representatives
to Parliament, and presently, if the process continues,
sufficient representatives are sent to Parliament to constitute
a government which introduces the reform*. In countries
governed by dictatorships there are permitted neither
speeches, articles, nor books critical of the existLig regime.
There are no free elections, there are no workers' repreicntativcs
in Parliament, and a government pledged to
the economic changes that socialists desire would not be
permitted. It is difficult to avoid the conclusion that
to destroy the liberties won by political democracy, is
to destroy the instruments of peaceful social change.