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The Influence of Socialist Writers
How did politicians ever come to
believe this weird idea that the law could be made to produce
what it does not contain—the wealth, science, and religion
that, in a positive sense, constitute prosperity? Is it due to
the influence of our modern writers on public affairs?
Present-day writers—especially
those of the socialist school of thought—base their various
theories upon one common hypothesis: They divide mankind into two
parts. People in general—with the exception of the writer
himself—from the first group. The writer, all alone, forms
the second and most important group. Surely this is the weirdest
and most conceited notion that ever entered a human brain!
In fact, these writers on public
affairs begin by supposing that people have within themselves no
means of discernment; no motivation to action. The writers assume
that people are inert matter, passive particles, motionless
atoms, at best a kind of vegetation indifferent to its own manner
of existence. They assume that people are susceptible to being
shaped—by the will and hand of another person—into an
infinite variety of forms, more or less symmetrical, artistic,
and perfected. Moreover, not one of these writers on governmental
affairs hesitates to imagine that he himself—under the title
of organizer, discoverer, legislator, or founder—is this
will and hand, this universal motivating force, this creative
power whose sublime mission is to mold these scattered
materials—persons—into a society.
These socialist writers look upon
people in the same manner that the gardener views his trees. Just
as the gardener capriciously shapes the trees into pyramids,
parasols, cubes, vases, fans, and other forms, just so does the
socialist writer whimsically shape human beings into groups,
series, centers, sub-centers, honeycombs, labor corps, and other
variations. And just as the gardener needs axes, pruning hooks,
saws, and shears to shape his trees, just so does the socialist
writer need the force that he can find only in law to shape human
beings. For this purpose, he devises tariff laws, tax laws,
relief laws, and school laws.
Clark Simmons, Webmaster
Copyright© 2000, Lillian Martinez Simmons |
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