CHAPTER IV

INEQUALITY, HAPPINESS, AND PROGRESS

The radical politician will object to the foregoing conclusions in terms with which we are familiar • 351

The radical theorist will put the same objections more logically. If the desire of exceptional wealth is really the strongest motive, he will say that it follows that most men, since they cannot all be exceptionally rich, must always remain miserable • 352

Now the first answer to this is that the fact that all men will never be equally wealthy does not prevent the conditions of all men from improving absolutely • 353

Another answer is that if inequality in the possession of the most coveted prizes of life implies misery amongst the majority, this evil would be intensified rather than mitigated by socialists, who would substitute unequal honour for unequal wealth • 354

The final answer is that the unequal distribution of wealth has no natural tendency to cause unhappiness; • 357

for men’s desires vary. There is equality of desire for the necessaries of life only; for this desire rests on men’s physical natures, which are similar; • 357

but the desire for superfluities depends on their mental powers, which vary • 358

The special appeal of luxury is mainly to the mind and the imagination— • 358

the luxury, for instance, of a large house, • 359

or sleeping accommodation in a train • 359

Consequently the desire for luxury and wealth, like the pleasure they give, depends on peculiar mental powers or peculiar mental states • 360

Amongst most men the desire for wealth is naturally a speculative desire only • 361

It implies no pain caused by the want of wealth • 361

The desire ceases to be speculative and becomes a practical craving only when the imagination is exceptionally strong, and a strong belief is present that the attainment of wealth is possible • 362

The desire for wealth, in fact, is in proportion to each man’s belief that by him personally it is attainable • 364

This belief is naturally confined to men with exceptional imaginations and exceptional productive powers • 365

It only becomes general by the popularising of false theories which represent wealth as attainable by all, without exceptional talent or exceptional exertion • 366

It is roused, for instance, in a man who suddenly is told that he has a legal right to an estate which previously he never thought of coveting • 366

The socialistic teaching of to-day creates a spurious desire for wealth by its doctrines of impossible rights to it • 367

The practical craving for wealth is naturally confined to those who have some talent for creating it, and the pain caused by its absence is naturally confined to such men • 368

The socialistic theories merely cause a barren and artificial discontent, • 368

which interferes with that harmonious progress on which the welfare of the many depends • 369

These theories make enemies of classes who would otherwise be allies, and the cause of true social reform suffers incalculable injury • 370

The object of the present work is to show the fallacy of the theoretic basis of existing socialistic discontent and socialistic aspirations; • 371

and to show that the many are not a self-existent power, • 372

but depend for all the powers they possess on the co-operation of the few, • 373

whose rights are as sacred, and whose power is as great, as their own • 375

The recognition of the fact that the relations and positions of classes can never be fundamentally altered • 376

(especially when we consider the facts of history to which Karl Marx drew attention) • 376

shows us not only how chimerical are the hopes of the socialists, but what solid grounds there are for the hopes of more rational reformers • 378