Page:James Ramsay MacDonald - The Socialist Movement.pdf/107

 Rh true to the facts; and finally, in so far as it recognises that no social alteration can be permanent unless it is begun by a change in the general public outlook on political and social rights, it is again true to the facts. Further, in so far as scientific Socialism began by uniting the working classes in a political movement and in centring that movement round certain abstractions in political and economic theory, it only followed the method that every other movement has ever followed or can ever follow. Thus Socialism towards the middle of the nineteeth century became a political movement. Its growth since then has been the growth of a political movement, and what prospects it has at the present moment of succeeding are due to the fact that it is a political movement.

Thus it will be seen that the talk of revolution as a Socialist method is wrong. Revolution can never bring Socialism, because the change which Socialists contemplate is one which will affect every fibre of society, and which must therefore be an organic process. Changes in the superficial things of government, for instance whether there is to be a republic or a monarchy, or whether the people are to be allowed political power or to be kept in political slavery, may be effected by an appeal to the sword, but a change which is to readjust the processes of wealth production and of national and international