Page:James Ramsay MacDonald - The Socialist Movement.pdf/153

 Rh The appeal to class interest is an appeal to the existing order, whether the class addressed is the rich or the poor. It is the anti-Socialist who makes class appeals; the Socialist makes social appeals. Class consciousness is an asset of the defenders of the existing order of exploitation. It is evident in the wide social gulf fixed between Liberals and Conservatives, it is behind the boycott of Liberal shopkeepers by Primrose dames, it is the reason for the advice given through The Times at the end of 1910 to society hostesses to send no invitations to Liberal ministers.

The class war found its way into the general body of Socialist dogma quite simply. Marx saw that no proletarian movement could be created in Europe without some passion. The wage-earners had to feel the enemy. They had to be marshalled as a class. The theory of economic determinism in history was a theory of a war of classes. By a conflict between economic classes progress had come. Economic determinism, therefore, not only laid a scientific basis for Socialism, but also provided it with a method. But as the determinist argument was modified, the class war view had to suffer a corresponding modification. When the doctrine of economic determinism was preached in its absoluteness, the class war in all its naked antagonism was a logical corollary; when other than economic factors form the evolutionary drift of society, other motives than those of class interest must form the political parties that are consciously aiding the Social-