Page:James Ramsay MacDonald - The Socialist Movement.pdf/33

 Rh individual right and communal activity, individual freedom and social organisation, democracy and differentiation of political functions.

At this historical point Socialism is born, and its task is to effect the reconciliation.

is sometimes presented as though it were nothing but a proposal to make such economic changes in social structure as would eliminate poverty. This is only a partial statement of socialist aims, and yet it is true that the prevalence of excessive wealth and excessive poverty side by side is one of the chief causes of the success of the socialist propaganda.

Every town in the country affords some example of this contrast; every commercialist country in the world adds details to the picture. Apologists of the existing order sometimes excuse it, sometimes say that the individual is to blame, sometimes try and show that things are getting better. Mr. Mallock has been making guesses about family incomes recently for the purpose of showing that they are now fairly substantial and are