Page:James Ramsay MacDonald - The Socialist Movement.pdf/97

 Rh Therefore a reply to the Marxian dogma is not a reply to Socialism.

There are two possible avenues down which Socialism may come. It may come from the darkness of misery, its way lit by flaming torches; or it may come from the advancing dawn of prosperity, its way lit by the steady broadening of the day. For the past generation or so, it has come by the latter way. We are better clothed than our grandfathers, we are better housed than they, we have a wider choice for consumption than they had. What then? Satisfaction? Or more hungering and thirsting? Certainly more hungering and thirsting. It is interesting as a matter of personal experience to note that the strength of Socialism is not found in the slummy and most miserable quarters in towns, but in those quarters upon which the sun of prosperity manages to shine. It is the skilled artisan, the trade unionist, the member of the friendly society, the young workman who reads and thinks, who are the recruits to the army of Socialism. The explanation is not difficult to discover. In dealing with horses we are dealing with stomachs only; in dealing with men, we are dealing with stomachs and heads. The needs of a horse present a purely quantitative problem in the supply of hay, the needs of a man present a qualitative one in the supply of intellectual happiness. Man is not satisfied with a little. Everything he acquires broadens his horizon and reveals in a widening sweep the hitherto unattained.

Socialism is therefore not a fleeing from the