Page:James Ramsay MacDonald - The Socialist Movement.pdf/98

94 wrath which is to come, but a stretching out towards a state where more of the blessings now enjoyed are to be the lot of men. Its driving force is intellectual as well as economic. The spread of education, the sharpening of a sense of self-respect, the awakening of imagination, the increase of comfort amongst the workers, enhance the attractiveness of the Socialist appeal and prepare the soil for the Socialist seed. Give us more religion of the true kind, more literary and artistic culture, more science, and the opportunities of Socialism are thereby increased.

are now in a position to summarise the criticism which Socialism passes on the existing order of things.

Commercialism is a phase in the evolution of industrial organisation, and is not its final form. It arose when nations were sufficiently established to make national and international markets possible, and it created classes and interests which separated themselves from the rest of the community and which proceeded to buttress themselves behind economic monopolies, social privileges, political power. The new industrial régime supplanted feudalism when the historical work of feudalism was done and it had ceased to be useful, and