{"collection":"philosophy-ethics","full_text_available":true,"graph_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/api/page/gutenberg_1341/graph","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/page/gutenberg_1341","id":"gutenberg_1341","license":"Public Domain (US)","rights_basis":"gutenberg_metadata_copyright_false","source":"gutenberg","source_url":"https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/1341","summary":null,"tags":["Category: Essays, Letters & Speeches","Category: Philosophy & Ethics","Category: Politics","Judicial process","Law"],"text":"Produced by Tom Weiss\n\n\n\n\n\n\"THE ALTRUIST IN POLITICS\"\n\nBy Benjamin Cardozo\n\n\n\nTranscriber's Note:\n\"The Altruist in Politics\" was delivered by Cardozo as his commencement\noration at Columbia College in 1889. It was never copyrighted. Columbia\nUniversity, which administers Cardozo's literary estate, has explicitly\ngranted permission to Project Gutenberg to publish it.\n\n\n                             *****\n\n\nThere comes not seldom a crisis in the life of men, of nations, and of\nworlds, when the old forms seem ready to decay, and the old rules of\naction have lost their binding force. The evils of existing systems\nobscure the blessings that attend them; and, where reform is needed, the\ncry is raised for subversion. The cause of such phenomena is not far to\nseek. \"It used to appear to me,\" writes Count Tolstoi, in a significant\npassage, \"it used to appear to me that the small number of cultivated,\nrich and idle men, of whom I was one, composed the whole of humanity,\nand that the millions and millions of other men who had lived and are\nstill living were not in reality men at all.\" It is this spirit-the\nspirit that sees the whole of humanity in the few, and throws into the\nbackground the millions and millions of other men-it is this spirit that\nhas aroused the antagonism of reformers, and made the decay of the old\nforms, the rupture of the old restrictions, the ideal of them and of\ntheir followers. When wealth and poverty meet each other face to face,\nthe one the master and the other the dependent, the one exalted and\nthe other debased, it is perhaps hardly matter for surprise that the\ndependent and debased and powerless faction, in envy of their opponents'\nsupremacy, should demand, not simple reform, but absolute community and\nequality of wealth. That cry for communism is no new one in the history\nof mankind. Thousands of years ago it was heard and acted on; and, in\nthe lapse of centuries, its reverberations have but swelled in volume.\nAgain and again, the altruist has arisen in politics, has bidden us\nshare with others the product of our toil, and has proclaimed the\ncommunistic dogma as the panacea for our social ills. So today, amid the\nburied hopes and buried projects of the past, the doctrine of communism\nstill lives in the minds of men. Under stress of misfortune, or in dread\nof tyranny, it is still preached in modern times as Plato preached it in\nthe world of the Greeks.\n\nYet it is indeed doubtful whether, in the history of mankind, a doctrine\nwas ever taught more impracticable or more false to the principles\nit professes than this very doctrine of communism. In a world where\nself-interest is avowedly the ruling motive, it seeks to establish at\nonce an all-reaching and all-controlling altruism. In a world where\nevery man is pushing and fighting to outstrip his fellows, it would make\nhim toil with like vigor for their common welfare. In a world where a\nman's activity is measured by the nearness of reward, it would hold up\na prospective recompense as an equal stimulant to labor. \"The more\nbitterly we feel,\" writes George Eliot, \"the more bitterly we feel the\nfolly, ignorance, neglect, or self-seeking of those who at different\ntimes have wielded power, the stronger is the obligation we lay on\nourselves to beware lest we also, by a too hasty wresting of measures\nwhich seem to promise immediate relief, make a worse time of it for our\nown generation, and leave a bad inheritance for our children.\" In\nthe future, when the remoteness of his reward shall have weakened the\nlaborer's zeal, we shall be able to judge more fairly of the blessings\nthat the communist offers. Instead of the present world, where some at\nleast are well-to-do and happy, the communist holds before us a world\nwhere all alike are poor. For the activity, the push, the vigor of our\nmodern life, his substitute is a life aimless and unbroken. And so we\nhave to say to communists what George Eliot might have said: Be not\nblinded by the passions of the moment, but when you prate about your own\nwrongs and the sufferings of your offspring, take heed lest in the long\nrun you make a worse time of it for your own generation, and leave a bad\ninheritance for your children.\n\nLittle thought has been taken by these altruistic reformers for the\napplication of the doctrines they uphold. To the question how one kind\nof labor can be measured against another, how the labor of the artisan\ncan be measured against the labor of the artist, how the labor of the\nstrong can be measured against the labor of the weak, the communists\ncan give no answer. Absorbed, as they are, in the principle of equality,\nthey have still forgotten the equality of work in the equality of\npay; they have forgotten that reward, to be really equal, must be\nproportionate to effort; and they and all socialists have forgotten that\nwe cannot make an arithmetic of human thought and feeling; and that for\nall our crude attempts to balance recompense against toil, for all our\ncrude attempts to determine the relative severity of different kinds\nof toil, for all our crude attempts to determine the relative strain on\ndifferent persons of the same kind of toil, yet not only will the ratio,\ndealing, as it does, with our subjective feelings, be a blundering one,\nbut a system based upon it will involve inequalities greater, because\nmore insidious, than those of the present system it would discard.\n\nInstances, indeed, are not wanting to substantiate the claim that\ncommunism, by unduly exalting our altruistic impulses, proceeds upon a\nfalse psychological basis. Yet if an instance is to be chosen, it would\nbe hard to find one more suggestive than that afforded by the efforts\nof Robert Owen. The year 1824 saw the rise of Owen's little community of\nNew Harmony, and the year of 1828 saw the community's final disruption.\nIndividuals had appropriated to themselves the property designed for\nall; and even Owen, who had given to the enterprise his money and\nhis life, was obliged to admit that men were not yet fitted for the\ncommunistic stage, and that the moment of transition from individualism\nto communism had not yet arrived. Men trained under the old system, with\nits eager rivalry, its selfish interests, could not quite yet enter\ninto the spirit of self-renunciation that communism demands. And Owen,\ntherefore, was led to put his trust in education as the great moulder of\nthe minds of men. Through this agency, he hoped, the eager rivalry, the\nselfish interests, the sordid love of gain, might be lost in higher,\npurer, more disinterested ends; and, animated by that hope-the hope that\nin the fullness of time another New Harmony, free from contention and\nthe disappointments of the old one, might serve to immortalize his\nname-animated by that hope, Owen passed the last thirty years of his\nlife; and with that hope still before his eyes he died.\n\nBut years now have passed since Owen lived; the second New Harmony has\nnot yet been seen; the so-called rational system of education has not\nyet transformed the impulses or the aims of men; and the communist of\ntoday, with a history of two thousand years of failure behind him, in\nthe same pathetic confidence still looks for the realization of his\ndreams to the communism of the future.\n\nAnd yet, granting that communism were practicable, granting that Owen's\nhopes had some prospect of fulfillment, the doctrine still embodies\nevils that must make it forever inexpedient. The readers of Mr. Matthew\nArnold's works must have noticed the emphasis with which he dwells\non the instinct of expansion as a factor in human progress. It is\nthe refutation alike of communism and socialism that they thwart the\ninstinct of expansion; that they substitute for individual energy the\nenergy of the government; that they substitute for human personality\nthe blind, mechanical power of the State. The one system, as the other,\nmarks the end of individualism. The one system, as the other, would make\neach man the image of his neighbor. The one system, as the other, would\nhold back the progressive, and, by uniformity of reward, gain uniformity\nof type.\n\nI can look forward to no blissful prospect for a race of men that, under\nthe dominion of the State, at the cost of all freedom of action, at the\ncost, indeed, of their own true selves, shall enjoy, if one will, a fair\nabundance of the material blessings of life. Some Matthew Arnold of the\nfuture would inevitably say of them in phase like that applied to the\nPuritans of old: \"They entered the prison of socialism and had the key\nturned upon their spirit there for hundreds of years.\" Into that prison\nof socialism, with broken enterprise and broken energy, as serfs under\nthe mastery of the State, while human personality is preferred to\nunreasoning mechanism, mankind must hesitate to step. When they shall\nonce have entered within it, when the key shall have been turned upon\ntheir spirit and have confined them in narrower straits than even\nPuritanism could have done, it will be left for them to find, in\ntheir blind obedience and passive submission, the recompense for the\nsingleness of character, the foresight, and the energy, that they have\nleft behind them.\n\nIn almost every phase of life, this doctrine of political altruists is\nequally impracticable and pernicious. In its social results, it involves\nthe substitution of the community in the family's present position. In\nits political aspects, it involves the absolute dominion of the State\nover the actions and property of its subjects. Thus, though claiming\nto be an exaltation of the so-called natural rights of liberty and\nequality, it is in reality their emphatic debasement. It teaches\nthat thoughtless docility is a recompense for stunted enterprise. It\nmagnifies material good at the cost of every rational endowment. It\ninculcates a self-denial that must result in dwarfing the individual\nto a mere instrument in the hands of the State for the benefit of his\nfellows. No such organization of society-no organization that fails\nto take note of the fact that man must have scope for the exercise and\ndevelopment of his faculties-no such organization of society can\never reach a permanent success. However beneficent its motives, the\nhypothesis with which it starts can never be realized. The aphorism\nof Emerson, \"Churches have been built, not upon principles, but upon\ntropes,\" is as true in the field of politics as it is in the field of\nreligion. In a like figurative spirit, the followers of communism have\nreared their edifice; and, looking back upon the finished structure,\nseeking to discern the base on which it rests, the critic finds, not\nprinciples, but tropes. The builders have appealed to a future that\nhas no warrant in the past; and fixing their gaze upon the distant\ndreamland, captivated by the vision there beheld, entranced by its ideal\neffulgence, their eyes were blinded to the real conditions of the human\nproblem they had set before them. Their enemies have not been slow to\nnote such weakness and mistake; and perhaps it may serve to clear up\nmisconceptions, perhaps it may serve to lessen cant and open the way\nfor fresh and vigorous thought, if we shall once convince ourselves\nthat altruism cannot be the rule of life; that its logical result is\nthe dwarfing of the individual man; and that not by the death of human\npersonality can we hope to banish the evils of our day, and to realize\nthe ideal of all existence, a nobler or purer life.","title":"The Altruist in Politics","tradition":"philosophy-ethics","translated_text":null,"word_count":1967}