2. Natural Inequalities and Democratic
Equalisation.
The difficulty of reconciling democratic equalisation with
natural inequalities constitutes one of the most difficult
problems of the present hour. We know what are the desires of
democracy. Let us see what Nature replies to these demands.
The democratic ideas which have so often shaken the world
from the heroic ages of Greece to modern times are always
clashing with natural inequalities. Some observers have held,
with Helvetius, that the inequality between men is created by
education.
As a matter of fact, Nature does not know such a thing as
equality. She distributes unevenly genius, beauty, health,
vigour, intelligence, and all the qualities which confer on their
possessors a superiority over their fellows.
No theory can alter these discrepancies, so that
democratic doctrines will remain confined to words
until the laws of heredity consent to unify the capacities of
men.
Can we suppose that societies will ever succeed in
establishing artificially the equality refused by Nature?
A few theorists have believed for a long time that
education might effect a general levelling. Many years of
experience have shown the depth of this illusion.
It would not, however, be impossible for a triumphant
Socialism to establish equality for a time by rigorously
eliminating all superior individuals. One can easily foresee
what would become of a people that had suppressed its best
individuals while surrounded by other nations progressing by
means of their best individuals.
Not only does Nature not know equality, but since the
beginning of the ages she has always realised progress by means
of successive differentiations—that is to say, by increasing
inequalities. These alone could raise the obscure cell of the
early geological periods to the superior beings whose inventions
were to change the face of the earth.
The same phenomenon is to be observed in societies. The
forms of democracy which select the better elements of the
popular classes finally result in the creation of an intellectual
aristocracy, a result the contrary of the dream of the pure
theorists, to beat down the superior elements of society to the
level of the inferior elements.
On the side of natural law, which is hostile to theories
of equality, are the conditions of modern progress. Science and
industry demand more and
more considerable intellectual efforts, so that mental
inequalities and the differences of social condition which spring
from them cannot but become accentuated.
We therefore observe this striking phenomenon: as laws and
institutions seek to level individuals the progress of
civilisation tends still further to differentiate them. From the
peasant to the feudal baron the intellectual difference was not
great, but from the working-man to the engineer it is immense and
is increasing daily.
Capacity being the principal factor of progress, the
capable of each class rise while the mediocre remain stationary
or sink. What could laws do in the face of such inevitable
necessities?
In vain do the incapable pretend that, representing
number, they also represent force. Deprived of the superior
brains by whose researches all workers profit, they would
speedily sink into poverty and anarchy.
The capital rôle of the elect in modern
civilisation seems too obvious to need pointing out. In the case
of civilised nations and barbarian peoples, which contain similar
averages of mediocrities, the superiority of the former arises
solely from the superior minds which they contain. The United
States have understood this so thoroughly that they forbid the
immigration of Chinese workers, whose capacity is identical with
that of American workers, and who, working for lower wages, tend
to create a formidable competition with the latter. Despite
these evidences we see the antagonism between the multitude and
the elect increasing day by day. At no period were the elect
more necessary, yet never were they supported with such
difficulty.
One of the most solid foundations of Socialism is an
intense hatred of the elect. Its adepts always forget that
scientific, artistic, and industrial progress, which creates the
strength of a country and the prosperity of millions of workers,
is due solely to a small number of superior brains.
If the worker makes three times as much to-day as he did a
hundred years ago, and enjoys commodities then unknown to great
nobles, he owes it entirely to the elect.
Suppose that by some miracle Socialism had been
universally accepted a century ago. Risk, speculation,
initiative—in a word, all the stimulants of human activity—
being suppressed, no progress would have been possible, and the
worker would have remained as poor as he was. Men would merely
have established that equality in poverty desired by the jealousy
and envy of a host of mediocre minds. Humanity will never
renounce the progress of civilisation to satisfy so low an ideal.