It is
therefore imperative for those who do not believe in Bolshevism to put
some other hope in its place.
I think there are two things that must be admitted: first, that many
of the worst evils of capitalism might survive under Communism;
secondly, that the cure for these evils cannot be sudden, since it
requires changes in the average mentality.
What are the chief evils of the present system? I do not think that
mere inequality of wealth, in itself, is a very grave evil. If
everybody had enough, the fact that some have more than enough would
be unimportant. With a very moderate improvement in methods of
production, it would be easy to ensure that everybody should have
enough, even under capitalism, if wars and preparations for wars were
abolished. The problem of poverty is by no means insoluble within the
existing system, except when account is taken of psychological factors
and the uneven distribution of power.
The graver evils of the capitalist system all arise from its uneven
distribution of power. The possessors of capital wield an influence
quite out of proportion to their numbers or their services to the
community. They control almost the whole of education and the press;
they decide what the average man shall know or not know; the cinema
has given them a new method of propaganda, by which they enlist the
support of those who are too frivolous even for illustrated papers.
Very little of the intelligence of the world is really free: most of
it is, directly or indirectly, in the pay of business enterprises or
wealthy philanthropists.
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