he world has hitherto known as Socialism can only be
expected after a vast period of time, and his opinion accords with that
of many bitter critics and opponents of the movement, who avoid a
difficult controversy by admitting all Socialist arguments and merely
asking for time--"Socialism, a century or two hence--but not now,"--for
all practical purposes an endless postponement.

Mr. MacDonald, who is not only a leader of the Labour Party, but also
one of the chief organizers also of the leading Socialist Party of that
country, has given us by far the fullest and most significant discussion
of that party's policy. He says that an enlightened bourgeoisie will be
just as likely to be Socialist as the working classes, and that
therefore the class struggle is merely "a grandiloquent and aggressive
figure of speech."[114] Struggle of some kind, he concedes, is
necessary. But the more important form of struggle in present-day
society, he says, is the trade rivalry between nations and not the
rivalry between social classes.[115] Here at the outset is a complete
reversal of the Socialist attitude. Socialists aim to put an end to this
overshadowing of domestic by foreign problems, principally for the very
reason that it aids the capitalists to obscure the class struggle--the
foundation, the guiding principle, and the sole reason for the existence
of the whole movement.

Mr. MacDonald claims further that a class struggle, far from uniting the
working classes, can only divide them the more; in other words, that it
works in exactly the opposite direction from that in which the
international organization believes it works. The only "natural
conflicts" in the present or future, within any given society, according
to the spokesman of the Labour Party, represent, not the conflicting
interests of certain economic classes, but the "conflicting views and
temperaments" of individuals.[116] And the chief divisions of
temperament and opinion, he says, will be between the world-old
tendencies of action and inaction--a view which does not differ one iota
from that of Mr. Roosevelt.

Mr. MacDonald asserts that "it is the _whole_ of society which is
developing towards Socialism," and adds, "The consistent exponent of the
class struggle must, of course, repudiate these doctrines, but then the
class struggle is far more akin to Radicalism than to Socialism."[117] I
have already pointed out how the older Radicalism, or political
democracy, no mat