50 Years Ago: Optimism and Socialism

Where then do optimism and Socialism come in? What is their practical relation to the Socialist movement? Optimism claims that this is the best of all possible worlds. All apparent pairs are but the means by which the all-seeing Father secures our ultimate happiness. To attempt to secure it on our own by a social revolution is both impious and unnecessary. The Lord will provide!

Pessimism, on the other hand, bewails our impotence against the hand of fate. Sorrow and death are on every hand, and external forces are stronger than we; to hope to control them is useless. The deepest desires are but a mockery; for happiness is impossible and an illusion. Socialism? Pooh! If you abolished poverty tomorrow it would re-appear the day after.

In short, both creeds accept the capitalist system as inevitable and necessary. Optimism is simply the endeavour of the ruling class to foist their own smug satisfaction with themselves and their system to their slaves as the only correct opinion and guide of life. It is rejected by all who have passed through the fire and floods of working-class existence and found it horribly wanting in practical comfort even in spite of previous prejudice in its favour.

Pessimism is but the inevitable reaction based on disappointment in optimism; a despair of capitalism coupled with an ignorance of any means of ending it.

From the Socialist Standard, July 1915.