ANOTHER VOICE
Something for the boobies now that socialism has failed
AUBERON WAUGH
Richard Davy, writing in last Friday's Independent, asked what strikes me as one of the most profound questions of our time: nature and politics, he argued, abhor a vacuum. What is going to replace com- munism as a creed? In one of the best- written pieces I have yet read even in that excellent newspaper, he suggested that political creeds are necessary to human nature, catering for the idealistic aspira- tions — the constant urge towards some utopian Garden of Eden where we all love each other and live together in harmony and for the power-urges of our would-be leaders. Communism failed because, as a creed, it failed to recognise the darker side of human nature — above all, that greed is as powerful a force in human affairs as benevolence. Consequently, it produced nothing but oppression, poverty, incompe- tence and corruption. After more than 70 years, everyone but the most terrorised or indoctrinated booby is prepared to admit that the whole thing was a great mistake.
Almost everybody now agrees that the market, subject to a few commonsense restraints on nuisance, works much better, but it does not work as a substitute creed because it fails to cater for the booby factor, the urge to create heaven on earth. One might almost say that it fails to recognise the brighter side of human na- ture, in its insistence upon the stick of penury as well as the carrot of affluence as the twin determinants of economic activity, although its traditional apologetic includes a long section on how charity can be relied upon to help the lame dog over the stile. The trouble with the market as an alterna- tive creed to socialism is that this belief in the sufficiency of charity cannot be wedded to a dogmatic acceptance of market forces to produce a single, all-embracing scream of self-righteousness, which is what the boobies need-. Nor, of course, is this belief in the sufficiency of charity always well- founded, but it is no part of the require- ments for a political creed that its central tenets should be founded in an accurate observation of human nature. So I think we can forget that objection.
The constant factor — debated, no doubt, between Jung and Freud — is mankind's desire for a creed, his apparent- ly unshakable belief in the attainability of utopia. Mr Davy argues that the most obvious replacement for communism on the present scene is the philosophy of the Greens, as espoused in some of their political writings: 'If we are to look for the next political expression of their apparent- ly eternal dreams, we must not look for bad intentions, for the new Hitler and Stalin, but for the good intentions, for the desire for brotherhood, justice and har- mony.' There can be no doubt that the Greens are spilling over with all these things. Nor can there be any doubt that its wildly unrealistic programme of re- educating the human race into a state of mind where it is happy to restrict itself to simple pleasures has the makings of a tyranny beside Which oppression in the Soviet Union and China will seem benign.
He quotes Jonathon Porritt, the radical Green thinker, who
offcrs a radical, visionary and fundamentalist challenge to the prevailing economic and political world order.... Solving the planet's problems is going to require breathtakingly radical action and international co-operation on a scale not seen since the second world war.
One does not even have to look so far as its more visionary element to see the beginnings of authoritarianism in the Green movement. It has long been my contention that the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds is one of the most sinister organisations in this country, second only to the drugs department of Customs and Excise in the vicious self- righteousness with which it applies its altogether excessive powers. The Field, under Simon Courtauld's editorship, ran a brilliant enquiry into its operations, but none of the other newspapers followed it up. I often wonder if Courtauld's sacking had anything to do with that piece.
Davy also quotes John Boorman: 'We need a transformation of the human spirit. If the human heart can be changed, then everything can be changed.' But of course the human heart can't and won't be changed. All that will happen is that a group of monomaniac fanatics will start dictating any number of increasingly un- popular policies, eventually taking refuge in their own certainties to impose their policies until they are eventually taken over by cynical power brokers.
My only criticism of this otherwise admirable thesis is that Davy uses com- munism where the word 'socialism' would be more accurate and more relevant. Be- hind the Iron Curtain, the two words are used interchangeably, with 'socialism' used the more frequently. Socialism may be the ante-chamber to communism, but nobody would claim that communism has been achieved in Russia or China because, as even Brezhnev or Deng would have been happy to concede, the Kingdom of Heaven has not yet arrived in either place. It is not communism which has been empirically discredited, except by one remove, be- cause it has not yet been tried. It is socialism which can be shown to produce nothing but oppression, poverty, incompe- tence and corruption. It may be a valid a fortiori inference that communism is also discredited, but why does Davy fight shy of stating that no honest, thinking person can nowadays pretend to believe that socialist theory has any useful application?
The reason, I suspect, may be timidity, in which case it is understandable. Almost half the English intelligentsia would still describe itself as socialist, if only from force of habit. Anything which attacks socialism is by definition stupid and wrong: even worse, it won't be read. No journalist should be blamed for wishing to avoid that fate. But I am afraid his reluctance to use the word 'socialism' to describe the creed which has been discredited may be the result of genuine mental confusion. At one point, speaking of belief in the market, he says: 'Even this faith seems to be fading, having served its purpose — we are all centrists now.'
Surely this is wrong. Centrism is itself a faith, and it is a faith to which no logical person can intelligently subscribe, although it may suit the book of a few opportunistic politicians like Roy Hatters- ley. The truth is that there is a genuine vacuum. Intelligent and benevolent people could not be better employed than strug- gling to maintain the vacuum. This means examining every one of the Greens' claims and exposing them whenever they are based on sentimentality, empty rhetoric, bogus science or plain falsehood. It is a boring and thankless task, because every booby and almost every immature mind in the country is yearning to be deceived.
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