FUTURE.OF SOCIALISM
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3. That the fear inspired by the atomic bomb and other weapons
yet to come will be so great that everyone will refrain from using–
them. This seems to me the worst possibility of all. It would mean
the division of the world among two or three vast superstates, un–
able ·to conquer one another and unable to be overthrown by any
internal rebellion. In
all
probability their structure would be hier–
archic, with a semidivine caste at the top and outright slavery at the
bottom, and the crushing out of liberty would exceed anything that
the world has yet seen. Within each state the necessary psychological
atmosphere would be kept up by complete severance from the outer
world, and by a continuous phony war against rival states. Civiliza–
tions of this type might remain static for thousands of years.
Most of the dangers that I have outlined existed and were for–
seeable long before the atomic bomb was invented. The only way
of avoiding them that I can imagine is to present somewhere or
other, on a large scale, the spectacle of a community where people
are relatively free and happy and where the main motive in life
is not the pursuit of money or power. In other words, democratic
socialism must be made to work throughout some large area. But
the only area in which it could conceivably be made to work, in any
near future, is western Europe. Apart from Australia and New
Zealand, the tradition of democratic socialism can only be said to
exist-and even there it only exists precariously-in Scandinavia,
Germany, Austria, Czecho-Slovakia, Switzerland, the Low Countries,
France, Britain, Spain, and Italy. Only in those countries are there
still large numbers of people to whom the word "socialism" has some
appeal and for whom it is bound up with liberty, equality, and in–
ternationalism. Elsewhere it either has no foothold or it means some–
thing different. In North America the masses are contented with
capitalism, and one cannot tell what turn they will take when capi–
talism begins to collapse. In the USSR there prevails a sort of oli–
garchical collectivism which could only develop into democratic
socialism against the will of the ruling minority. Into Asia even the
word "socialism" has barely penetrated. The Asiatic nationalist move–
ments are either fascist in character, or look toward Moscow, or
manage to combine both attitudes: and at present all movements
among the colored peoples are tinged by racial mysticism. In most
of South America the position is essentially similar, so is it in Africa
and the Middle East. Socialism does not exist anywhere, but even
as an idea it is at present valid only in Europe. Of course, socialism
cannot properly be said to be established until it is world-wide, but
