Red Republicanism

Helen Macfarlane on the right to be human

Helen Macfarlane

“Every revolution which is not made with a view of profoundly ameliorating the condition of the People, is merely a crime succeeding another crime”.

And in this sentiment of the illustriouus Robespierre I heartily agree. Here the question—Why we demand such an amelioration? - suggests itself. I point to the Rights of Man. These are the answer to the question. The Rights of one human being are precisely the same as the Rights of another human being, in virtue of their common nature.

This natural equality is not affected by the natural inequality of physical wants and mental capacity, obtaining between the different individuals belonging to the same species. One man, for example, requires twice as much food as another does, yet the large and the small eater have the same natural Right of satisfying their animal wants, and the question of Right has no connection whatever with the question of capacity. The same rule holds true in the intellectual world. One man has the mental power of making discoveries in Science, or of assimilating and digesting the contents of whole libraries; another is so stupid that he can scarcely understand the simplest argument. Yet that is no reason why the latter should be prevented from exercising the Right of satisfying his small intellectual wants; he has the same natural right of doing so that the man of large mental wants has.

The law of Equality—which is one of the primitive and inalienable Rights of Man—or rather, it is the all-sustaining groundwork, or substratum, which supports the whole system of human rights and duties—the law of Equality is but another term for the law of Proportion. “To every one according to his wants, from every one according to his powers”, that is the law of the new social arrangements we desire to bring about.

The next question which arises is—Of what nature are the arrangements which would express and embody such a law? And here I come to the conflicting theories of the different section of Social Reformers. Now, it will be necessary to find some common ground upon which they can all meet. I take it for granted that they are all agreed as to the principle of Equality—that they admit that all human beings have a Right to the equal development and satisfaction of their unequal faculties and wants. But what of consequence to me is this Right, if society does not give me the power of exercising it? I can exercise it only in so far as I have free access to the instruments of labour, to Land and Capital.

These are the conditions of my animal existence, and consequently of my mental growth also. Land and Capital, therefore, are national, not individual property. Further, I take it for granted that all sections of Social Reformers are agreed on the necessity of a radical change in the existing system of unlimited competition; seeing that, the practical effect of this system has been to plunge the British producers into depths of misery and degradation unsurpassed in the annals of any people. But a radical change can only be effected by substituting the principle of Association for that of Competition, because any measure short of this would be surface work, and would leave the root of our social evils untouched. It appears to me, therefore, that the two propositions:

1) The soil and capital are collective property;

2) These instruments of labour being common to All should be used for the benefit of All, that is, used on the principles of Association and Universal Solidarity; are propositions resulting from the natural and unalienable Rights of Man, and are common ground upon which all sections of Social Reformers can meet.

Many important consequences, into which my limits do not allow me to enter, but which have been fully developed in the works of the Continental Socialists, are derivable from these two fundamental propositions. For example, education is gratuitous and obligatory. Justice is administered gratuitously. The State supports such citizens as are incapable of work, through old age or disease, and this support is not a charity, it is a right. Private banks are to be abolished, and replaced by a single national bank. Indirect taxation is to be abolished and succeeded by a single direct tax. Usury will be abolished, and replaced by a system of gratuitous national credit. Paper will be substituted for the present metallic currency, and so forth.

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(This is an extract from from ‘Democratic Organisation’ by Helen Macfarlane. Published in the Red Republican, 17 August 185O. Published in full in the B.P.C. book, Red Chartist: the Complete Annotated Writings of Helen Macfarlane)