pp. 413-418.]
The socialist practice is based on a belief that if men are
economically situated in different ways, they can then be induced to
hold certain views. Undoubtedly they often come to believe, or can be
induced to believe different things, as they are, for example,
landlords or tenants, employees or employers, skilled or unskilled
laborers, wageworkers or salaried men, buyers or sellers, farmers or
middle-men, exporters or importers, creditors or debtors. Differences
of income make a profound difference in contact and opportunity. Men
who work at machines will tend, as Mr. Thorstein Veblen has so
brilliantly demonstrated, [Footnote: _The Theory of Business
Enterprise_.] to interpret experience differently from handicraftsmen
or traders. If this were all that the materialistic conception of politics
asserted, the theory would be an immensely valuable hypothesis that
every interpreter of opinion would have to use. But he would often
have to abandon the theory, and he would always have to be on
guard. For in trying to explain a certain public opinion, it is rarely
obvious which of a man's many social relations is effecting a particular
opinion. Does Smith's opinion arise from his problems as a landlord,
an importer, an owner of railway shares, or an employer? Does
Jones's opinion, Jones being a weaver in a textile mill, come from
the attitude of his boss, the competition of new immigrants, his wife's
grocery bills, or the ever present contract with the firm which is
selling him a Ford car and a house and lot on the instalment plan?
Without special inquiry you cannot tell.
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