II

State socialism, even in a nation which possesses the form of political democracy, is not a truly democratic system.  The way in which it fails to be democratic may be made plain by an analogy from the political sphere.  Every democrat recognizes that the Irish ought to have self-government for Irish affairs, and ought not to be told that they have no grievance because they share in the Parliament of the United Kingdom.  It is essential to democracy that any group of citizens whose interests or desires separate them at all widely from the rest of the community should be free to decide their internal affairs for themselves.  And what is true of national or local groups is equally true of economic groups, such as miners or railway men.  The national machinery of general elections is by no means sufficient to secure for groups of this kind the freedom which they ought to have.

The power of officials, which is a great and growing danger in the modern state, arises from the fact that the majority of the voters, who constitute the only ultimate popular control over officials, are as a rule not interested in any one particular question, and are therefore not likely to interfere effectively against an official who is thwarting the wishes of the minority who are interested.  The official is nominally subject to indirect popular control, but not to the control of those who are directly affected by his action.  The bulk of the public will either never hear about the matter in dispute, or, if they do hear, will form a hasty opinion based upon inadequate information, which is far more likely to come from the side of the officials than from the section of the community which is affected by the question at issue.  In an important political issue, some degree of knowledge is likely to be diffused in time; but in other matters there is little hope that this will happen.

It may be said that the power of officials is much less dangerous than the power of capitalists, because officials have no economic interests that are opposed to those of wage-earners.  But this argument involves far too simple a theory of political human nature—­a theory which orthodox socialism adopted from the classical political economy, and has tended to retain in spite of growing evidence of its falsity.  Economic self-interest, and even economic class-interest, is by no means the only important political motive.  Officials, whose salary is generally quite unaffected by their decisions on particular questions, are likely, if they are of average honesty, to decide according to their view of the public interest; but their view will none the less have a bias which will often lead them wrong.  It is important to understand this bias before entrusting our destinies too unreservedly to government departments.