THE PROSPECTS OF INDUSTRIAL CIVILIZATION

T H E PROSPECTS OF I N D U S T R I A L
CIVILIZATION
BY
BERTRAND
RUSSELL
The ABC of Relativity
The Analysis of Matter
Human Society in Ethics and Politics
The Impact of Science on Society
Hew Hopes for a changing World
Authority and the Individual
Human Knowledge
History of Western Philosophy
The Principles of Mathematics
Introduction to Mathematical Philosophy
The Analysis of Mind
Our KnoU'ledgf of the External World
An Outline of Philosophy
Tiu Philosophy of Leibniz
An Inquiry into Meaning and Truth
Logic and Knowledge
The Problems of Philosophy
Pri/Kipia Mathematica
Common Sense and Nuclear Warfare
Why 1 am Not a Christian
Portraits from Memory
My Philosophical Development
Unpopular Essays
Power
In Praise of Idleness
The Conquest of Happiness
Sceptical Essays
The Scientific Outlook
Marriage and Morals
Education and the Social Order
On Education
Mysticism and Logic
Freedom and Organization
Principles of Social Reconstruction
Roads to Freedom
Practice and Theory of Bolshevism
Satan in The SuSmrbs
Nightmares of Eminent Persons
B E R T R A N D RUSSELL
IN C O L L A B O R A T I O N WI T H
D O R A RU SSELL
The Prospects of
Industrial
Civilization
Ruskin House
G EO RG E ALLEN & U N W IN L T D
MUS EUM S T R E E T LONDON
F IR S T
P U B L IS H E D
SECOND
TH IRD
IN
I.MPRESSION
IMPRESSION
SECOND EDITION
1923
1 9 2 .5
1929
1959
This bof,k is ctypyright vnder the Berne Cn>ivention. Apart from any fair tirating for the
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1 9 5 6 , no portion may be reproduced by any
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Second Edition © George Allen and Unwin Ltd., 1959
PRINTED
BY
IN
CNWIN
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AND
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LIMITED
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PR EFA C E T O SECOND E D IT IO N
F irst published in 1923, this study o f the effects o f indus­
trialism on human destiny may perhaps claim to be one o f the
pioneer works on a subject which increasingly occupies the
attention o f those concerned with the social sciences.
Though some of the examples cited to support the conclu­
sions drawn belong to the period in which the book was
written, the trends which they illustrate are even more
apparent to-day than they were thirty years ago.
Events have confirmed some of the forecasts made by the
writers as to the inter-action of industrialism and nationalism,
the spread of socialist industrialism in undeveloped countries,
and the tendencies inherent in an industrial society itself.
The conflict between capitalist and socialist direction of
industry, formerly regarded as an internal struggle within
each nation, and now relegated to the background by many
politicians in the highly industrialised nations, has in fact
assumed tremendous and dangerous importance in the inter­
national sphere, in that the world now stands divided between
the communist block and the block of natibns still committed
in greater or lesser degree to the methods of free enterprise.
Especially relevant to present-day problems is the book's
contention that industrial organisation, by its very nature,
gives rise to oligarchy or dictatorship, thus tending to destroy
democracy as traditionally understood, and to impose upon
the individual pressures and restraints that prevent his full
life as a human being, thus leading to trivial pursuits and
passivity combined with collective rage and hysteria.
The full picture of this development was seen in Germany
under Hitler, varj-ing aspects of it are also apparent in other
industrialised nations.
Men and women cannot live every moment of their livesj
at the rational and disciplined level required in modem
industrial societies. Psychiatry has revealed tlie wider and
s
Preface to the Second Edition
deeper aspects of human personality which seek expressicm
in human relations, through the free adventuring of the
imagination in the arts and sciences, the creative use of the
senses. An interesting development of this theme can be found
in Lewis Mumford’s The Transfor?nations of Man (1957).
The ultimate concentration of industrial power in the H bomb and the nuclear pile places squarely on the shoulders
of the present generation the responsibility of answering the
question posed in this book; what are the Prospects of Indus­
trial Civilisation?
D .R .
1959
PR EFA C E T O T H E F IR S T E D IT IO N
The notion of writing this book arose out of two separate
experiences of Bolshevik Russia in the summer of 1920, when
communism was still strong and uncompromising; and of a
mutual journey to China undertaken immediately after the
Russian experience. Bolshevik Russia has never failed to
produce a violent reaction in the spectator, either of enthusi­
asm or of hatred. The authors of this book, after independent
observation, for they never met in Russia, were fortunate
in that the fury led them in completely opposite directions,
the one recoiling in disappointment, the other expanding in
the delight of fresh hope and knowledge. T o examine these
two curiously opposite conclusions, both vehemently held,
was the occupation of the six weeks journey to the East, and
of the months of quiet which the gentle atmosphere of China
afforded. As discussion became less inflammable, it began to
appear that the chief basis for dislike was the growth of a new
synthesis or orthodoxy, that sought to impose itself— in the
case of the Westerner— on minds accustomed to a tradition
of freedom in sf>eech and action, and— in the case of the
Russian— on characters nurtured, it is true, in a t rrannous
orthodoxy, but one which was human and divine, irregular,
without the clockwork discipline of the new industrial faith.
Delight and enthusiasm, on the other hand, had been caused
by the sight of the bare bones of modem existence, the skeleton
of the philosophy underlying industrial life. The Bolshevik
synthesis, though crude, suggested, by its abandonment of all
traditional beliefs, the prosp>ect of a new harmony between
thought and daily life. Here in Russia, it seemed, as nowhere
else in the world, existed the conception o f a modem
civilization.
3
8
The Prospects o f Industrial Civilization
W e concluded, as some writers in Germany and Czecho­
slovakia have also concluded, that the important fact of the
present time is not the struggle between capitalism and
socialism, but the struggle between industrial civilization
and humanity. A new economic mode of existence brings with
it new views of life which must be analysed and subdued if
they are not to dominate to the exclusion of human values.
Thus in the past, it has been necessary to destroy a supersti­
tious reverence for agriculture, which dominated before it was
made to serve the needs of human beings. Many prejudices
still held by modem people are nothing but remnants of the
agricultural, or even of the hunting, stage of man's develop­
ment. W e came to believe that the important differences in
the modem world are those which divide nations living by
industrialism from those which still live by the more primitive
methods, though these are being rapidly abandoned, and
industrialism is spreading all over the globe. This view was
reinforced by the spectacle of a non-industrial country such as
China. It was helped also by the extreme similarity between
the Bolshevik commissary and the American Trust magnate;
both appeared as persons imbued with the importance of
mechanism for its own sake, and of their own position as
holders of the key to the clockwork.
As p>ersons of a sceptical and analytic disposition, and as
lieretics, not to industrialism, which we regard as practically
inevitable, but to a mechanistic conception of society, we set
ourselves the task, first, of analysing the various forces in
modem life in relation to their historical background; and
second, of trying to see what ends mechanism, unsuperstitiously used, could be made to serve. The book thus falls into
two parts, of which the first is analytical and the second
ethical. IT e war has taught most intelligent people that the
greatest problem of the future is the adjustment of mechanical
organization to minister to individual freedom and happiness.
Herd instinct— relic of a more barbaric phase— has to be
diminished and herd complexes dissolved without dissolving
the organization of life that has been the means of increasing
comfort and intelligeiKe. The chief enemy is always premature
Preface
9
synthesis: whether based on traditional superstition, or on
outworn instinct, or on incomplete scientific knowledge. T o
point to this ruthlessly wherever it is perceived, regardless
of possible inconsistencies or disappointed ideals, must be the
task of disinterested inquirers in any period of history.
This book is so much a product of mutual discussion that
the ideas contained in it can scarcely be separately assigned.
B. R.
D.R.
C arn V oel, T reen, Penzance,
May 10, 1923.
CONTENTS
PAGE
PREFACE
TO SECOND
PREFACE
TO
THE
EDITION
FIRST
EDITION
5
7
PART I
Causes of Present Chaos
II Inherent Tendencies of Industrialism
III Industrialism and Private Property
IV Interactions of Industrialism and
Nationalism
I
The Transition to Internationalsim
VI Socialism in Undeveloped Countries
VII Socialism in Advanced Countries
V
15
33
51
64
82
103
120
P A R T II
V III
IX
X
XI
X II
X III
What Makes a Social System Good or Bad?
Moral Standards and Social Well-Being
The Sources of Power
143
162
188
The Distribution of Power
222
Education
242
Economic Organixatitm and Mental Freedom
265
INDEX
279
PART
I
CHAPTER I
CAUSES
OF THE
PRESENT CHAOS
T h e movement of human society, viewed throughout
the period known to history, is partly cyclic, partly
progressive ; it resembles a tune played over and
over again, but each time louder and with a fuller
orchestration than before. In this tune there are
quiet passages and passionate passages ; there is a
terrific climax, and then a time of silence until the
tune begins again. Such a climax is exemplified by
the period through which we are now passing or
about to pass. If we think only of the one tune, it
seems to end in nothingness; if we think only of
the cycle, it seems that the whole process is futile.
It is only by fixing our attention upon what is pro­
gressive, upon what distinguishes one cycle from
the. next, that we become aware of the advance made
from age to age, and of the steady movement under­
lying the back-and-forth eddies of the surface.
The ancient empires of Egypt and Babylonia
were swept away by the Persian empire, the Persian
by the Macedonian, the Macedonian by the Roman,
the Roman by the Teutons and Arabs, the Arabs
by the Teutons. At each stage a civilization which
had reached a certain height and then grown decrepit
was destroyed, and a new one built upon its ruins,
15
16
The Prospects o f Industrial Civilization
sometimes only after a considerable period of ohaos.
Our own civilization appears to be growing decrepit
and ready to fall. In all this we see only the cyclic
movement of history: birth, growth, decay and
death, in empires and civilizations as with the beasts
of the field.
But when we compare any one of these civilizations
with its predecessors, we become aware of a definite
advance, particularly in two respects: first, the
increase of knowledge; and secondly, the growth
in the extent of organizations, more particularly
of States. From past progress in these two respects
a definite though perhaps not very immediate hope
for the future is seen to be justified.
The increase of knowledge and the growth of States
are both sources of evil as well as of g ood : science
has made war more destructive and large empires
have made it more widespread. But although both
are capable of doing harm, both are indispensable
conditions of vital progress. With regard to know­
ledge this may perhaps be taken as obvious. With
regard to the growth of States, the view that it is
to be regarded as desirable results from considering
the chaos in the world and the only possible ways
of amending it. The only ultimate cure for war is
the creation of a world-State or Super-State, strong
enough to decide by law all disputes between nations.
And a world-State is only conceivable after the dif­
ferent parts of the world have become so intimately
related that no part can be indifferent to what happens
in any other part. This stage has now been reached.
Until recent times the Far East had no vital relation
to Europe. Until Ckilumbua, America was isolated.
Until Peter the Great, Russia had little connection
with the Western Powers. The late war, by its
Causes o f the Present Chaos
17
universality of destruction, demonstrated the soli­
darity of mankind. And this solidarity has resulted
from industrialism and mechanical inventions, both
of which are products of science. It is science,
ultimately, that makes our age different, for good
or evil, from the ages that have gone before. And
science, whatever harm it may cause by the way, is
capable of bringing mankind ultimately into a far
happier condition than any that has been known
in the past.
On these broad grounds, optimism as to the ultimate
issue of the present chaos seems to be justified.
Meanwhile the state of the world is frightful, and is
only too likely to become worse in the near future.
If we would act wisely in this time of darkness, if
we would take our share in making the destruction
as small as possible and the new construction as
swift and solid as it is capable of being, it is necessary
that we should face all that is discouraging in the
present and all the dangers of the near future ; it
is necessary that we should diagnose fearlessly,
without regard to party shibboleths or to the desire
for the easy consolation of fallacious hopes. It is
necessary to apply in our thinking the best science
and the most enlightened ideals that our age affords.
Above all it is necessary to avoid the discouragement
and sense of impotence that are too apt to result from
the spectacle of apparently irresistible forces arrayed
against the ends which we wish to see realized. For
this purpose it is well to remind ourselves that political
forces are not strong except when they rest upon
popular support, and that, in the main, only ignor­
ance secures popular support for what is evil. Amid
the myths and hysterias of opposing hatreds it is
difficult to cause truth to reach the bulk of the people,
2
18
TJie ProspecU of Industrial Civilization
or to spread the habit of forming opinions on evidence
rather than on passion. Yet it is ultimately upon
these things, not upon any political panacea, that
the hopes of the world must rest.
Reason and the scientific temper of mind are more
necessary to the world than they ever were before,
because all the creeds and habits which reposed upon
irrational authority have broken down. Taboos,
religious beliefs and social customs are the source
of order among uncivilized tribes, in so far as any
order exists among them ; and they remain the source
of order through successive stages of culture, until
at last the sceptical intellect shows their absurdity.
This happened in Athens at the height of its political
and cultural glory, and in the resulting chaos Athens
perished. It happened in Italy at the end of the
fifteenth century, and Italy became enslaved to
the fanatical Spaniards. It is happening now to
the whole civilized world : the old bonds of authority
have been loosed by the war, men will no longer
submit merely because their forefathers did so, a
reason is demanded for abstaining from claiming one’s
rights, and the reasons offered are counterfeit reasons,
convincing only to those who have a selfish interest
in being convinced. This condition of revolt exists
in women towards men, in oppressed nations towards
their oppressors, and above all in labour towards
capital. It is a state full of danger, as all past history
shows, yet also full of hope, if only the revolt of the
oppressed can result in victory without too terrible
a struggle, and their victory can result in the establish­
ment of a stable social order.
What are the forces which are shaping the world
and producing its struggles ? What are their relative
strengths, and what are the prospects of their war­