Political Ideals
1917
In the chaos of 1917, as the First World War shattered the certainties of European civilization, Bertrand Russell posed a radical question: what should politics actually be for? His answer, then and now, feels almost subversive. Politics, he argues, has been hijacked by the wrong goals: managing order, distributing property, regulating competition. What matters far more is whether political systems help human beings flourish, create, and become more than mere possessors of goods. Russell turns his analytic mind to dismantling both capitalism and socialism, finding each deficient in different ways. Capitalism fosters what Russell calls "possessiveness" - the drive to acquire and hold. Socialism, as he sees it, corrects economic injustice but still treats people as units to be organized. Russell wants something different: a society that cultivates "creative impulses" - the urge to make, to discover, to grow - while restraining the possessive instincts that breed conflict. Written in the midst of global upheaval, this short, impassioned work asks us to imagine politics not as governance of scarcity, but as the architecture of human flourishing. It remains startlingly relevant in an age of climate anxiety, algorithmic control, and renewed debate about what we owe each other.
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“The great majority of men and women, in ordinary times, pass through life without ever contemplating or criticising, as a whole, either their own conditions or those of the world at large. They find themselves born into a certain place in society, and they accept what each day brings forth, without any effort of thought beyond what the immediate present requires. Almost as instinctively as the beasts of the field, they seek the satisfaction of the needs of the moment, without much forethought, and without considering that by sufficient effort the whole conditions of their lives could be changed. A certain percentage, guided by personal ambition, make the effort of thought and will which is necessary to place themselves among the more fortunate members of the community; but very few among these are seriously concerned to secure for all the advantages which they seek for themselves. It is only a few rare and exceptional men who have that kind of love toward mankind at large that makes them unable to endure patiently the general mass of evil and suffering, regardless of any relation it may have to their own lives.””
— Bertrand Russell
“Many of the actions by which men have become rich are far more harmful to the community than the obscure crimes of poor men, yet they go unpunished because they do not interfere with the existing order.””
— Bertrand Russell
“When a man is suffering from an infectious disease, he is a danger to the community, and it is necessary to restrict his liberty of movement. But no one associates any idea of guilt with such a situation. On the contrary, he is an object of commiseration to his friends. Such steps as science recommends are taken to cure him of his disease, and he submits as a rule without reluctance to the curtailment of liberty involved meanwhile. The same method in spirit ought to be shown in the treatment of what is called "crime.””
— Bertrand Russell
“In international affairs the same formula of federalism will apply: self-determination for every group in regard to matters which concern it much more vitally than they concern others, and government by a neutral authority embracing rival groups in all matters in which conflicting interests of groups come into play.””
— Bertrand Russell
“In Labor movements generally, success through violence can hardly be expected except in circumstances where success without violence is attainable.””
— Bertrand Russell
“It is the individual in whom all that is good must be realised, and the free growth of the individual must be the supreme end of a political system which is to refashion the world.””
— Bertrand Russell
