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Proposed Roads to Freedom
Proposed Roads
To Freedom
by
Bertrand Russell
A Penn State Electronic Classics Series Publication
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Proposed Roads to Freedom by Bertrand Russell is a publication of the Pennsylvania State
University. This Portable Document file is furnished free and without any charge of any kind.
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Proposed Roads to Freedom by Bertrand Russell , the Pennsylvania State University, Electronic
Classics Series , Jim Manis, Faculty Editor, Hazleton, PA 18202-1291 is a Portable Document
File produced as part of an ongoing student publication project to bring classical works of
literature, in English, to free and easy access of those wishing to make use of them.
Cover Design: Jim Manis
Copyright © 2002 The Pennsylvania State University
The Pennsylvania State University is an equal opportunity university.
Contents
Proposed Roads to Freedom
Proposed Roads
To Freedom
by
Bertrand Russell
a man of force and vital energy—an urgent desire to lead men
to the realization of the good which inspires his creative vi-
sion. It is this desire which has been the primary force mov-
ing the pioneers of Socialism and Anarchism, as it moved the
inventors of ideal commonwealths in the past. In this there is
nothing new. What is new in Socialism and Anarchism, is
that close relation of the ideal to the present sufferings of
men, which has enabled powerful political movements to grow
out of the hopes of solitary thinkers. It is this that makes
Socialism and Anarchism important, and it is this that makes
them dangerous to those who batten, consciously or uncon-
sciously upon the evils of our present order of society.
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 soci-
ety, 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 fore-
thought, and without considering that by sufficient effort
dering of human society than the destructive and
cruel chaos in which mankind has hitherto existed
is by no means modern: it is at least as old as Plato, whose
“Republic” set the model for the Utopias of subsequent phi-
losophers. Whoever contemplates the world in the light of an
ideal—whether what he seeks be intellect, or art, or love, or
simple happiness, or all together—must feel a great sorrow in
the evils that men needlessly allow to continue, and—if he be
NOTE: The author’s footnotes appear in red and within
brackets within the text in this edition. – ed.
4
INTRODUCTION
T HE ATTEMPT to conceive imaginatively a better or-
Bertrand Russell
the whole conditions of their lives could be changed. A cer-
tain percentage, guided by personal ambition, make the ef-
fort of thought and will which is necessary to place them-
selves among the more fortunate members of the commu-
nity; 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, re-
gardless of any relation it may have to their own lives. These
few, driven by sympathetic pain, will seek, first in thought
and then in action, for some way of escape, some new system
of society by which life may become richer, more full of joy
and less full of preventable evils than it is at present. But in
the past such men have, as a rule, failed to interest the very
victims of the injustices which they wished to remedy. The
more unfortunate sections of the population have been igno-
rant, apathetic from excess of toil and weariness, timorous
through the imminent danger of immediate punishment by
the holders of power, and morally unreliable owing to the
loss of self-respect resulting from their degradation. To create
among such classes any conscious, deliberate effort after gen-
eral amelioration might have seemed a hopeless task, and in-
deed in the past it has generally proved so. But the modern
world, by the increase of education and the rise in the stan-
dard of comfort among wage-earners, has produced new con-
ditions, more favorable than ever before to the demand for
radical reconstruction. It is above all the Socialists, and in a
lesser degree the Anarchists (chiefly as the inspirers of Syndi-
calism), who have become the exponents of this demand.
What is perhaps most remarkable in regard to both Social-
ism and Anarchism is the association of a widespread popular
movement with ideals for a better world. The ideals have been
elaborated, in the first instance, by solitary writers of books,
and yet powerful sections of the wage-earning classes have
accepted them as their guide in the practical affairs of the
world. In regard to Socialism this is evident; but in regard to
Anarchism it is only true with some qualification. Anarchism
as such has never been a widespread creed, it is only in the
modified form of Syndicalism that it has achieved popular-
ity. Unlike Socialism and Anarchism, Syndicalism is prima-
rily the outcome, not of an idea, but of an organization: the
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