CHAPTER IV.

THE NEW SOCIALISM AND ITS ARGUMENT.

I.

AFTER the memorable year of 1848 it seemed as if Socialism were dead, and the middle classes in France, for whom it had seemed a menace, rejoiced. It had shown itself dangerous and subversive in its forms, and so far as actually tried in peaceful fashion, according to the scheme of Louis Blanc, it had not succeeded, but failed. In England, too, the various attempts made at co-operative production had failed. Socialism became discredited. Soon people ceased to speak of it, save as a thing of the past, as a strange and eccentric rising against the natural course of things. The several systems of St. Simon, Fourier, Louis Blanc, were relegated to the philosophical museum for abortive social systems, or those merely fanciful, like Plato's "Republic" and More's "Utopia." Socialism, it was thought, was dead, and the old society breathed freely once more.

Its peace was of short duration. spectre of Socialism again appeared.

living, breathing, endowed with a

In 1862 the Nay, it seemed

larger life and

greater vitality than ever. A new Socialist crusade

was preached, and this time it was Germany, as before it had been France that had the honour of leading it.

The third crusade was preached by Lassalle, but the inspiration came from Karl Marx, both of that Jewish race which from the time of Moses and the Prophets had shown strong Socialistic tendencies as well as others as strongly individualistic. Marx, the founder of the new Socialism, had no new social system; he brought merely a new argument into the controversy.1 He undertook to prove that the capitalist was a spoiler and a robber, though not to blame for it, because he was only a part of a necessary social evolution, in which he found himself, without consciously contributing to make it. He was merely born part of a bad social system. According to Marx, we can do little to mend it. Society must slowly go through its successive stages: all that can be done by philosophers or statesmen is to abridge a little the process, and to facilitate the incoming of the next and better stage: to "lessen the birth pangs." It is a matter of evolution, and revolutions in the old violent sense are of little use, save that they may come in as necessary and useful crises in the course of evolution. But it is not they, but the total evolution that really effects the social transformation.

Nevertheless, it is important to have clear and true knowledge in order to make the right and necessary course clear, in order to facilitate the new birth.

1 Even his argument is not altogether original, being largely based on ideas of Rodbertus; which, however, are more fully developed and illustrated by Marx.

Whatever be the fatality in the course of evolution, it is well that they who wish the change should have morality and right on their side. And to prove that they have Marx has written a History of Capital in its past stages of growth; and he submits capitalism, as at present existing, to a long and laboured criticism, and as the result of the history and the criticism, he thinks he has clearly shown that capital is the result of confiscation from the working classes. For hitherto this had been rather assumed by the St. Simonians and by Louis Blanc and Proudhon than attempted to be proved. In order to prove it Marx goes on the right and only method. He goes to history and economic science, which had been neglected by preceding Socialists; and in his theory of value he adroitly turns their own guns against the orthodox economists and capitalists. He accepts the doctrine of Adam Smith and especially of Ricardo, that labour is the sole source of value, and undertakes to show from it that capital must be the result of spoliation.

Now, if Marx could establish his theory that capital is robbery, he would have contributed a powerful argument in favour of Socialism. For men, so long as they even pretend to be moral beings, and to have any regard for justice, could not go on acquiescing in a system thus shown to run counter to their current ideas of morality and the precepts of all religions. Marx would have created a powerful diversion against the existing capitalist system. He would have effected a fatal breach in the fortress of capitalism; and it would be only a question of time when it would collapse; for, as Professor Sidgwick says,

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"The conclusions of economic science have always been supposed to relate ultimately—however qualified and supplemented-to actual human beings,and actual human beings will not permanently acquiesce in a social order that common moral opinion condemns." Moreover, if men are Christians as well as moral beings, and really believe what they profess, they could not acquiesce in a system of organized plunder and oppression for their profit; nor could we suppose their spiritual guides would acquiesce in it. If, then, the existing system were condemned by morality, and religion threw in her weight against it as well, the system would be doomed. The battle of Socialismif Socialism were practicable-would be won. It is for these reasons that Marx's indictment against capitalism and his argument to prove capital the result of spoliation are deserving of serious and careful examination.

I have said that Marx had no peculiar system, but only an argument. The truth is that he set out from the communism of Louis Blanc. In 1847 he published, in conjunction with F. Engels, a manifesto of the German communists,3 in which is advocated the abolition of private property, the establishment of a single centralized State bank, associations of agricultural labourers, together with the carrying on of all industry other than agricultural in national factories, which is simply the scheme of Louis Blanc.

The manifesto affirms that the ideal could only be

2 Sidgwick's "Principles of Political Economy," 2nd Ed. p. 501.

"Socialism of To-day," p. 148.

attained by a violent revolution, and it adds, "that the transformation of society would not take place according to the preconceived ideas of any reformer, but on the initiation of the entire labouring classes" -whatever the last vague clause may mean, which is both mysterious and partly contradictory to the preceding, because the "preconceived ideas of reformers," and in particular those of himself and of Louis Blanc, are laid down as at least general goals.

In 1864 Karl Marx founded the International Society, intended as a sort of universal Trades' Union, aiming at first, as M. de Laveleye says, at "raising wages; but later on, when the influence of Marx was overridden, at a transformation of society, if needs were, by revolution." The first manifesto of the International, conceived by Marx, points to cooperative production as the goal, but says that an understanding among all the workmen of all countries will be necessary. Now one sees that to make strikes and combinations effective, there should be an agreement amongst the working classes to support each other; e.g. that if the workers in any branch of production in England should strike, foreign workers should not come over from Belgium or Denmark to take their place; for if they do, the capitalist could defy his hands at home. One also sees how, if there were funds subscribed by all, a part could be transferred to any given place in any country to enable a local strike to resist. This we can see; though it was somewhat Utopian to expect that such a plan would long continue. We do not see how an international understanding is needed to realize co-operative pro

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