CONSIDERATIONS ON THE PRINCIPAL ATTACKS OF SOCIALISM, AS FAR AS THEY AGREE. COMPARISON OF THE VARIOUS ECO- On the Adjustment of Value. The Use of Money. Com- merce. Conjunctures of Trade, or Crises. Wretched Condition of the Proletarian Classes. Refutation of Socialistic Attacks with reference to these Points. The Function of Commerce and the economic Benefits of Capitalism considered and compared with the Social Organization proposed by Socialists. Lassalle's "Fate," and what it amounts to. The English Proletarian Classes, 198 Forms of Society founded on the Principles of Capitalism, Communism, and Christian Love compared. General Laws of Development in the Formation of Society (Mor- phology). Federal Forms of Society the latest Develop- ment. Liberality and Self-devotion in Patriarchal, Christian, and Humanitarian Socialism. Natural Com- munity of Goods in the Family. Its Relation to Capi- talism and public Community of Interests. "Female Rights." Communistic or public Forms of Society, their peculiar Conditions and Limits. Five Cases enumerated where these are applicable. They are not applicable to the Processes of Commerce and Banking. Lassalle's Public Credit System refuted. Historically Communistic Principles are chiefly adapted for Primitive States of Society, and gradually give way to others in the Process Capitalistic Forms of Industry, Property and Income. Function of Capital in Production and Distribution. Comparative View and Analysis of the Different Forms of Industry: Private, Co-operative, and Combined. Objective Power of Capital, and Subjective Functions of the Capitalist, in the various Forms of Industry. Results of the foregoing Comparison in Favour of the Co-operative System. Permanent Use of all Forms vin- dicated. The gradual Morphology of Economic Forms culminating in Federalism. Income in the Forms of Interest, Profit, Rent, specially Ground Rent. The Rights of Property, Private and Collective, not ex- cluded from the Federal System. Prospects of the Social Politics, the Influences of Civilization and Religion. Church and State. The Social Duty of the Clergy. Functions of the State in General. Utopias only reject State Help. Special Cases requiring State Help in the Solution of the Social Question. Right of Combination among the Labourers. Courts of Conciliation. Wages in Connection with the Equilibrium of Population. Legal Reforms regarding the Family Rights of Women and Children. Reform of the Poor Laws. Reduction SOCIALISM. PRELIMINARY REMARKS. Directing attention to the Attacks of Socialism, and the Character and Authority of its Modern Representatives. AN apology for bringing before the public the subject of this volume is scarcely needed. The fresh currents of a powerful movement, now sweeping across every country in Europe, are felt by all, and dreaded by not a few. Socialism and democracy are words of pregnant meaning, and the antagonism between the possessing and the labouring classes becomes daily more evident and more alarming. The frequent meetings of working men to assert their claims, the unwelcome interruptions of industrial pursuits by means of strikes, are some of the indications (and others are not wanting) to warn us of a powerful ferment which now is agitating the heart of our labouring people. Some think that what we experience now are only the first waves of an advancing flood-a great social revolution. The old "patriarchal relationship" between the paid artisan and the capitalist who employed him has disappeared, to return no more. Even from Russia tidings have reached us of the spread of agrarian socialism. In Basle the International Congress, held in 1869, declared that private landed property is to cease. Hired labourers know how to use از B their rights of coalition in forming themselves into Unions for resistance and defiance. Many of their leading spirits are in full expectation that the year 1889 may bring deliverance to the fourth estate (i.e. the labouring class) from the yoke of the "money aristocracy," just as the Revolution of 1789 rescued the third estate from the plundering domination of the other two-the spiritual and temporal aristocracy. The chasm between the money-possessing portion of the community, called by continental writers the "bourgeoisie," and that portion of it which possesses nothing, the operative classes or so-called "proletarians," appears not only externally in wealth and poverty, but internally and most profoundly in the heart of the people. It is not the result merely of agitation caused by the "emissaries" of some secret society, or the intangible influences of some "evil spirit." It must be traced rather to the stupendous development of modern industry, and that inequality which has accompanied it, pari passu, in the distribution of acquired wealth. We will endeavour to obtain a clear view of this grave reality which stares us in the face, and the deep significance of this modern movement. In order to do this, we ask three questions: (1.) What do social agitators affirm respecting the order of things existing in our present system of human economy? (2.) What are the improvements and changes they demand? (3.) What is the manner of, and who are the persons by whom, this criticism is represented and these demands are made? Respecting the first of these questions, "socialism" gives a most positive reply. Proudhon, a man of character and genius, says unreservedly "Property is theft." |