[1]The most important works of Lassalle are mentioned in the text. See Georg Brandes,Ferdinand Lassalle; Franz Mehring,Die Deutsche Social-demokratie, ihre Geschichte und ihre Lehre; W. H. Dawson,German Socialism and Ferdinand Lassalle.
[1]
The most important works of Lassalle are mentioned in the text. See Georg Brandes,Ferdinand Lassalle; Franz Mehring,Die Deutsche Social-demokratie, ihre Geschichte und ihre Lehre; W. H. Dawson,German Socialism and Ferdinand Lassalle.
[2]Schulze-Delitzsch was born in 1808 at Delitzsch, in Prussian Saxony, whence the second part of his name, to distinguish him from the many other people in Germany who bear the familiar name of Schulze. It was his great merit that he founded the co-operative movement in Germany on principles of self-help. He was a leading member of the Progressist party.
[2]
Schulze-Delitzsch was born in 1808 at Delitzsch, in Prussian Saxony, whence the second part of his name, to distinguish him from the many other people in Germany who bear the familiar name of Schulze. It was his great merit that he founded the co-operative movement in Germany on principles of self-help. He was a leading member of the Progressist party.
[3]In contrast to the unequal and indirect system existing in Prussia, according to which the voters are on a property basis divided into three classes. The voters thus arranged choose bodies of electors, by whom the members for the Chamber are chosen.
[3]
In contrast to the unequal and indirect system existing in Prussia, according to which the voters are on a property basis divided into three classes. The voters thus arranged choose bodies of electors, by whom the members for the Chamber are chosen.
[4]Bastiat was the populariser in France of the orthodox Political Economy. Lassalle accused Schulze of being a mere echo of Bastiat’s superficial views, and therefore called him Bastiat-Schulze.
[4]
Bastiat was the populariser in France of the orthodox Political Economy. Lassalle accused Schulze of being a mere echo of Bastiat’s superficial views, and therefore called him Bastiat-Schulze.
The socialistic position of Lassalle may generally be described as similar to that of Rodbertus and Karl Marx. He admits his indebtedness to both of those writers, but at the same time he cannot be regarded as a disciple of either of them. Lassalle himself was a thinker of great original power; he had his own way of conceiving and expressing the historic socialism.
Lassalle supplies the key to his general position in the preface to hisBastiat-Schulze, when, quoting from hisSystem of Acquired Rights, he says: In social matters the world is confronted with the question, whether now when property in the direct utilisation of another man no longer exists, such property in his indirect exploitation should continue—that is, whether the free realisation and development of our labour-force should be the exclusive private property of the possessor of capital, and whether the employer as such, and apart from the remuneration of his intellectual labour, should be permitted to appropriate the result of other men’s labours.[1]This sentence, he says, contains the programme of a national-economic work, which he intended to write under the title,Outlines of a Scientific National Economy. In this sentence also, we need not say, the fundamental position of socialism is implied. He was about to carry out his project when the LeipsicCentral Committee brought the question before him in a practical form. The agitation broke out and left him no leisure for such a work. But he had often lamented that the exposition of the theory had not preceded the practical agitation, and that a scientific basis had not been provided for it.
TheBastiat-Schulzewas itself a controversial work, written to meet the needs of the hour. Lassalle has never given a full and systematic exposition of his socialistic theory. All his social-economic writings were published as the crises of his agitation seemed to demand. But, as he himself says, they compensate by the life and incisiveness of the polemical form of treatment for what they lose in systematic value. We may add that it is often a scientific gain, for in the career of Lassalle we see socialism confronted with fact, and thereby to a large extent saved from the absoluteness, abstractness, and deficient sense of reality which detract so much from the value of the works of Marx and Rodbertus. The excessive love of system so characteristic of German theorists may be as remote from historic reality and possibility as the utopian schemes of French socialists. It is, however, also a natural result of Lassalle’s mode of presentation that he is not always consistent with himself either on practical or theoretical questions, especially in his attitude towards the Prussian State.
On the whole, we can most clearly and comprehensively bring out the views of Lassalle if we follow the order in which they are presented in his three leadingworks, theWorking Men’s Programme, theOpen Letter, and theBastiat-Schulze.
The central theme of theWorking Men’s Programmeis thevocation of the working classas the makers and representatives of a new era in the history of the world. We have seen that Lassalle’sSystem of Acquired Rightswas an application of the historical method to legal ideas and institutions. In his social-economic writings we find the application of the same method to economic facts and institutions. TheWorking Men’s Programmeis a brilliant example of the historical method, and indeed is a lucid review of the economic development of Europe, culminating in the working men’s State, the full-grown democracy.
In the mediæval world the owners of land controlled politics, the army, law, and taxation in their own interest, while labour was oppressed and despised. The presentrégimeof the capitalist classes is due to a gradual process of development continued for centuries, and is the product of many forces which have acted and reacted on each other: the invention of the mariner’s compass and of gunpowder; abroad the discovery of America and of the sea-route to India; at home the overthrow of the feudal houses by a central government, which established a regular justice, security of property, and better means of communication. This was to be followed in time by the development of machinery, like the cotton-spinning machine of Arkwright, itself the living embodiment of the industrial and economic revolution, which was destined toproduce a corresponding political change. The new machinery, the large industry, the division of labour, cheap goods, and the world-market—these were all parts of an organic whole. Production in mass made cheap goods possible; the cheapening of commodities called forth a wider market, and the wider market led to a still larger production.
The rulers of the industrial world, the capitalists, became the rulers also of the political; the French Revolution was merely a proclamation of a mighty fact which had already established itself in the most advanced portions of Europe. But the marvellous enthusiasm of the Revolution was kindled by the fact that its champions at the time represented the cause of humanity. Before long, however, it became manifest that the new rulers fought for the interests of a class, thebourgeoisie; and another class, that of the proletariat, or unpropertied workers, began to define itself in opposition to them. Like their predecessors, thebourgeoisiewielded the legal and political power for their own selfish ends. They made wealth the test and basis of political and social right; they established a restricted franchise; shackled the free expression of opinion by cautions and taxes on newspapers, and threw the burden of taxation on the working classes.
We have seen that the development of the middle class was a slow and gradual process, the complex result of a complex mass of forces. Considering that the special theme of theWorking Men’s Programmeis the historical function of the working class, it is certainlya most serious defect of Lassalle’s exposition that he says so little of the causes which have conditioned the development of the working class as the representatives of a new era. Their appearance on the pages of Lassalle as the supporters of a greatrôleis far too sudden.
On the 24th of February 1848, he says, broke the first dawn of a new historical period. On that day in France a revolution broke out, which called a workman into the Provisional Government; which declared the aim of the State to be the improvement of the lot of the working class; and which proclaimed direct and universal suffrage, whereby every citizen who had attained the age of twenty-one should, without regard to property, have an equal share in all political activity. The working class were therefore destined to be the rulers and makers of a new society. But the rule of the working class had this enormous difference from other forms of class rule, that it admits of no special privilege.
We are all workers, in so far as we have the will in any way to make ourselves useful to the human society. The working class is therefore identical with the whole human race. Its cause is in truth the cause of entire humanity, its freedom is the freedom of humanity itself, its rule is the rule of all.
The formal means of realising this is direct universal suffrage, which is no magic wand, but which at least can rectify its own mistakes. It is the lance which heals the wounds itself has made. Under universal suffrage the legislature is the true mirror of the peoplethat has chosen it, reflecting its defects, but its progress also, for which it affords unlimited expression and development.
The people must therefore always regard direct universal suffrage as its indispensable political weapon, as the most fundamental and weightiest of its demands. And we need not fear that they will abuse their power; for while the position and interests of the old privileged classes became inconsistent with the general progress of humanity, the mass of the people must know that their interests can be advanced only by promoting the good of their whole class. Even a very moderate sense of their own welfare must teach them that each individual can separately do very little to improve his condition. They can prevail only by union. Thus their personal interest, instead of being opposed to the movement of history, coincides with the development of the whole people and is in harmony with freedom, culture, and the highest ideas of our time.
This masterly treatise of Lassalle concludes with an appeal to the working class, in which we see the great agitator reach the high level of a pure and noble eloquence. Having shown at length that the working class are called to be the creators and representatives of a new historical era, he proceeds: ‘From what we have said there follows for all who belong to the working class the duty of an entirely new bearing.
‘Nothing is more suited to stamp on a class a worthy and deeply moral impress than the consciousness that it is called to be the ruling class, that it is appointedto raise its principle to be the principle of an entire epoch, to make its idea the ruling idea of the whole society, and so again to mould society after its own pattern. The high world-historic honour of this vocation must occupy all your thoughts. The vices of the oppressed, the idle amusements of the thoughtless, and the harmless frivolity of the unimportant beseem you no longer. Ye are the rock on which the church of the future should be built.’
Pity that in the miserable squabble which terminated his life he did not realise that the leader of the working class should also be inspired by a sense of the nobility of his calling.
This exposition of the vocation of the working class is closely connected with another notable feature of Lassalle’s teaching, hisTheory of the State. Lassalle’s theory of the State differs entirely from that generally held by the Liberal school. The Liberal school hold that the function of the State consists simply in protecting the personal freedom and the property of the individual. This he scouts as a night-watchman’s idea, because it conceives the State under the image of a night-watchman, whose sole function it is to prevent robbery and burglary.
In opposition to this narrow idea of the State, Lassalle quotes approvingly the view of August Boeckh: ‘That we must widen our notion of the State so as to believe that the State is the institution in which the whole virtue of humanity should be realised.’
History, Lassalle tells us, is an incessant strugglewith Nature, with the misery, ignorance, poverty, weakness, and unfreedom in which the human race was originally placed.[2]The progressive victory over this weakness, that is the development of the freedom which history depicts.
In this struggle, if the individual had been left to himself, he could have made no progress. The State it is which has the function to accomplish this development of freedom, this development of the human race in the way of freedom. The duty of the State is to enable the individual to reach a sum of culture, power, and freedom, which for individuals would be absolutely unattainable. The aim of the State is to bring human nature to positive unfolding and progressive development—in other words, to realise the chief end of man: it is the education and development of the human race in the way of freedom.
The State should be the complement of the individual. It must be ready to offer a helping hand, wherever and whenever individuals are unable to realise the happiness, freedom, and culture which befit a human being.
Save the State, that primitive vestal fire of culture, from the modern barbarians, he exclaims on another occasion.
To these political conceptions Lassalle is true throughout. It certainly is a nobler and more rational ideal of the State than the once prevalent Manchester theory. When we descend from theory to practice all obviouslydepends on what kind of State we have got, and on the circumstances and conditions under which it is called upon to act.
That the State should, through its various organs, support and develop individual effort, calling it forth, rendering it hopeful and effectual, never weakening the springs of it, but stimulating and completing it, is a position which most thinkers would now accept. And most will admit with regret that the existing State is too much a great taxing and fighting machine. The field of inquiry here opened up is a wide and tempting one, on which we cannot now enter. We are at present concerned with the fact that the State help contemplated by Lassalle was meant not only to leave the individual free, but to further him in the free realisation of himself.
TheIron Law of Wagesmay well be described as the key to Lassalle’s social-economic position. It holds the same prominent place in his system of thinking as the theory of surplus value does in that of Marx. Both, it may be added, are only different aspects of the same fact. Lassalle insists chiefly on the small share of the produce of labour which goes to the labourer; Marx traces the history of the share, called surplus value, which goes to the capitalist.
Lassalle’s most careful statement of the Iron Law, to which he frequently recurs in subsequent writings, is contained in hisOpen Letter(p. 13). ‘The Iron Economic Law, which, in existing circumstances, under the law of supply and demand for labour, determinesthe wage, is this: that the average wage always remains reduced to the necessary provision which, according to the customary standard of living, is required for subsistence and for propagation. This is the point about which the real wage continually oscillates, without ever being able long to rise above it or to fall below it. It cannot permanently rise above this average level, because in consequence of the easier and better condition of the workers there would be an increase of marriages and births among them, an increase of the working population and thereby of the supply of labour, which would bring the wage down to its previous level or even below it. On the other hand, the wage cannot permanently fall below this necessary subsistence, because then occur emigration, abstinence from marriage, and, lastly, a diminution of the number of workmen caused by their misery, which lessens the supply of labour, and therefore once more raises the wage to its previous rate.’
On a nearer consideration, Lassalle goes on to say, the effect of the Iron Law is as follows:—
‘From the produce of labour so much is taken and distributed among the workmen as is required for their subsistence.
‘The entire surplus of production falls to the capitalist. It is therefore a result of the Iron Law that the workman is necessarily excluded from the benefits of an increasing production, from the increased productivity of his own labour.’[3]
Such is Lassalle’s theory of the Iron Law of Wages. He accepts it as taught by Ricardo and the economists of the orthodox school in England, France, and Germany. We believe that his statement of it is substantially just and accurate; that it fairly reflects the economic science of his time, and, under the then prevailing economic conditions, may be described as a valid law.
Lassalle held that the customary standard of living and the operation of the law generally were subject to variation. Still it may reasonably be maintained that he has not sufficiently considered the fact that, like capital, the Iron Law of Wages is an historical category. He has not overlooked the fact, and could hardly do so, as the Iron Law is an implicate and result of the domination of capital. But his method of exposition is too much the controversial one, of pressing it as anargumentum ad hominemagainst his opponents in Germany, and, as usual, in controversy truth is liable to suffer. It may therefore be argued that under the competitive system as now existing, changes have occurred which render Lassalle’s theory of the Iron Law inaccurate and untenable. Even while the present system continues to prevail, the law may undergo very extensive modification through the progress of education and organisation among the workmen, and through the general advance of society in morality and enlightenment. The question of modification of the Iron Law is one of degree, and it may fairly be contended by critics of Lassalle that he has not recognised it to a sufficient degree.
On the other hand, it may also be rationally maintained that in so far as education and organisation prevail among the workmen, in so far does capitalism, with all its conditions and implicates, tend to be superseded. Trade Unions, Co-operative Societies, Factory Legislation, are all forms of the social control of economic processes, inconsistent with competitive economics. The more they gain ground, the more does capitalism tend to break up and disappear. From this higher point of view, we may fairly contend that considerations which have been urged as destructive of Lassalle’s argument are really symptoms of the decline of capitalism. The Iron Law is an inevitable result of the historical conditions contemplated by Lassalle. These conditions have changed, but the change means that capitalism is passing away. We are thus thrown back on the wider question, whether capitalism is disappearing, a question which it would at present be premature to discuss.
In any case the position of Lassalle is perfectly clear. He accepted the orthodox political economy in order to show that the inevitable operation of its laws left no hope for the working class; and that no remedy could be found except by abolishing the conditions in which those laws have their validity—in other words, by abolishing the present relations of labour and capital altogether. The great aim of his agitation was to bring forward a scheme which would strike at the root of the evil. The remedy for the evil condition of things connected with the Iron Law of Wages is to secure the workmen the full produce of their labour, bycombining the functions of workmen and capitalists through the establishment of productive associations. The distinction between labourer and capitalist is thereby abolished. The workman becomes producer, and for remuneration receives the entire produce of his labour.
The associations founded by Schulze-Delitzsch, Lassalle went on to argue, would effect no substantial improvement in the condition of the working class. The unions for the supply of credit and raw materials do not benefit the working class as such, but only the small hand-workers. But hand-labour is an antiquated form of industry, which is destined to succumb before the large industry equipped with machinery and an adequate capital. To provide the hand-workers with the means of continuing their obsolete trades is only to prolong the agony of an assured defeat.
The consumers’ unions, or co-operative stores as we call them in England, also fail, because they do not help the workman at the point where he needs it most, as producers. Before the seller, as before the policeman, all men are equal; the only thing the seller cares for is that his customers are able to pay. In discussing the Iron Law, we saw that the workman must be helped as producer—that is, in securing a better share of his product. The consumers’ unions may indeed give a restricted and temporary relief. So long as the unions include only a limited number of workmen, they afford relief by cheapening the means of subsistence, inasmuchas they do not lower the general rate of wages. But in proportion as the unions embrace the entire working class and thereby cause a general cheapening of the means of subsistence, the Iron Law of Wages will take effect. For the average wage is only the expression in money of the customary means of subsistence. The average wage will fall in proportion to the general cheapening of the means of subsistence, and all the pains taken by the workmen in founding and conducting the consumers’ unions will be labour lost. They will only enable the workman to subsist on a smaller wage.
The only effectual way to improve the condition of the working class is through the free individual association of the workers, by its application and extension to the great industry. The working class must be its own capitalist.
But when the workmen on the one hand contemplate the enormous sums required for railways and factories, and on the other hand consider the emptiness of their own pockets, they may naturally ask where they are to obtain the capital needed for the great industry? The State alone can furnish it; and the State ought to furnish it, because it is, and always has been, the duty of the State to promote and facilitate the great progressive movements of civilisation.Productive association with State creditwas the plan of Lassalle.[4]
The State had already in numerous instances guaranteed its credit for industrial undertakings by whichthe rich classes had benefited—canals, postal services, banks, agricultural improvements, and especially with regard to railways. No outcry of socialism or communism had been raised against this form of State help? Then why raise it when the greatest problem of modern civilisation was involved—the improvement of the lot of the working classes? Lassalle’s estimate was, that the loan of a hundred million thalers (£15,000,000) would be more than sufficient to bring the principle of association into full movement throughout the kingdom of Prussia.
Obviously the money required for the promotion of productive associations did not require to be actually paid by the Government; only the State guarantee for the loan was necessary. The State would see that proper rules for the associations should be made and observed by them. It would reserve to itself the rights of a creditor or sleeping partner. It would generally take care that the funds be put to their legitimate use. But its control would not pass beyond those reasonable limits: the associations would be free; they would be the voluntary act of the working men themselves. Above all, the State, thus supporting and controlling the associations, would be a democratic State, elected by universal suffrage, the organ of the workers, who form an overwhelming majority of every community.
But if we are to conceive the matter in the crudest way and consider the money as actually paid, wherein would the enormity of such a transaction consist? The State had spent hundreds of millions in war, toappease the wounded vanity of royal mistresses, to satisfy the lust of conquest of princes, to open up markets for the middle classes; yet when the deliverance of humanity is concerned the money cannot be procured!
Further, as he takes care to explain, Lassalle did not propose his scheme of productive associations as the solution of the social question. The solution of the social question would demand generations. He proposed his scheme as the means of transition, as the easiest and mildest means of transition.[5]It was the germ, the organic principle of an incessant development. Lassalle has indicated, though only in vague outline, how such an organic development of productive associations should proceed. They would begin in populous centres, in cases where the nature of the industry, and the voluntary inclination of the workmen to association, would facilitate their formation. Industries, which are mutually dependent and work into each other’s hands, would be united by a credit union; and there would further be an insurance union, embracing the different associations, which would reduce their losses to a minimum. The risks would be greatly lessened as a speculative industry constantly tending to anarchy, and all the evils of competition would be superseded by an organised industry; over-production would give place to production in advance. In this way the associations would grow until they embraced the entire industry of the country. And the general application of the principle would give an enormousadvantage in international competition to the country adopting it, for it would be rational, systematic, and in every way more effective and economical.
The goal of the whole development, as conceived by Lassalle, was acollectivismof the same type as that contemplated by Marx and Rodbertus. ‘Division of labour,’ he says, ‘is really common labour, social combination for production. This, the real nature of production, needs only to be explicitly recognised. In the total production, therefore, it is merely requisite to abolish individual portions of capital, and to conduct the labour of society, which is already common, with the common capital of society, and to distribute the result of production among all who have contributed to it, in proportion to their performance.’[6]
In the controversial work against Schulze-Delitzsch, Lassalle has at greater length expounded his general position in opposition to the individualist theories of his opponents. He contends that progress has not proceeded from the individual; it has always proceeded from the community. In this connection he sums up briefly the history of social development.
The entire ancient world, and also the whole mediæval period down to the French Revolution of 1789, sought human solidarity and community in bondage or subjection.
The French Revolution of 1789, and the historical period controlled by it, rightly incensed at this subjection, sought freedom in the dissolution of all solidarityand community. Thereby, however, it gained, not freedom, but license. Because freedom without community is license.
The new, the present period, seeks solidarity in freedom.[7]He then proceeds in histheory of conjuncturesto prove that, instead of each man being economically responsible for what he has done, each man is really responsible for what he has not done. The economic fate of the individual is determined by circumstances over which he has no control, or very little. What does Lassalle mean by aconjuncture? We can best understand it by reference to a great economic crisis which has occurred since his time. No better example of aconjuncturecan be found than in the recent history of British agriculture. In 1876, agriculture, still the most important industry of the country, began to be seriously threatened by American competition. The crisis caused by the low prices due to this competition was greatly aggravated by bad seasons, such as that of 1879. The farmers, obliged to pay rent out of capital, were many of them ruined. In consequence of the diminished application of capital to land the opportunities of labour were greatly lessened. Rents could no longer be paid as formerly. All three classes directly concerned in English agriculture suffered fearfully, without any special individual responsibility in the matter. In Ireland, where the difficulty, great in itself, was intensified by the national idea, an economic crisis grew into a great political and imperial crisis. In the eyes of theimpartial inquirer, who of all the millions of sufferers was personally responsible?
Such wide-spread disasters are common in recent economic history. They are a necessary result of a competitive system of industry. Lassalle is justly angry with the one-sided and ill-instructed economists that would hold the individual responsible for his fate in such a crisis. Statesmen little understand their duty who would leave their subjects without help in these times of distress. And it must always be a praiseworthy feature of socialism that it seeks to establish social control of theseconjuncturesas far as possible, and to minimise their disastrous effects by giving social support to those menaced by them.
The main burden of theBastiat-Schulzeis Lassalle’s account of capital and labour.
For Lassallecapital is a historic category, a product of historical circumstances, the rise of which we can trace, the disappearance of which, under altered circumstances, we can foresee.
In other words, capital is the name for a system of economic, social, and legal conditions, which are the result severally and collectively of a long and gradual process of historical development. TheBastiat-Schulzeis an elucidation of these conditions. The following may be taken as a general statement of them:—
(1) The division of labour in connection with the large industry.(2) A system of production for exchange in the great world-markets.(3) Free competition.(4) The instruments of labour, the property of a special class, who after paying(5) A class of free labourers in accordance with the Iron Law of Wages, pocket the surplus value. Property consists not in the fruit of one’s own labour, but in the appropriation of that of others.Eigenthum ist Fremdthum geworden.[8]
(1) The division of labour in connection with the large industry.
(2) A system of production for exchange in the great world-markets.
(3) Free competition.
(4) The instruments of labour, the property of a special class, who after paying
(5) A class of free labourers in accordance with the Iron Law of Wages, pocket the surplus value. Property consists not in the fruit of one’s own labour, but in the appropriation of that of others.Eigenthum ist Fremdthum geworden.[8]
In this way capital has become an independent, active, and self-generating power which oppresses its producer. Money makes money. The labour of the past, appropriated and capitalised, crushes the labour of the present. ‘The dead captures the living.’ ‘The instrument of labour, which has become independent, and has exchangedrôleswith the workmen, which has degraded the living workmen to a dead instrument of labour, and has developed itself, the dead instrument of labour, into the living organ of production—that is capital.’[9]In such highly metaphorical language does Lassalle sum up his history of capital. We have already commented on that aspect of it, the Iron Law of Wages, which Lassalle has most emphasised. The whole subject is much more comprehensively treated in theKapitalof Karl Marx; therefore we need not dwell upon it further at present.
It will not be wrong, however, to say a word here about the use of the word capital, as current in the school of socialists to which Lassalle and Marx belong. It is not applied by them in its purely economic sense, as wealth utilised for further production: it is used asthe name of the social and economic system in which the owners of capital are the dominant power. With them it is the economic factor as operating under the existing legal and social conditions, with all these conditions clinging to it. It would be much better to restrict the word to its proper economic use, and employ the new word capitalism as a fairly accurate name for the existing system.
The function of capital under all social systems and at all historical epochs is fundamentally the same; it is simply wealth used for the production of more wealth. But the historical, legal, and political conditions under which it is utilised vary indefinitely, as do also the technical forms in which it is embodied.
No real excuse can be offered for the ignorance or confusion of language of controversialists who maintain that the object of socialism is to abolish capital. So far from abolishing capital, socialists wish to make it still more effective for social well-being by placing it under social control. What they wish to abolish is the existing system, in which capital is under the control of a class. It would be a considerable gain in clearness if this system were always called capitalism.
We have already remarked upon Lassalle’s theory of the State, and his treatment of the Iron Law of Wages. Our further criticism of his social-economic position can best be brought out by reference to his controversy with Schulze-Delitzsch, the economic representative of German Liberalism.
In general it may be said that Lassalle meets theone-sided individualism of Schulze by a statement of the socialistic, theory, which is also one-sided and exaggerated. His view of the influence of the community as compared with that of the individual is the most prominent example of this. The only accurate social philosophy is one which gives due attention to both factors; both are of supreme importance, and either may fitly be the starting-point of investigation and discussion.
His theory of conjunctures is overstated. It is to a considerable degree well founded; in the great economic storms which sweep over the civilised world the fate of the individual is largely determined by conditions over which he has no control. Yet now as ever the homely virtues of industry, energy, sobriety, and prudence do materially determine the individual career.
For our present purpose, however, it is more important to consider Lassalle’s polemic against the practical proposals of his opponent. Lassalle contended that the unions for providing credit and raw material would benefit the hand-workers only, whereas hand-labour is destined to disappear before the large industry. But, we may ask, why should not such methods of mutual help be utilised for associations of working men even more than for isolated workers? These unions may be regarded as affording only a very partial and limited relief to the workmen, but why should the principle of association among workmen stop there?
The system of voluntary co-operation must begin somewhere; it began most naturally and reasonablywith such unions, and it proceeds most naturally and reasonably along the line of least resistance to further development. In these unions the workmen have been acquiring the capital and experience necessary for further progress. No limit can be assigned to the possible evolution of the system. They are properly to be regarded as only the first beginnings of social control over the economic processes, the goal and consummation of which we find in socialism. If in the controversial struggle Lassalle had listened to the clear voice of science, he would have seen that, for his opponent as well as for himself, he must maintain that all social institutions are subject to and capable of development.
For the methods of Schulze it may be claimed that they do not provide a ready-made solution of the social question, but they are a beginning. For the associations of Schulze, not less than for those of Lassalle, we may contend that they supply the organic principle of an incessant development. In this way the workmen may attain to the complete management of their own industrial interests with their own joint capital. They may thus obtain for themselves the full product of their labour, in which case the objection of Lassalle, with regard to the increase of population, under the influence of the cheap provisions supplied by the stores, would no more apply to the scheme of Schulze than they would to his own. In both cases we are to suppose that the means of subsistence would be more abundant and more easily obtained; in both cases there might be the riskof a too rapidly increasing population. We may suppose that this increase of population would be met by a still greater increase in the product of labour, all going to the workers. But for the schemes of Schulze there would be this great advantage that, the capital and experience of the workers having been acquired by their own exertions, they would have all the superior training requisite for the solution of the population question, and all other questions, which can be obtained only from a long course of social discipline.
Lassalle would have done well to remember his own statement, that the only real point of difference between them was, that one believed in State help, and the other in ‘self help.’ And we may further ask, Do the two exclude each other?
In fact, the controversy, considered purely on its merits, was barren enough. Yet it led to profitable results, inasmuch as it directed the mind of Germany to the questions involved, and led to a more thorough discussion of them.
Better, however, than any argument which can be urged is the verdict of history on the merits of the question, as already pronounced during the period which has elapsed since the date of the controversy. In 1885, just twenty-one years after the bitter controversy between the two representatives of State help and self help, the societies established by Schulze in Germany alone possessed one hundred million thalers of capital of their own. It will be remembered that this is the amount of the loan required by Lassalle from the Stateto bring his productive associations into operation. If the workmen fail in productive association, it will not be, as Lassalle maintained, for want of capital. Productive association with State credit is therefore not the only way out of the wilderness.
Must we go further and say that Lassalle’s method of State help was not the right method at all? It is certain that the Government of Germany, though organised on the principle of universal suffrage, hasnotgranted the credit demanded by Lassalle, and that his agitation in this matter has failed owing, it might be alleged, to his early death, and to the fact that since his time German socialism has prematurely moved on international, and even anti-national, lines, thus alienating from itself the sympathies of the Emperor and his Chancellor. We need not say how very improbable it is that the German Government would have guaranteed its credit, however submissive and conciliatory the attitude of the Social Democrats might have been. The Social Democrats themselves, though they gave a place to Lassalle’s scheme on the Gotha programme of 1875, seem now disposed to attach little or no importance to it. It does not appear in the Erfurt programme of the party, which was adopted in 1891. In short, Lassalle’s agitation has in the point immediately in question been a failure. At the same time, it would be absolutely incorrect to assert that experience has pronounced against his scheme, inasmuch as no Government has ever seriously taken it in hand.
Like many other pioneers, Lassalle has not accomplishedwhat he intended, yet he has achieved great results. We cannot quite accept the dictum of Schiller, that the world’s history is the world’s judgment. We are not prepared to believe that all things that have succeeded were good, and all things that have failed were evil; or that things are good or evil only in so far as they succeed or fail. Still, we may well sum up the controversy between Lassalle and Schulze by stating that in 1885 the societies founded by the latter had in Germany a membership of 1,500,000 with a capital of £15,000,000, and at the election of 1890 the Social Democracy of Germany, originated by Lassalle, polled 1,427,000 votes. Both have done great things, which are destined to be greater still. In this, as in so many other instances, the course of history has not respected the narrow limits prescribed to it by controversialists.
We need not, however, insist further on the details of Lassalle’s controversy with Schulze-Delitzsch. Much more important is it to recall the leading aspects of his teaching. What Lassalle contemplated and contended for was a democracy in which the claims of Might and Right should be reconciled, a democracy of working men, guided by science, and through universal suffrage constituting a State which would rise to the high level of its function as representative and promoter of freedom, culture, morality, and progress in the fullest and deepest significance of those great ideas. Above all, this democracy was to be a social democracy, in which the political idea should be subordinate to the social; hence the duty of the State at least to initiate the solutionof the social question by granting credit for productive associations. But this was only to be a beginning; the solution of the social question must be ardently worked out for generations until labour should be entirely emancipated.
With such an ideal, contrast the Prussian-German State as it actually is. The German State must still find its basis in the army and police, the most intelligent of the working class being in profound discontent. It is a fact worth considering by our economists and politicians, that theéliteof the working men of probably the best educated and most thoughtful nation in the world have gone over to the Social Democratic party. Nor can the German or any other State devote itself heartily to the solution of the social question, for Europe is like a vast camp, in which science and finance are strained to the uttermost in order to devise and provide instruments for the destruction of our fellow-men. Of this state of things the young Emperor who ascended the throne in 1888 is only the too willing representative; but even if he were inclined, he would be powerless to prevent it, as its causes are too deeply rooted in human nature and in the present stage of social development to be removed by anything less than a profound change in the motives and conditions of life. The historical antecedents and geographical position of Germany are such that it must long continue to be a military State; and most other nations have hindrances of their own. Reformers must therefore wait long and strive earnestlybefore they can hope to see such an ideal as that of Lassalle realised. That the ideal was a noble one, and that the gratitude of all lovers of progress is due to him for his energetic and eloquent advocacy of it, notwithstanding certain unworthy passages in his career, few will deny.