"Rarely do we reach truth except through extremes—we must have foolishness ... even to exhaustion, before we arrive at the beautiful goal of calm wisdom."Schiller,Philosophical Letters, Preamble.
"Rarely do we reach truth except through extremes—we must have foolishness ... even to exhaustion, before we arrive at the beautiful goal of calm wisdom."
Schiller,Philosophical Letters, Preamble.
It would be strange if such a mighty revolution in economic and social matters as I have sketched for you should not have found its reflection in the minds of thinking men. It would be wonderful, I think, if with this overturning of social institutions a revolution of social thought, science, and faith should not follow. We find in fact that parallel with this revolution in life fundamental changes have taken place in the sphere of social thought. By the side of the old social literature a new set of writings arises. The former belongs to the end of the previous and the beginning of the present century; it is that which we are accustomed to call the classic political economy; it is that which, after a development of aboutone hundred and fifty to two hundred years, found the highest theoretical expression of the capitalistic economic system through the great political economists Adam Smith and David Ricardo. By the side of this literature, devoted to the capitalistic view of economics, now grows a new school of writings which has this general characteristic, that it is anti-capitalistic; that is, it places itself in conscious opposition to the capitalistic school of economics and considers the advocacy of this opposition as its peculiar task.
In accordance with the undeveloped condition of such economic thought it is, of course, a medley of explanations and claims as to what is and what should be, wherein the new literature expresses its opposition. All undeveloped literature begins in this tumultuous way, just as all unschooled minds at first slowly learn to distinguish between what is and what should be. And indeed in the immaturity of this new literature the practical element predominates greatly, as may readily be understood; there is a desire to justify theoretically the agitation, the new postulates, the new ideals.
For this reason, if we would see this literature in its full relations and distinguish its variousnuances(delicate differences), it will be convenient to choose as distinguishing marks the differing uses of the new "Thou shalt." Thus we recognise in general two groups in this new literature, the reformatory and the revolutionary. The latter word is not used in its ordinary meaning, but in that which I shall immediately define. The reformatory and the revolutionary literature divide on this point, that the reformatory recognises in principle the existing economic system of capitalism, and attempts upon the basis of this economy to introduce changes and improvements, which are, however, subordinate, incidental, not essential; also and especially, that the fundamental features of social order are retained, but that man desires to see his fellow-man changed in thought and feeling. A new spirit obtains, repentance is proclaimed, the good qualities of human nature win the upper hand—brotherly love, charity, conciliation.
This reformatory agitation that recognises the injury and evil of social life, but that with essential adhesion to the dominant economic system desires to mitigate the injury and to overcome or minimise the evil, has different ways of expression. It is a Christian, or anethical, or a philanthropic impulse which calls forth the new literature and controls the writings that make for social reform.
The Christian thought is that which, in application to the social world, creates that trend of literature which we are accustomed incorrectly to designate under the phrase "Christian socialism." Of this are the writings of Lamennais in France, Kingsley in England, which, filled with the spirit of the Bible, address to employer and employe alike the demand—Out with the spirit of mammon from your souls, fill your hearts with the spirit of the gospel, the "new spirit," as they constantly call it. And quite similarly sound the voices of those earlier "ethical" economists, Sismondi, Thomas Carlyle, who do not become tired of preaching, if not the "Christian," at least the "social" spirit. Change of heart is their watchword. The third drift of thought, which I call the philanthropic, directs itself rather towards the emotions than towards the sense of duty or the religious element in man. Pierre Leroux in France, Grün and Hess in Germany, are men who, filled with a great, overpowering love for mankind, desire to heal the wounds which their sympathetic hearts behold, whowould overwhelm the misery which they see by this universal love of man. "Love one another as men, as brothers!" is the theme of their preaching. All these three streams of thought, merely the sources of which I have specified, continue influential to the present day; and all of them have this in common, that they hold fast in principle to the foundations of the existing social order—therefore I call them reformatory. Opposed to them appears another class of literature, the "revolutionary"; so called because its great principle is the doing away with the foundations of capitalistic economy, and the substituting something different. This it proposes to do in two different ways,—if I may express my meaning in two words,—backwards and forwards.
At the very time when economic contradictions develop themselves and new phases of anti-capitalistic literature come to the surface, we find a revolutionary anti-capitalistic literature strongly asserting itself, which demands a retrogression from the existing system of economics. Such are the writings of Adam Müller and Leopold von Haller in the first third of our century, men who would change the bases on which the modern capitalisticeconomy is founded by introducing the crumbled feudalistic guild system of the middle ages in place of the middle-class capitalistic system of to-day. These are indeed manifestations which have not as yet reached their end.
Besides these reactionary manifestations, there is another movement which does not want this regression to old forms, but in the same way demands an overthrow of the principles of the existing capitalistic system. But this change must be under the influence of those modern advanced ideas which, especially on the technical side, betoken that which we are accustomed to call "progress." Systems, that is, theories, they are which hold fast to an historic essence of capitalistic methods of production—that it is built upon the basis of modern production in the mass; but which, under the influence of advanced ideas, call for a new order of production and distribution in the interests of those classes of the people which under the capitalistic economy seem to come short—thus essentially in the interests of the great masses of the proletariat. The theorists who desire such a development of the capitalistic economy in the interests of the proletariat, while upholding methods ofproduction on a large scale, are the ones whom we must call socialists in the true meaning of the word. And we have now to do with a strange species of these socialists, with those whom we are accustomed to call utopists or utopian socialists. The typical representatives of these utopian socialists are St. Simon and Charles Fourier in France, and Robert Owen in England. Of these, the most conspicuous are the two Frenchmen; their systems are most frequently presented. Owen is less known. As I now attempt to make clear to you, through him, the essence of utopian socialism, it is because he is less known, but especially because in my opinion he is the most interesting of the three great utopists. It is he who on the one side most clearly shows to us the genesis of the modern proletarian ideal, and on the other side has been of greatest influence upon other socialistic theorists, especially upon Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels.
Robert Owen was a manufacturer. We find him at the age of twenty years already the manager of a great cotton-mill. Soon after he established a mill at Lanark. Here he learned practical life by personal experience. We distinguish two periods in his life. In the first heis what we may call an educationalist, a man who interests himself especially in the education of youth and expects through it an essential reformation of human society. The chief work of this epoch is the bookA New View of Society. In the second period he is a socialist; and his most important work isA Book of the New Moral World. Owen really interests us in this second period, as a socialist. What does he thus teach? And what is the essence of this first form of utopian socialism?
Robert Owen takes as the starting-point for his theorising the investigations which he made in his immediate surroundings. He pictures to us the state of affairs in connection with his own manufactories; how the workers, especially the women and children, degenerated, physically, intellectually and morally. He begins also with a recognition of the evils which distinguish the modern capitalistic system; his starting-point is proletarian. Upon these investigations of his own he now builds a social-philosophic system which is not unknown to one who has studied the social philosophy of the eighteenth century. Owen's social philosophy is essentially characterised by this, that he believes in man as good by nature, and in anorder of communal life which would in like manner be naturally good if only these men were brought into proper relations with each other—faith in the so-calledordre naturel, in a natural order of things which has possibly existed somewhere, but which in any case would exist, were it not that artificial hindrances stand in the way, evils which make it impossible for man to live in this natural way with others. These evils, these forces, which stand in the way of the accomplishment of a natural communal life, Robert Owen sees of two kinds: one in the faulty education of men, the other in the defective environment in which modern man lives—the evils of a richmilieu. He infers logically, if we would again realise that natural and beautiful condition of harmonious communal life, thatordre naturel, both these evils must be driven out of the world. He demands, therefore, better education on the one side, a better environment upon the other. In these two postulates we find side by side the two periods of his development as we have heretofore seen them. In the first he lays stress rather upon education; in the second, rather upon change of environment. He recognises, further—and this is perhaps theparticular service rendered by Owen to socialistic theory—that these evil conditions, on the overcoming of which all depends, have not been provided by nature, but have grown out of a definite system of social order, which he believes to be the capitalistic. In the capitalistic economy he sees nothing of that natural law which the representatives of the classical economies assert; but an order of society created by man. Even his opponents believed in theordre naturel, only they thought that it was realised; Owen did not. Much more, Owen was compelled to demand the overthrow of this economic system in order that his goal might be reached, that man might be able to enjoy a better development and a better environment. For this reason he demanded that the artificial economic system should undergo essential changes, especially in two points, the main pillars upon which the economic system is built. Owen repudiated the competition of the individual and the profit-making of the master.
If this be allowed, the further practical arrangements which Owen demanded must in like manner be granted: in place of individualism, socialism must stand. In this way privateoperation will be replaced by communal production, and competition will be in fact overthrown; also, the profit of the employer will flow into the pockets of the producers, the members of the social organisation. These ideas of socialistic production grew, for Owen, spontaneously out of the capitalistic system in which he lived.
Here we come directly to the attitude of spirit in which Robert Owen has conceived his socialistic system, and it is necessary for the completion of this sketch to make reference especially to the means which Owen would use to reach his goal. These means are essentially a universal understanding and agreement among men; to them the truth and beauty of this new order should be preached, so that the wish may be aroused in them to accomplish this new order. But Owen does not think of the possibility that, when it is once made clear how wonderful this new order would be and how wonderfully men would live therein, men would not wish for the new order, and even if they did wish for it, that they might not be able to accomplish it. Only let the matter be known, then the wish and the ability will follow. For this reason, it is possible that thenew order may enter at any moment; "as a thief in the night," Owen expresses it, socialism can come over the world. Only intellectual perception is necessary, and this can illumine the mind of man suddenly as a lightning flash. This peculiar conception of the means and ways that lead to the goal is one of the characteristic traits which distinguish the system of Owen, and in like manner of all utopian socialists.
If we look at this system as a whole, we find as the starting-point a criticism of existing social circumstances in a proletarian community. We find, further, as the basis upon which the system stands, the social philosophy of the eighteenth century. We see, as its demands, the overthrow of the capitalistic economy and the replacing of private production by communal operation. We find, finally, as the means for accomplishing this, as the roadway that leads to the object desired, the enlightenment of mankind. How he then exerted himself to carry out his plans in detail, how he created a New Lanark, and how his plans were entirely frustrated—all that interests us now as little as does the fact that Owen reached large practical results, in theshortening of the hours of labor and in the limitation of work by women and children, through improvement and amelioration of work in his manufactories, in which a new race began to rise in intellectual and moral freshness. Just so little are we interested in the fact that he is the father of English trade-union agitation. We would only look at his significance for the social movement, and this lies especially in the fact that he first, at least in outline, created that which since has become the proletarian ideal. For this point must be made clear to us, that all the germs of later socialism are contained in Owen's system.
If I now, after having sketched the fundamental ideas of Owen's system, may attempt to condense the essence of the so-called utopian socialism into a few sentences, I would specify this as essential: Owen and the others are primarily socialists because their starting-point is proletarian criticism. They draw this immediately out of spheres in which capitalism asserts itself, out of the manufactory as Owen, out of the counting-house as Fourier. They are, further, socialists for this reason, not only that their starting-point is proletarian, but also because their object is socialistic in the sensethat it would put joint enterprise in the place of private operation; that is, a new economic order which does not longer provide for private operation and the sharing of the profit between master and workman, but is based upon communal effort, without competition and without employer. But why, we ask ourselves, are they called socialistic utopists? And how are they to be distinguished from those theorists whom we shall learn to call scientific socialists? Owen, St. Simon, and Fourier are to be called utopists for the reason that they do not recognise the real factors of socialism; they are the true and legitimate children of the naïve and idealistic eighteenth century, which we, with right, call the century of intellectual enlightenment.
I have already showed to you how this belief in enlightenment, in the power of the knowledge of good, predominates in Owen's system. In this lies essentially its utopianism, because those are looked upon as effective and impelling factors which do not in fact constitute social life and the real world. Thus this belief mistakes doubly: it contains a false judgment of present and past, and it deceives itself concerning the prospects of the future. So far as hisfollowers assume that the present order of things is nothing other than a mistake, that only for this reason men find themselves in their present position, that misery rules in the world only because man has not known thus far how to make it better—that is false. The utopists fail to see, in their optimism, that a part of this society looks upon thestatus quoas thoroughly satisfactory and desires no change, that this part also has an interest in sustaining it, and that a specific condition of society always obtains because those persons who are interested in it have the power to sustain it. All social order is nothing other than the temporary expression of a balance of power between the various classes of society. Now judge for yourselves what mistaken estimate of the true world, what boundless underestimate of opposing forces, lie in the belief that those who have power can be moved to a surrender of their position through preaching and promise.
As the utopists underestimate the power of their opponents, so they overestimate their own strength, and thus become utopists as to the future. They are pervaded by the strong conviction that there is needed only an energetic, hearty resolution in order to bring to realitythe kingdom of the future. They rate too highly the ability of the men who will constitute the future society. They forget, or they do not know, that in a long process of reconstruction men and things must first be created in order to make the new social order possible.
For the practical working of the social movement, the most interesting conclusion which the utopists draw logically out of this conception is the kind of tactics which they recommend for reaching the new condition. From what has been said it follows necessarily that this strategy must culminate in an appeal to men collectively. It will not be accomplished by a specific and interested class; but it expects from all men that, when the matter is rightly explained, they will wish for the good. Indeed, it is assumed that it is only ignorance on the part of the opponent that keeps him from accepting openly and freely this good, from divesting himself of his possessions and exchanging the old order for the new. The characteristic example of this childish way of viewing things is the well-known fact that Charles Fourier daily waited at his home, between the hours of twelve and one, to receive the millionaire who should bring to him moneyfor the erection of the first phalanstery. No one came.
In closest connection with this belief in the willingness of the ruling classes to make concessions stands the disinclination to all use of force, to all demand and command. Thus we find, as the simple thought in the tactics of the utopists, the repudiation of class strife and political effort. For how can this be brought into harmony with their main idea? How can anything that is to be accomplished by intellectual illumination, or at most by example, be achieved through strife? It is unthinkable. So, just as utopian socialism rejects political exertion, it also stands opposed to all those efforts which we are accustomed to call the economic agitation of the workman, such as trade-unions and the like. It is the same thought: how shall the organisation of working-men for strife tend to the improvement of the condition of work, when this can come only through the preaching of the new gospel? Robert Owen indeed organised in England trade-unions. But their work was really the propagation of his socialistic theories, not painful struggle against capitalism. Rejection of class strife in the sphere of politics as ofeconomic agitation, repudiation of this in speech and writing and example—herein culminate the tactics of the utopian socialists. This, as I have attempted to show to you, is the necessary outcome of their system, built upon beautiful but narrow lines.
As we now take leave of utopian socialism we must guard ourselves from the thought that the spirit of this great historic influence has fully disappeared from the world. No! no day passes without the reappearance, in some book or speech, of these fundamental thoughts which we have recognised as the essence of utopian socialism. Especially in the circles of the well inclined middle-class social politicians does this spirit live to-day; but even in the proletariat itself it is not by any means dead. We shall see how it is revived later, in connection with revolutionary thought. For this reason a more than merely historic interest invests this particular line of thought.
"The great, dumb, deep-buried class lies like an Enceladus, who in his pain, if he will complain of it, has to produce earthquakes."—Thomas Carlyle, "Chartism," ix. (Essays.Edition, Chapman and Hall, vi., 169).
"The great, dumb, deep-buried class lies like an Enceladus, who in his pain, if he will complain of it, has to produce earthquakes."—Thomas Carlyle, "Chartism," ix. (Essays.Edition, Chapman and Hall, vi., 169).
The question which now rests upon the lips of you all, since I have indicated the lines of thought of the first socialists, is this: When such noble minds drew the plan of a new and better world for their suffering brethren, where was the proletariat itself, and what did it do? What are the beginnings of the social movement which is carried on by the masses?
The answer must be that long, very long, after much had been thought and written concerning the condition and future of the proletariat this element of the population yet remained completely untouched by these new ideas, knew nothing of them, cared nothing for them; it permitted itself to be controlled by other forces, other motives. The systems of St. Simon, Fourier, Owen, have had little or no influence with the masses.
As we turn to the proletariat itself and ask after its fate,—perhaps up to the middle of our century,—we find a precursor of the social movement which everywhere—that is, in all lands controlled by the capitalistic economy—exhibits the same marks and is uniformly characterised in the following way: where the movement of the masses stands out clearly and conscious of its aim, it is not proletarian; where it is proletarian, it is not clear and conscious of its aim. That means, in the conscious movement in which the proletariat is found engaged, middle-class elements direct as to the object sought: where the proletariat undertakes to be independent, it shows all the immaturity of the formative stages of a social class, mere instincts, no clearly defined postulates and aims.
Those historic occurrences in which the proletariat played a role, although they were not proletarian movements, are the well-known revolutions which we connect with the years 1789, 1793, 1830, 1832, 1848—for I must go back into the previous century for the inner connection. We have here movements which are essentially middle-class; in them political liberties are sought, and, so far as the proletarian elements are concerned, the masses fightthe battles of the middle classes, like the common soldiers who fought in feudal armies. This fact, that we here have to do with purely middle-class movements, has so often been mistaken by many celebrated historians, the terms "communism" and "socialism" have been so constantly applied to those agitations, that it is well worth our while to show the incorrectness of this assumption. For this purpose, we must look separately at those movements which are connected with the years thus specified, since each one has its own characteristics.
If we present to ourselves first the real meaning of the movements of 1789 and 1793, the great French Revolution, it is clear even to those of limited vision that the revolution of 1789 was purely a middle-class movement, and indeed carried on by the higher part of the middle-class. It is the struggle of the upper middle-class for the recognition of its rights, and for relief from the privileges of the ruling class of society—from the fetters in which it had been held by feudal powers. It expresses this struggle in demands for equality and freedom, but it really means from the very start a limited equality and freedom. Look at the first, trenchant, we may call them social,laws which were passed by the new regime of France. They are by no means of a popular character, or partial to the working-man; we see at the first look that they were not made by the masses for the masses, but by an aristocratic middle-class, which places itself in sharp opposition to the rabble. Thus the well-knownLoi martialeof October 20, 1789, a riot act, gives expression to this distinction as it speaks of the "bons citoyens" who must be protected by stern police regulation against the attacks of thegens mal intentionés; "when the mob does not disperse on warning, then the armed forces shall fire." They would so control the caprices of the masses that not a second time should a dagger find its way into the breast of an honourable baker, when the populace without authority would appropriate to itself the bread in the bakeries.
I think of a second important law, born out of the doctrinaire middle-class spirit of these first years; the "Coalitions Law" of June 17, 1791. It punishes every combination of tradesworkers for the furtherance of their "alleged" common interests, as an attempt upon the freedom and rights of man, by a fine of five hundred livres and the loss of citizenship for ayear. This applies equally to the employer and the working-man, we may better say the master and the journeyman; but we all know what crying injustice this equality has produced.
Then comes the first consolidation of the new society, the Constitution of November 3, 1791, which, through the introduction, of limited franchise, brings to sharp and clear expression the separation between a ruling class of those well-to-do and a ruled class of the "have-nothings." There are now "full citizens" and citizens of the second class.
Thus it is clear that the revolution of 1789 was not at all a proletarian movement. There may seem to be some doubt concerning the agitation of 1793, for it is this, before all others, which our great historians, as Sybel, like to specify as "communistic." The men of Montaigne are, in their eyes, the predecessors of the social democracy; and, indeed, quite lately in a small book published by the Berlin Professor H. Delbrueck in the Goettingen library for working-men, exactly this assertion is presented—that the leaders of this social movement were true social democrats, and that in fact the social democracy has developed nonew thoughts since Saint Just and Robespierre. I cannot recognise this assertion as correct. Let us test it.
I assert that even the movement of 1793 was essentially non-proletarian. We grant that in it an undercurrent of democracy breaks forth, which the French Revolution always had; and it is this which has misled many. This was there from the beginning. It expressed itself already in 1789, in the elections to the States-General, and comes finally in 1793 to its full development.
As you read through theCahierswith theirDoléancesof the year 1789, those "papers of grievances" which the electors, especially those of Paris and Lyons, were accustomed to hand to their representatives, you find therein already a peculiar tone which does not harmonise with the honeyed expressions of the men of the "tennis court." These demands were connected with the ruling hard times, for the winter of 1789 had been severe; and they complained because misery could not be lessened by a free constitution. "The voice of freedom means nothing to the heart of a miserable man who is dying of hunger." Already they demanded bread taxes andemployment, the overthrow of Sunday rest and of feast-days. Everyone knows how this cry arises again and again in the speeches and writings of Marat. TheAmi du Peupledeclaims against the "aristocrats," and desires to serve the "people." They found out that, for the great masses of the "poor," freedom and equality availed nothing; and Marat thus concludes: "Equality of rights leads to equality of enjoyment, and only upon this basis can the idea rest quietly." Then come the taxes; the "maximum" comes. But I ask you, does that make this movement a proletarian and social one? Can it be that at all? Let us look merely at its supporters! The chief centres of democratic undercurrent are, as has been said, Lyons and Paris. In Lyons we find, indeed, a proletariat, that of the silk industry. We have the statistics of the year 1789; at that time there were, in the Lyons silk industry, 410maîtres marchands fabricants, 4402maîtres ouvriers, 1796compagnons, and about 40,000 other workers of both sexes. We must allow that here, without doubt, there are indeed strong proletarian interests and instincts; yet they are veiled by the peculiar character of the Lyons silk industry. It hadat that time, and has even to-day, a strong hold upon the lower middle-class, and to a degree upon the upper middle-class, for two reasons. One, due to its peculiar organisation, the fact that this work was not carried on in large manufactories but in small workshops under the direction of independent masters, and that this created a class of independent men, between the capitalist and the worker, hard to move to concerted action with the proletariat. A second reason is this, that the Lyons silk industry is a manufacture of an article of luxury. Such industries are in their very nature, even in the earlier times, anti-revolutionary; the men of Montaigne would not use silk stockings. For this reason we find Lyons, naturally, after the first enthusiasm is over, by the side of theVendéeat the head of the counter-revolution, even at the beginning of the year 1790. In general, as Lyons becomes anti-revolutionary the faubourgs of Paris come to the foreground; out of them new masses spring forward, the Sans-culottes. But what kind of people are they? Certainly there are wage-workers among them. But the majority were of a better class; there are traces of the trades out of which they had come or to whichthey yet belonged. The real mass of the Sans-culottes was not made out of wage-workers. It was rather the Parisian lower middle-class; it was, first, the guild-excluded master mechanics who dwelt in the Faubourg St. Antoine and Du Temple; secondly, the journeymen; thirdly, that element which the French callla boutique, retailers, tavern-keepers, etc., an important category. These, then, are the great hordes who clustered around Danton, Robespierre, and Marat. And what of these leaders themselves? Of what spirit are they children? They are, essentially, of the lower middle-class by birth. They are extreme radicals, extreme individualists. They are in their ideals and aims entirely unsocial and unproletarian according to our ideas to-day. The Constitution of 1793, in Article II., proclaims asDroits de l'Homme: Egalité, Liberté, Surété, Propriété. That is not proletarian and is not socialistic; thus all the assertions of a communistic movement at that time are thrown out. I have dwelt thus long on this revolution of 1793 in order to show how premature it is to speak of social democrats and of a social or proletarian movement wherever there is any outcry and disturbance.
I can but briefly touch upon other movements of this early history. The insurrection of Babeuf, 1796, bore certainly the communistic stamp; but, as we now know, it was without any response from the masses, who were finally tired of revolution.
Conspicuously of the upper middle-class were the July revolution of 1830 in France and the agitation of 1848 in Germany. In both cases we see citizenship in strife with feudal forces. Less clearly appears the civic character of the revolution of 1832 in England, and of the February revolution of 1848 in France, because these agitations were directed against forms of government sustained by citizens themselves. Yet even these movements, of 1832 in England and the February revolution in France, are not proletarian; they are rather the struggle of a part of the middle-class, the radicals, against another part, theHaute finance. This very opposition is now to be found again in Italy in the struggle of the North Italian industries against the rotten, half-feudalHaute financewhich Crispi represents.
These are the agitations of our century which have been definite and conscious of their aim. In all of them the proletariat has been involved,behind all the barricades from 1789 to 1848 lie proletarian bodies; but of all those movements of which I have thus told you, not a single one is proletarian, or in our sense a social movement.
Where now the proletariat fights for itself and represents its own interests we discern at first mere muttered, inarticulate sounds; and it takes long for these tones to rise to cries, for these cries to grow to general demands, and to become crystallised into programmes. The first proletarian agitations—movements of the unhappy, deeply buried mass—are, according to Carlyle's word, like the movements of Enceladus, who as he quivers in his pain causes an earthquake. These are movements of an entirely instinctive kind, claiming that which lies next, and attacking that which seems to them evidently to stand in the way. These are deeds which originally and largely assume the form of robbery and plunder. They have as their object to injure in some way the enemy in his power of possession. In England towards the close of the preceding and the beginning of the present century there was much destruction and plundering of manufactories. In the year 1812 the demolition of factories was punished in England with death, the bestproof of the frequency of the fact. In other lands we have similar occurrences. I think of the factory-burning in Uster in Switzerland in the year 1832, of the weavers' riots in Germany in 1840, of the Lyons silk-weavers' insurrection in France in 1831. This last distinguishes itself from previous events of a similar character by the fact that it assumes as its great motive the motto which indeed we can think of as written over the portal of the proletarian movement:Vivre en travaillant, ou mourir en combattant!That is the first timid formulation of proletarian struggle, because the battle-cry is negatively and positively an expression of true proletarian-socialistic effort: negatively—no one shall live who does not work; positively—those who work shall be able to live. Thus this is the first development of proletarian agitation: attack upon the external and visible forms in which the opponent is incorporated—upon the manufactories and machines because in their coming lies competition with hand-work, upon the dwellings of the employers which appear as the citadels of the new dictators.
It is a step in advance when, in place of the immediate and visible object, there come intoview the principles which lie behind these things, upon which the capitalistic system of economy rests—free competition in production. It is therefore advance in proletarian agitation as this begins to direct itself to the abolition of modern institutions. Thus the proletariat in England, towards the end of the previous and the beginning of the present century, struggled long for a revival of the Elizabethan trade law. This had specified that every master should have only one apprentice for three workmen. The time of apprenticeship should also be limited to seven years, the wages should be settled by a justice of the peace. This is an instinctive clutching after a protective barrier which seems to be disappearing. Even this is not at first clear; but essentially we find this trait common to all the antecedents of proletarianism, that the movements hold fast to what was in the good old times. Thus, for example, in Germany, the working-man's agitation of 1848 was largely an attempt to reintroduce the old guild system. But it all belongs to the antecedent history of the social movement, because there was no definite aim before the proletariat.
Also to this antecedent history belongs thatgreat and well known movement, frequently specified as the first typical, socialistic-proletarian agitation; I mean the Chartist movement in England in 1837-1848. This differs from the brief outbreakings of the masses which we have just now specified in that it was carried on systematically for more than a decade, and it seems to us like a well organised movement. Without doubt it is a true proletarian agitation: if you wish so to call it, the first organised proletarian movement. It is proletarian because the great masses of the Chartists were of the labouring class; also, because its demands grew immediately out of the condition of the proletariat, and it exerted itself immediately for a material betterment of the oppressed factory-hands. Thus at that time the maximum day's work was presented as a demand; also, let me remind you of the celebrated phrase of the Rev. Mr. Stephens, who cried out to the masses: "The question which concerns us here is only one of knife and fork!" The Chartist movement is also proletarian because in it the antagonism between labour and capital arises often and sharply. The "government," the "ruling class," is identified with the capitalist. Thisfinds expression in a genuine hate against employers which at that time possessed the masses and became a battle-cry. O'Connor's word, "Down with the wretches who drink the blood of our children, take pleasure in the misery of our wives, and become satiated by our sweat!" reminds us of the phraseology of the proletarian assemblages of the present day. Further, the demand for the right to work is thoroughly proletarian; so also the right to a full profit from the work, to the "increase" which flows into the pockets of the employer. A symptom of the proletarian character of the Chartist movement is seen in its growing indifference to political questions that do not immediately concern it; as, for example, concerning the abolition of the corn tax. It is interesting to see how gradually the Chartist movement became indifferent towards the most pressing interests of the middle-class; these, though originally included, were finally and completely thrown overboard. Also, in the form of the struggle we find the proletarian character. Thus, at that time the general strike appears as a means of warfare, an idea that can rise only in a true proletarian movement. So without doubt, for these andother reasons, we have in Chartism a proletarian agitation. But I place it in the antecedent history, because I miss in it the clear programme of the proletarian-social movement, a clearly defined aim towards which it works. The only programme of the Chartist movement is the charter, which contains no true socialistic postulates, but only a collection of parliamentary reforms. It is nothing other than a platform upon which a man stands because he knows nothing better; a programme that had been taken up by the radical middle-class democracy. It is O'Connell who transferred it to the proletariat: "universal suffrage, secret ballot, equal representation, payment for members of parliaments, no property qualifications for representatives, annual parliaments." Therefore, though the kernel of the Chartist movement seems to be proletarian and though the spirit which rules it is proletarian, it must be distinguished from later definite proletarian socialistic movements on account of the uncertainty of its platform. I speak thus emphatically, because frequently, even by such a distinguished student of English history as Brentano, the Chartist is classed with the German social democrat. This conceptionholds too largely to the external form, which has similarity in both cases so far as these movements aspire after political power; but it is the inner character which is the determining feature of a social movement.
What characterises the antecedent history of the social movement everywhere is, as I have already said, its invariable similarity. Those agitations and exertions which I have specified as characteristic of the earlier history are invariably similar in every land, wherever we can speak of a social movement. But on the very threshold, in the passage from antecedent to present history, the differences in the social movements begin to become apparent. Unity at the beginning; diversity as the movement develops.
I distinguish three types; and for greater simplicity I call them the English, the French, and the German type. Under the English type of the working-man's movement I understand that agitation which has essentially an un-political, purely trade character. As the type of the French movement let me specify that which I call "revolutionism" or "Putschism," a kind of conspiracy coupled with street fights. And as the German type Iwould specify the lawful parliamentary-political working-man's agitation.
These are the three different forms in which the social movement now grows. In them all the living germs, which in general the social movement contains, unfold themselves to independent life, develop the peculiar and differing principles of this agitation. We shall see later that, after the different nations have developed their peculiarities, the social movement has a tendency again to greater uniformity.
Before we attempt to make clear these differences of national characteristics, it is perhaps well to settle a point which is decisive for a right understanding of the matter in general. I mean the main position which we as scientific observers should assume concerning this diversity of social movement. It is usual, as the variations of the movement are presented, to make a distinction between that which is called the healthy and normal on the one side, and the morbid movement on the other. Further, this distinction is usually identified with the difference between the movement in England and that upon theContinent. The English agitation, which is essentially a trade-union movement, they like to speak of as normal and proper; the Continental, which is rather political, as abnormal and improper. How shall we stand on this question? I believe that, in this discrimination and judgment, there is a twofold error, one of method and one of fact. When science pronounces any such judgment, entering into the realm of human history, that is in my opinion an overstepping of the bounds which a scientific man should place about himself. There is presented as objective knowledge a something that is purely subjective and merely the strong private opinion of an interested person—quite regardless of the fact that, as Hegel once expressed it, science always comes too late to teach a man how the world should be. So there lies here what I call a mistake of method. But this manner of looking at the matter involves also a mistake of fact, in that what it specifies as the normal tendency is the most abnormal that has ever existed, because the English social agitation could have become what it is only through a succession of unusual circumstances. For if we take the normal progress of modern capitalistic developmentas the objective standard of measurement, and in fact that is the only one which is of avail, then we would have much more right to say that the Continental movement is the normal, and the English the abnormal. I think, however, that it is more scientific to put aside the distinction between the normal and the abnormal, and to attempt rather to trace the causes for the different phases of the social movement in different lands. That at least shall be my attempt in what follows—to call attention to the variations of social movement, and to explain the reason for these variations in certain lands.
But what does it mean to "explain" these matters? Here also there is needed a word of definition, because in this, alas how often, we fail. Of course at this point we can say but little. To "explain" social occurrences means, naturally, to uncover the sources out of which they have sprung. It becomes necessary to trace these sources. And here we must not allow ourselves to become unrealistic, as is too often the case. I call any explanation of a social phenomenon unrealistic, which derives the fact superficially from the idealistic and altruistic motives of the persons involved, and whichunderestimates as impelling forces the preponderant interests of economic life, and which believes in miracles in the social world.
Thus, to make my point clear by an illustration, I hold that the usual explanation of the social development in England is unrealistic, that it cannot claim reality. According to this outline, matters in England have developed somewhat as follows: after the proletariat for some decades, and finally in the Chartist movement, had conducted itself in an unruly way in struggling for its interests, about the middle of this century it suddenly became polite, reconciled itself to the dominant economic order, and made peace with employers, who at the same time had become better men. All this occurred because a new spirit had come into man, a revolution of thought had occurred, a change from the individualistic and utilitarian view of things to a social conception of society and of the position and obligation of the individuals in it. The promoters and teachers of this new spirit are supposed to be, before all, Thomas Carlyle (1795-1881) and the Christian socialists Maurice, Kingsley, Ludlow, and others. Carlyle's teaching culminates in sentences like these: The evils which have brokenout over Europe—the French Revolution!—Chartism!—rest upon this, that the spirit of evil rules; mammonism, selfishness, forgetfulness of obligation. This spirit must be reformed; faith instead of scepticism, idealism instead of mammonism, self-sacrifice instead of selfishness, and social spirit instead of individualism must again come into the heart of man. The individual must not be the central point, as is the case in the eudemonistic-utilitarian philosophy; but social aims, objective work, ideals, shall direct the activity of man. From this conception of the fulfilment of social obligation the relation between the proletariat and the capitalist becomes ennobled and its harshness is relieved; the employer must become humanised, learn to rule truly; the workman must become manageable, learn to serve truly. Quite similarly reason the so-called Christian socialists, save that they would derive the "new social spirit" from the teachings of Christianity.
These teachings are said to bring forth fruit. That social spirit—who would have thought it!—does in fact, they say, enter into the hearts of men; the social conflict is hereby removed from the world; in place of hate and mistrustenter love and confidence. The "social question" is solved; at least we are upon the way to "social peace," capitalism is saved, socialism is sloughed off.
I shall investigate later the extent to which the social facts, here asserted, can claim reality; but assuming this—that pure harmony rules in Albion—can such a hyper-idealistic explanation satisfy us? Must we not introduce some more substantial causes than merely the results of Carlyle's sermons?
Absolute proof of the one or the other conception, naturally, cannot be had, because it is the critic's philosophy, his estimate of man, that finally decides; Wallenstein the realist and Max the idealist can never fully convince one another. Anyone can, through a massing of reasons and proofs, make the truth of his assertion concerning certain evident facts at least plausible.
I, for my part, am sceptical concerning all optimistic explanations of history, and believe rather with Wallenstein than with Max. And as now, forced by this ill-favoured mistrust, I look more closely at the development in England of the matter that lies before us, I get a picture essentially different from that which Ihave sketched for you as the prevailing conception. Before all, I find but little of that renowned "social spirit," which is said to have accomplished such wonders. In the institutions which are characteristic of proletarian development in England, trade-unions and brotherhoods, rules, so far as I can see, a healthy spirit of selfishness. Perhaps there is no social creation which is built more brutally upon selfishness than the trade-union—necessarily so. And as I read the troubled outpourings of the Christian socialists over the complete failure of their exertions, I can bring them easily into harmony with other observations. But even allowing that there is a certain effectiveness of the "social spirit," that it does exist, shall I believe that it is able to remove mountains? Or shall I not venture to assume that the economic and political development, controlled by selfishness, has strongly helped, has created the conditions in which the social spirit could work?
All this I present in a kindly spirit. My conclusion is that I cannot possibly be satisfied with Carlyle and his "social spirit," but must seek a realistic explanation, for England as for other lands. And this is indeed notdifficult. Let us see how the national peculiarities of the social movement, considering the actual facts of history, can be understood as the necessary results of specific lines of development.