Chapter XLI: Book IV: , chap. 7, § 6.) (2)

[963] The well-known German economist Professor Lexis has unfortunately not been mentioned in this chapter, for the Göttingen professor has the misfortune of being neither a State Socialist nor a member of the Historical school. His works, dealing with various topics—money, the population theory, and general economic theory—are scattered through a number of reviews and other publications, especially the _Jahrbücher für Nationalökonomie und Statistik_, Schönberg’s _Handbuch_, and the great _Handwörterbuch der Staatswissenschaften_. His writings are distinguished not only by a definitely scientific method of treatment, but also by a remarkable clearness of thought. While appearing to continue the tradition of the Classical school, he takes care to reject the optimistic conclusions which are too often regarded as an inseparable element of that tradition. In 1900 Lexis gave us a general _résumé_ of his teaching in the _Allgemeine Volkswirtschaftslehre_, where he treats of the economic world as concerned merely with the circulation of goods. In addition to an interesting theory of crises, upon which we cannot dwell just now, the most original part of the work consists of a theory concerning the method of distributing the social product between workers and capitalists. Lexis thinks that all material goods are produced by labour and measurable in terms of labour. The problem then is to determine where the capitalist gets his income. The capitalist’s profit is not the result of exploitation, as Marx thought, but is simply what is added to the sale price—a sum corresponding to the capitalist’s interest is added to the sum representing the workmen’s wages. Profit originates in the sphere of circulation. But how will this increased sale price benefit the capitalists, seeing that under existing conditions the workers can only buy the equivalent of the products which they have already helped to produce? We need to remember, however, that they produce for the capitalist as well as for themselves, and with the money thus obtained the working classes are enabled to buy whatever they need at market prices, _i.e._ at a price that includes interest, which constitutes the capitalist’s profit. Whenever the capitalists themselves purchase goods made by themselves they are reciprocally benefiting one another. Their class position is not modified by such procedure, for each _entrepreneur_ simply draws profits in proportion to his capital. And so we avoid the most serious objection which can be raised to Marx’s theory. This explanation of the surplus value received by the capitalists is at least very ingenious. Lexis has been mostly influenced by Marx and Rodbertus, and has attempted a fusion of their more vigorous conceptions. Despite the objections that might be raised to it, the work is certainly one of the most original of recent years.

[964] Karl Marx, generally spoken of as a Jew, was born on May 5, 1818, of Jewish parents who had been converted to Protestantism. Born of a respectable _bourgeois_ family and wedded to the daughter of a German baron, few would have predicted for him the career of a militant socialist. Such was to be his lot, however. In 1843, at the age of twenty-five, the authorities having suppressed a newspaper which he was conducting, he fled to Paris, and thence to Brussels. Returning to Germany during the Revolution of 1848, in which he took an active part, he was again expelled, and this time took refuge in London (1849). Here he spent the rest of his life (about thirty years), leaving for France a short time before his death in 1883. He died at London on March 14 in that year.

Although Marx was one of the founders and directors of the famous association known as the “International,” which was the terror of every European Government between 1863 and 1872, he was not a mere revolutionary like his rival Bakunin, nor was he a famous tribune of the people like Lassalle. He was essentially a student, an affectionate father, like Proudhon, an indefatigable traveller, and a man of great intellectual culture.

The best known of his works, which is frequently quoted but seldom read, is _Das Kapital_, of which the first volume—the only one published during his lifetime—appeared in 1867. The other two volumes were issued after his death, in 1885 and 1894, through the efforts of his collaborator Engels.

This book has exercised a great influence upon nineteenth-century thought, and probably no work, with the exception of the Bible and the Pandects, has given rise to such a host of commentators and apologists. Marx’s other writings, though much less frequently quoted, are also exceedingly important, especially _La Misère de la Philosophie_, published in 1847 in answer to Proudhon’s _Les Contradictions Économiques_; _Zur Kritik der politischen Oekonomie_ (1859); and particularly the _Communist Manifesto_, published in January 1848. The _Manifesto_ is merely a pamphlet, and at first it attracted scarcely any attention, but Labriola goes so far as to say—not without some exaggeration, perhaps—that “the date of its publication marks the beginning of a new era” (_Essai sur la Conception matérialiste de l’Histoire_, p. 81). At any rate, it is the breviary of modern socialism. There is scarcely a single one of its phrases, each of which stings like a dart, that has not been invoked a thousand times. The _Programme of the Communist Manifesto_ is included in Ensor’s _Modern Socialism_.

It is a much-debated question as to whether Karl Marx was influenced by French socialists, and if so to what extent. On the question of his indebtedness to Pecqueur and Proudhon see Bourguin’s article in _La Revue d’Économie politique_, 1892, on _Des Rapports entre Proudhon et K. Marx_. Proudhon’s work, at any rate, was known to him, for one of his books was a refutation of the doctrines of the _petit bourgeois_, as he called him. Certain analogies between the works of these two writers to which we shall have to call attention will help us to appreciate the extent to which Marx is indebted to Proudhon. But, as Anton Menger has pointed out, we must seek Marx’s antecedents among English socialists, in the works of writers like Thompson especially. Nor must we forget his friend and collaborator Friedrich Engels, who for the sake of his master has been content to remain in the background. Engels collaborated in the publication of the famous _Manifesto_ in 1848, and it was he who piously collected and edited Karl Marx’s posthumous work. It is difficult to know exactly what part he played in the development of Marx’s ideas, but it is highly probable that it was considerable.

[965] Marx calls attention to the fact that even Aristotle was puzzled by this common element which exchanged objects seemed to possess, and by the fact that exchange appeared to make them of equal value. We say that 5 beds = 1 house. “What is that equal something, that common substance, which admits of the value of the beds being expressed by a house? Such a thing, in truth, cannot exist, says Aristotle. And why not? Compared with the beds the house does represent something equal to them, in so far as it represents what is really equal, both in the beds and the house. And that is—human labour.” (_Kapital_, p. 29; Moore and Aveling’s translation—to which the Translator is indebted for the succeeding quotations also.)

“If we make abstraction from its use-value we make abstraction at the same time from the material elements and shapes that make the product a use-value.… Its existence as a material thing is put out of sight. Neither can it any longer be regarded as the product of the labour of the joiner, the mason, the spinner, or of any other definite kind of productive labour … there is nothing left but what is common to them all; all are reduced to one and the same sort of labour—human labour in the abstract.” (_Ibid._, p. 5.)

[966] “The capitalist epoch is therefore characterized by this, that labour-power takes in the eyes of the labourer himself the form of a commodity which is his property; his labour consequently becomes wage-labour.… Given the individual, the production of labour-power consists in his reproduction of himself or his maintenance. For his maintenance he requires a given quantity of the means of subsistence. Therefore the labour-time requisite for the production of labour-power reduces itself to that necessary for the production of those means of subsistence: in other words, the value of labour-power is the value of the means of subsistence necessary for the maintenance of the labourer.” (_Kapital_, p. 149.)

[967] This demonstration implies that the wages drawn by the worker is necessarily only just equal to the value of the means of his subsistence. It is the old classic law of Turgot and Ricardo over again, which Lassalle, Marx’s contemporary and rival, graphically called the “brazen law of wages.” We are simply given a more scientific demonstration of it, that is all.

The demonstration is based upon a postulate which ought first to have been proved, namely, that the quantity of labour necessary to keep the worker alive is always less than the quantity which he provides for his master. But what is there to prove that a man who works ten hours a day does not require all those ten hours to produce sufficient for his upkeep? Is there some natural law that supports this contention? Marx simply regards it as an axiom and attempts no proof. Everyone would admit it to be true in a general way—as a kind of empirical law. For were it true that man’s labour was wholly absorbed by the necessaries of life there would be no increase of numbers, no saving of capital, and civilisation, which is the product of leisure, would never have been possible.

What we have here is the Physiocratic “net product” once again, with this difference, that instead of being confined to agricultural labour it is now regarded as an attribute of labour of every kind.

[968] See p. 184 for what is said of Sismondi and his conception of “increment value.”

[969] It is necessary to point out that this proportion, which gives half the value to hand labour, leaving 100 per cent. surplus value, is put forward merely for the sake of illustration. Some Marxians, however, among whom is Jules Guesde, claim that this is actually the proportion in practice. Marx himself would probably have been more moderate in his estimate, because in one part of his thesis he accepts the statement of English manufacturers who declared that it was just the last hour that gave them their profits.

[970] The development of machinery, according to the Marxian theory, tends to reduce the cost of living, and consequently the price of labour, by producing cheaper clothes, furniture, etc., and to a lesser extent cheaper food.

By parity of reasoning ought it not to reduce the price of goods produced by the wage-earner and so lower the surplus value? We must be careful, however, not to confuse a reduction in the price of each unit with a reduction in the total value of the articles produced by machinery. A yard of cloth produced by a modern loom has not the same value as a yard produced by an old hand-loom. But the value of the total quantity produced each day must be equal to the value produced by hand, provided the same number of hours have been spent upon its production.

[971] Marx points out that there are other ways of increasing the amount of work done and of adding to the surplus value, such as the speeding up of labour. Speeding up does not increase the value of the goods, because the value depends upon the time spent upon them, and not upon the intensity of the effort put forth, but it does lower the cost of production.

[972] “Our friend Money-bags … must buy his commodities at their value, must sell them at their value, and yet at the end of the process must withdraw more value from circulation than he threw into it at starting.… These are the conditions of the problem. _Hic Rhodus! hic salta!_” (_Kapital_, p. 145.) Cf. p. 215, where something is said about the different phases through which the idea of exploitation has passed.

Although Marx never says that the worker is actually robbed by the capitalist, but simply that the capitalist profits by circumstances which he is powerless to change, that has not prevented him treating the capitalist somewhat harshly and unjustly even, judging from his own point of view. He speaks of the capitalist as “a vampire which thrives upon the blood of others and becomes stouter and broader the more blood it gets.” He might have added that no blame could be attached to the vampire, seeing that it only obeyed the tendencies of its nature.

[973] “By turning his money into commodities that serve as the material elements of a new product, and as factors in the labour process by incorporating living labour with their dead substance, the capitalist at the same time converts value—_i.e._ past, materialized, and dead labour—into capital, into value big with value, a live monster that is fruitful and multiplies.” (_Ibid._, p. 176.)

[974] A potter working with his hands makes a vase in ten hours; each vase, then, costs ten hours’ labour. The same potter decides to make a wheel—a species of fixed capital. Setting up the wheel was a hundred hours’ task. If he still continues to produce only one vase _per diem_, which is a perfectly absurd proposition, for he would never have gone to the trouble of making the wheel if it did not mean some advantage to him, the value of each vase will now be 10 hours + 100 hours divided by _x_, which is the number of vases he would have produced had he not wasted his time making a wheel.

[975] Take two industries, A and B, each employing a capital of £1000. In A the amount of fixed capital is £100 and circulating £900. In B the fixed = £900 and the circulating £100. Admitting that surplus value is at the rate of 100 per cent., as in the example chosen just now, the total surplus value in A will be £900, equal to a profit of 90 per cent. on a capital of £1000. B, on the other hand, will only make £100 profit, which is equal to 10 per cent.

[976] This explanation only appears in the later volumes, which were published after his death.

It is true that Marx had drawn attention to the contradiction in the first volume, but no explanation was forthcoming until the later volumes appeared. Having stated that the greater quantity of surplus value is the direct result of the greater proportion of circulating capital employed, he proceeds: “This law clearly contradicts all experience based on appearance. Everyone knows that a cotton-spinner who, reckoning the percentage on the whole of his applied capital, employs much constant and little variable capital, does not, on account of this, pocket less profit or surplus value than a baker who relatively sets in motion much variable and little constant capital. For the solution of this apparent contradiction many intermediate terms are as yet wanted, as from the standpoint of elementary algebra many intermediate terms are wanted to demonstrate that 0/0 may represent an actual magnitude.… Vulgar economy, which, indeed, has really learnt nothing, here, as everywhere, sticks to appearance in opposition to the law which regulates and explains them.” (_Kapital_, p. 274.)

It is probable that Marx was not very well satisfied with his explanation, which may account for his reluctance to publish it during his lifetime.

[977] In the example just given suppose A and B represent the total industry of the country: the whole national industry will be made up of £900 + £100 circulating capital and £100 + £900 fixed—£2000 altogether. If the surplus value be at the rate of 100 per cent. of the circulating capital, the total capital value will be £900 + £100 = £1000 on a capital of £2000, or a percentage of 50.

[978] Taking the example given on p. 427, the mean of £900 + £100 = £500, and industry A, instead of 90 per cent., will draw only 50 per cent. profit, while industry B, instead of drawing only 10 per cent., will draw 50 per cent.

[979] We have indifferently employed the terms “profit” and “surplus value” simply because the former is a much more familiar word. But we must warn the reader against thinking that the two terms are synonymous. The surplus value is all that part of the value of the produce which is over and above the expenses of labour involved in its production—that enormous slice which becomes the property of every class in society except the workers, not merely the employers, but merchants, landlords, etc.; while profit is that part of the surplus value which the employers of labour keep for their own use. The rate of profit also is something quite different from the percentage of surplus value, as we shall see later.

We must call attention once more to the different interpretations which have been given of the term “profit.” Marx and the English economists take the word to comprise the whole revenue of capital under a _régime_ of free competition, no distinction being drawn between profit properly so called and interest. To-day we understand by profit the income drawn by the _entrepreneur_—as distinct from the capitalist—as the result of certain favourable circumstances, notably imperfect competition.

It would be absurd to speak of a law of equality of profit, seeing that profit, as we have defined it, is, like rent, a differential revenue.

[980] We are fully aware of the fact that our method of approach must appear absurd from the Marxian standpoint, because it lays Marx open to the charge of starting with a preconceived idea, much after the style of economists like Bastiat, for example. Such a method, it is contended, is utterly unscientific and unworthy of a great mind like Marx’s.

However great he may have been, we cannot help thinking that, in common with most scientists, he discovered just what he was looking for, and it would be difficult to prove that Marx was not a socialist long before he began the writing of _Kapital_, even long before he had constructed a system at all.

Our object in stating the conclusion first of all is to help the reader to an understanding of the argument, but it is quite open to anyone who thinks differently to say that Marx had not the least idea where the analysis would lead him.

[981] The general use of the term “collectivism” is largely due to Marx. While “collectivism” occurs almost on every page of the _Manifesto_, the term “communism,” on the other hand, is never once employed.

James Guillaume, in the preface to the second volume of Bakunin’s works, p. xxxvi, gives the following account of the origin of the word “collectivism”: “At the fourth General Congress of the International, held at Bâle in 1869, almost every delegate voted in favour of collective property. But there were two distinct opinions cherished by the delegates present. The German-Swiss, the English, and the German delegates were really State communists. The Spanish, Belgian, French-Swiss, and most of the French delegates were federal or anarchist communists who took the name of collectivists. Bakunin belonged to the second group, and to this group also belonged the Belgian Paepe and the French Varlin.” Bakunin always spoke of himself as a collectivist and not a communist, and in this respect he differs from Marx. The habit of thinking that all anarchists are communists is largely due to Kropotkin.

[982] “We think we can perceive a change in the physiognomy of our _dramatis personæ_. He who before was the money-owner now strides in front as capitalist; the possessor of labour-power follows as his labourer. The one with an air of importance, smirking, intent on business; the other timid and holding back, like one who is bringing his own hide to market and has nothing to expect but—a hiding.” (_Kapital_, p. 155.)

[983] _Manifesto_, § 1.

[984] One of the chief objects of the trusts is the avoidance of over-production, but that does not mean less unemployment; on the contrary, a part of their policy consists in closing down certain establishments which appear to be unnecessary.

[985] See the _Manifesto_ for an eloquent statement of this.

[986] Labriola.

[987] _Kapital_, p. 647.

[988] _Manifesto_, § 1.

[989] Engels in his preface to the _Manifesto_ admits that one of its objects was “to announce the inevitable and imminent downfall of _bourgeois_ property.”

Nowadays, however, it is more usual to characterise the aim of collectivism as an attempt to abolish the wage-earning class—abolition of property being simply a step towards that. This is how Labriola writes in his _Essai sur la Conception matérialiste_ (2nd ed., p. 62): “The proletariat must learn to concentrate upon one thing, namely, the abolition of the wage-earner.”

It is well to remember that such is also the aim of the Associationists, the co-operators, and the Radical Socialists. They proceed, however, from the opposite point of view, and would multiply property rather than abolish it, thinking that the latter process would merely universalise the wage-earner.

[990] “Communism deprives no man of the power to appropriate the products of society. All that it does is to deprive him of the power to subjugate the labour of others by means of such appropriation.” (_Manifesto_, § 2.)

[991] To say that Karl Marx was the leader of a great socialist school is hardly the way to describe him, for it is necessary that we should remember that the vast majority of those who consider themselves socialists are more or less his disciples. The other socialist schools, the anarchists, the Fabians, the Collinsists, and the followers of Henry George, cut a very poor figure beside his.

The bulk of his adherents is drawn either from Germany or Russia, England being the country which has done least to swell the ranks of his followers. In France the pure doctrine has been vigorously preached since 1878 by MM. Jules Guesde and Lafargue—the latter of whom is Marx’s son-in-law. But a great many French socialists, though collectivists in name, refuse their adhesion to the Marxian doctrine in all its rigidity. They have accepted three of his main principles—the socialisation of the means of production, class war, and internationalism—but reject his theory of value and his materialistic conception of history. Moreover, they show no desire to break with the French socialist tradition, which was pre-eminently idealistic. Benoît Malon, the founder of the _Revue socialiste_ (1885), was one of the earliest representatives of French collectivism, and among his successors may be reckoned M. George Renard and Fournière.

[992] Labriola, _Essai sur la Conception matérialiste de l’Histoire_, p. 24. The Saint-Simonians had already made a similar claim. It is hardly fair to class them among the Utopians, and some Marxians are quite ready to admit their claim to priority in this matter.

[993] Georges Sorel, one of Marx’s disciples, writing in no derogatory spirit, we may be certain, expresses himself as follows: “Our experience of the Marxian theory of value convinces us of the importance which obscurity of style may lend to a doctrine”—a remark that is applicable to other writers besides Marx.

[994] See Sorel’s article, _Les Polémiques pour l’Interprétation du Marxisme_, in the _Revue internationale de Sociologie_, 1900, p. 248. There is no such thing as a theory of value—in the accepted sense of the term in Marx. What we have is a theory of economic equilibrium which would only be true of a very rudimentary kind of society. It is assumed, for example, that all industries are equally easy or difficult, that all the workers are of one type, that ten men working for one hour will produce the same amount of wealth no matter what task they are engaged upon. It is this equality that enables comparison to be made between one commodity and another, and this constitutes their value. We are simply treated to an abstraction which shows that with the exercise of a little ingenuity it is at least possible to reconcile the theory of time-value and the theory of market price.

[995] _Conception matérialiste_, p. 91. Sorel says: “Marxism is really much more akin to the Manchester doctrine than to the Utopian. We must never forget this.” (_La Décomposition du Marxisme_, p. 44.)

[996] “The _bourgeoisie_, historically, has played a most revolutionary part.… The _bourgeoisie_ cannot exist without constantly revolutionising the instruments of production, and thereby the relations of production, and with them the whole relations of society.… All fixed, fast-frozen relations, with their train of ancient and venerable prejudices and opinions, are swept away, all new-formed ones become antiquated before they can ossify, all that is solid melts into air, all that is holy is profaned.” (_Manifesto_, § 1.)

Besides, the Marxians themselves have tried to prove that capital is actively undermining its own existence, which is surely the _ne plus ultra_ of the revolutionary temperament.

[997] “The result is that capital has managed to solve problems which the Utopians tackled in vain. It has also given rise to conditions which permit of an entrance into a new form of society. Thus socialism will not need to invent new machinery or to get people accustomed to them,” etc. (Sorel, _loc. cit._, p. 41.)

[998] “The economists regard the feudal institutions as artificial, the _bourgeois_ as natural. The existing economic ties, in their opinion, are elemental laws that must always bind society.… They have had some history, that is all we can really say.” (Marx, _Misère de la Philosophie_, pp. 167-168.)

[999] _Manifesto_, § 2.

[1000] Whenever they change their method of production men also change their whole social outlook. “The hand-mill gave us the servile State; the steam-mill is the parent of the industrial, capitalist State.” (_Misère de la Philosophie_, 2nd ed., p. 156.) This oft-repeated phrase contains a picturesque antithesis rather than a scientific formula of historical materialism. In his preface to his _Kritik der politischen Oekonomie_ Marx expresses himself with much more moderation. The following is the most important passage of that celebrated page (p. 5):

“In the course of their efforts at production men enter into certain definite and necessary relations which may be wholly independent of their own individual preferences—such industrial ties being, of course, correlative to the state of their productive forces. Taken together, all these links constitute the economic structure of society. In other words, it supplies a basis upon which the legal and political superstructure is raised, and corresponding to it are certain social forms which depend upon the public conscience. The method of producing commodities, speaking generally, fixes the social, political, and intellectual _processus_ of life. A man’s conscience has less to do with determining his manner of life than has his manner of life with determining the state of his conscience.”

The word “fixes,” even when qualified by “speaking generally,” seems a little pronounced, and Marxism has substituted the term “explained,” which is somewhat nearer the mark. Labriola says that “it merely represents an attempt to explain historical facts in the light of the economic substructure.” (_Conception matérialiste_, p. 120.)

This materialistic conception is developed in a very paradoxical fashion in Loria’s _La Constitution sociale_. He shows how all history and every war, whether of Guelph or of Ghibelline, the Reformation and the French Revolution, and even the death of Christ upon Calvary, rest upon an economic basis. In Loria’s opinion, however, this basal fact is not industrialism, but the various types of land systems. See the chapter on Rent.

It would not be correct to regard Marxism as a mere expression of fatalism or out-and-out determinism. The Marxian pretends to be, and as a matter of fact he really is, a great believer in will-power. Once the workers see where their interests really lie he would have them move towards that goal with irresistible strength. It is not always even necessary to define the end quite clearly before beginning to move. “Everything that has happened in history has, of course, been the work of man, but only very rarely has it been the result of deliberate choice and well-considered planning on his part.” (Labriola, _Conception matérialiste_, p. 133.) Elsewhere: “The successive creation of different social environments means the development of man himself.” (_Ibid._, pp. 131-132.)

It would be beyond the scope of this work to enter into a metaphysical discussion of these theories, however much one would like to.

[1001] See the works of MM. Jaurès, _Études socialistes_; George Renard, _Le Régime socialiste_; Fournière, _L’Individu, l’Association, et l’État_.

[1002] Labriola, _op. cit._ Vandervelde (_L’Idéalisme Marxiste_, in _La Revue socialiste_, February 1904) says that “upon final analysis it will be found that Marx’s whole argument rests upon a moral basis, which is that justice requires that every man should get all that he produces.”

M. Landry, in a book of lectures delivered by different authors entitled _Études sur la Philosophie morale au XIXe Siècle_ (p. 164), is of an entirely different opinion. He thinks that Marx’s moral basis is simply potentiality. In other words, everything that has been created in the ordinary course of economic development is moral, everything that has been destroyed is immoral.

[1003] Hence the alliance of the Marxians with what appears to be a directly opposite philosophy—that of William James and Bergson (see Guy Grand, _La Philosophie syndicaliste_).

[1004] _Manifesto._ It is impossible to do away with the intellectuals altogether, but they may be reduced to the rank of mere wage-earners. “The Marxians always regarded revolution as the special privilege of the producers, by whom, of course, they understood the manual workers, who, accustomed as they are to nothing but the factory _régime_, would force the intellectuals also to supply some of the more ordinary wants of life.” (Sorel, _Décomposition du Marxisme_, p. 51.)

[1005] _Manifesto_, § 2. It is necessary that we should be reminded of the fact that the Saint-Simonians had already emphasised the antagonism by speaking, not of rich and poor, but of idlers and workers. The differentiation, that is to say, was economic. The Marxian distinction is quite different, for the Saint-Simonians included within the category workers, bankers, and employers, for example, who are excluded by the Marxians. In some cases the Saint-Simonians thought they had even better claims to inclusion than the ordinary worker.

[1006] The first of these means, namely, the acquiring of public works by the State, is spoken of as unified socialism in France, whereas the second, which relies upon direct action without the assistance of any political organisation, is known as syndicalism and is represented by the Confédération générale du Travail (see p. 480).

[1007] Marx, _Misère de la Philosophie_. “What does the word ‘revolt’ imply? Simply disobedience to law. But what are these laws that govern our lives? They are just the products of _bourgeois_ society and of the institutions which they are supposed to defend. Revolution will simply mean replacing these laws by others which will have an entirely different kind of justification.”

[1008] “It is the worst side of things that begets movement and makes history by begetting strife.” (_Ibid._, 2nd ed., p. 173.)

[1009] Preface to _Kapital_, p. xix.

[1010] For the evolution of Marxism see Sombart’s lively volume _Sozialismus und soziale Bewegung im 19 Jahrhundert_ (6th ed., 1908), and also Georges Sorel, _La Décomposition du Marxisme_ (1908).

[1011] Labriola, _Socialisme et Philosophie_, p. 29. Others declare more unmistakably still that “these obscure formulæ [the writer is thinking of surplus labour] lead to equivocation and must be banished from the science altogether.” (Sorel, _Revue internationale de Sociologie_, 1900, p. 270.)

[1012] M. Sorel says of the revolutionary movement that everything connected with it is very improbable. (_Décomposition du Marxisme_.)

[1013] The Italian syndicalist Arthur Labriola (_Revue socialiste_, 1899, vol. i, p. 674) writes as follows: “While we Marxians are trying to repatch the master’s cloak political economy is making some headway every day. If we compare Marx’s _Kapital_ with Marshall’s _Principles_—chapter by chapter, that is to say—we shall find that problems which required a few hundred pages in the _Kapital_ are solved in a few lines by Marshall.” B. Croce (_Materialismo storico ed Economia marxistica_, 1900, p. 105) writes thus: “I am strongly in favour of economic construction along Hedonistic lines. But that does not satisfy the natural desire for a sociological treatment of profits, and such treatment is impossible unless we make use of the comparative considerations suggested by Marx.” Lastly, Sorel, in _Saggi di Critica del Marxismo_ (1903, p. 13) says: “It is necessary to give up the attempt to transform socialism into a science.”

[1014] Especially in that passage to which Bernstein calls attention: “According to the law of value not merely must one devote the socially necessary amount of time to the production of each commodity, but each group of commodities must have such extra effort spent upon it as the nature of the commodity or the character of the demand requires. The first condition of value is utility or the satisfaction of some social need—that is, value in use raised to such a degree of potentiality as shall determine the proportion of total social labour to each of the various kinds of production.” (_Kapital_, vol. iii.)

Bernstein adds: “This admission makes it impossible to treat the themes of Gossen, of Jevons, and of Böhm-Bawerk as so many insignificant irrelevancies.” (_Die Voraussetzungen des Sozialismus._)

[1015] “The surplus-value theory may be true or it may be false, but that will make no difference to the existence of surplus labour. Surplus labour is a fact of experience, demonstrable by observation, and requires no deductive proof.” (Bernstein, _loc. cit._, p. 42.) That Marx did not treat it with quite the same indifference is evident from the fact that the whole theory is developed, not incidentally in the course of the work, but at the very opening of the book.

[1016] In the book already quoted, which was published in 1899.

[1017] Sorel, _Les Polémiques pour l’Interprétation du Marxisme_, in the _Revue internationale de Sociologie_, 1900.

[1018] Sorel, _Décomposition du Marxisme_, p. 33.

[1019] _Socialisme et Social-démocratie_, p. 234. We have recently been told that syndicalism is just a literal application of Bergson’s philosophy.

[1020] This point of view is very neatly expressed in an article of M. Berth’s (_Mouvement socialiste_, May 1908, p. 393): “From a purely negative or critical point of view we agree with Bernstein rather than the orthodox Kautsky. But what does Bernstein propose to substitute for the revolutionary ideal—impracticable as it was—of the German Social Democratic party? The alternative offered is a simple democratic, reformist evolution, a political or economic development which would just be a pale imitation of the _bourgeois_ Liberal _régime_, which it is hoped would result in the emancipation of the workers by getting rid of _bourgeois_ Liberalism altogether. The complete democratisation of politics and economics would, it is hoped, effect the necessary improvement. On this point we syndicalists must definitely part company with Bernstein and his _confrères_, for what we want is not a mere evolution, but a revolutionary creation of new social forms.”

[1021] “An organisation of producers who will be able to manage their own affairs without having recourse to the superior knowledge which the typical _bourgeois_ in supposed to possess.” (Sorel, _Décomposition du Marxisme_, pp. 60-61.)

[1022] “Revolutionary syndicalism is the great educative force which contemporary society has at its disposal to prepare it for the tasks which await it.” (Sorel, _Réflexions sur la Violence_, p. 244; 1909.)

“In the general ruin of institutions something new and powerful will remain intact. This will be what is generally known as the proletarian soul, which it is hoped will survive the general reassessment of moral values, but that will depend on the energy displayed by the workers in resisting the corruption of the _bourgeoisie_ and in meeting their advances with the most unmistakable hostility.” (_Ibid._, p. 253.)

It is altogether a different point of view from that of the consumer, the shareholder, or the “literary idler,” who are only interested in the success of buyers’ social leagues, or in consumers’ societies. Cf. p. 342.

[1023] This incessant struggle is what Sorel has named violence, which he thinks is peculiarly healthy. “I have shown,” says he, “that proletarian violence has an entirely different significance from that usually attributed to it by politicians and amateur students of society.” It is incorrect, however, to say that he is in favour of sabotage. “Sabotage,” says Sorel, “belongs to the old _régime_, but does nothing to set the worker in the way of emancipation.” (_Mouvement socialiste_, 1905, November 1 and 15.)

One cannot fail to see the antagonism which exists in France between the Socialistes Unifiés (which is largely recruited from the old Marxian party) and the syndicalists, who condemn both universal suffrage and parliamentary action.

[1024] “One no longer thinks of drawing up a scheme which shall determine the way in which people in the future are to seek their own well-being. The problem now is how to complete the revolutionary education of the proletarian.” (Sorel, _Décomposition du Marxisme_, introduction, p. 37.)

[1025] This group is represented by the review called _Le Mouvement socialiste_, which is controlled by M. Lagardelle. Sorel has withdrawn from the group and is now leading a campaign in favour of Catholic nationalism.

The recent literature of syndicalism is very extensive. We have already mentioned M. Guy Grand’s _La Philosophie Syndicaliste_.

[1026] _Réflexions sur la Violence_, p. xxxv. We must note, however, that M. Sorel protests against any confusion being made between the myth as he understands it and Utopian socialism. The myth is obviously superior in the fact that it cannot be refuted, seeing that it is merely the expression of a conviction. See pp. xxv and 218 of the same work.

[1027] We need only recall the doctrine of usury and the legislation on the question—all of it the outcome of Canonist teaching.

[1028] A Catholic professor—long since forgotten—of the name of de Coux wrote as follows in a book entitled _Essai d’Economie politique_, published in 1832: “The practical application of Catholicism would result in the finest system of social economy that the world has ever seen.”

[1029] “Catholicism alone has the necessary cohesion and power to withstand socialism, which has been erected upon the ruins of the Liberal system.” (Comte de Mun, _La Question sociale au XIXe Siècle_, 1900.)

“There is no need to think of the Church as a kind of gendarme in cassock flinging itself against the people in the interest of capital. Rather it should be understood that it is working in the interests and solely for the defence of the weak.” (Comte de Mun, _Discours_, April 1893.)

[1030] The Social Christians somewhere make the remark that even if the orthodox account of creation is destined to disappear before the onslaughts of the evolutionary theory and Adam makes way for the gorilla, the problem would merely be intensified, for it would still be necessary to get rid of the “old man.” “We live,” says Brunetière, “in the strength of the victories won over the more primitive instincts of our nature” (_Revue des Deux Mondes_, May 1, 1895).

Kidd in his _Social Evolution_, a work which attracted great attention when it was first published in 1894, attempts to apply the Darwinian theory to Christianity. He accepts the Darwinian hypothesis that the struggle for existence and natural selection constitute the mainsprings of progress. But the struggle may demand, or the selection involve, the sacrifice of individual to collective interest, and the only force which can inspire such sacrifice is religion.

[1031] It was no Christian Socialist, but Auguste Comte, the founder of Positivism, who wrote: “The original equality of men is not a doctrine founded simply upon the observation of social facts. It was only clearly affirmed for the first time by Christianity.” (_Traité de Politique_, vol. i, p. 407.)

[1032] Frédéric Le Play (1806-82) was a mining engineer, and was educated at the École Polytechnique. He subsequently became a professor at the École des Mines and a Counseiller d’État. In 1855 he published a collection of monographs dealing with working-class families under the title of _Les Ouvriers européens_, in one volume (the second edition, which appeared in 1877, consisted of six volumes). In 1864 he published an exposition of his social creed in _La Réforme sociale_, a book that Montalembert declared to be “the most original, the most courageous, the most useful, and altogether the most powerful book of the century.” It hardly deserves such extravagant praise, perhaps, but it is true that many of its more pessimistic prophecies concerning the future of France have been very curiously verified.

In 1856 Le Play founded La Société d’Économie sociale, which since 1881 has been responsible for the publication of _La Réforme sociale_. He organised the Universal Exhibition in 1867, and was one of the first to arrange exhibitions of social work. For a _résumé_ of his life and work see _Frédéric Le Play d’après lui-même_, by Auburtin (Paris, 1906).

[1033] _Programme des Unions de la Paix sociale_, chap. 1.

[1034] “The gravest and most dangerous error of all, and one that has been the parent of all our revolutions, is the false principle which the innovators of 1789 would put into practice and which affirms the original perfection of mankind. It also encourages the belief that a society composed of ‘natural’ men would enjoy peace and happiness without any effort at all, and that these desiderata are just the spontaneous outcome of every free society.”

[1035] “It is the great misfortune of France that the family should be immersed in the commune, the commune in the department, the department in the State.” (_La Réforme sociale_, vol. iii, Book VII.)

[1036] “It [the patriarchal _régime_] in all matters relating to economic action or to social life shows greater attachment to the past than concern for the future. Obedience is the keynote rather than initiation. The family group tends to arrest the enterprise which would characterise the action of the more independent members of the family in a somewhat freer atmosphere.” (_La Réforme sociale_, Book III.)

[1037] “In short, I have never met with a social organisation which to the same extent vitiates the laws both of nature and morality.”

[1038] Le Play, who had some influence over Napoleon III, tried to get him to consent to some such modification of the Civil Code. But the Emperor, though favourably inclined, and despot as he was, dared not alienate public sympathy in the matter. And really fathers seldom exercise the full authority which the law gives them even now. The evil, then, if it is an evil, is deeper than Le Play imagined, and seems to be moral rather than legal.

[1039] “Human societies should aim not so much at the creation of wealth as such, but rather at increasing the well-being of mankind. Well-being includes daily bread, but it does not exclude social peace.” (Claudio Jannet in a lecture on _Les Quatre Écoles d’Économie sociale_.)

[1040] We must remember that these were the orthodox views then. Villermé, writing in 1840 in his celebrated _Tableau de l’État moral et physique des Ouvriers_, thought it was the employers really who could best improve the circumstances and character of the workers.

[1041] We get some idea of the importance which he attributed to the permanence of engagements when we realise that he contemplated the abolition of slavery with a measure of regret. (_La Réforme sociale._)

[1042] _Principles_, Book IV, chap. 7.

[1043] “Among the panaceas advocated in our time none has been more criticised than ‘association.’ From a practical point of view these societies seem to present none of the advantages ordinarily associated either with complete independence or with a well-managed business concern.”

[1044] “I have frequently posted as much as 1000 kilometres in order to consult some eminent landowner living on the confines of Europe.” (Letter to M. de Ribbes, October 3, 1867.)

[1045] “This method is based upon a careful observation of each fact and its past history. Nothing is left to the imagination, the presupposition, or the prejudices of the observer. It is essentially scientific and exact.” (_La Réforme en Europe._)

[1046] These monographs appeared first of all, as we have seen, in his great work on the European workmen in 1855. The work has been carried on by his disciples and the results incorporated in the _Ouvriers des Deux Mondes_, which already numbers above a hundred volumes. They have also employed the method in writing monographs on industries and communes, etc.

The method requires supplementing by reference to statistics of population and wages, which can only be supplied, of course, by Governments.

[1047] “The comparison of receipts and expenditure should help to discover any oversight, just as the weight of a chemical substance both before and after an experiment helps to determine the nature of the chemical reaction.” (Bureau, _L’Œuvre d’Henri de Tourville_.)

[1048] With a good deal of candour he admits offering a reward to anyone who could show him a single happy family except under conditions of this kind. “But,” he adds, “all my efforts proved fruitless.” (_Les Ouvriers européens_, vol. iv, introduction.)

[1049] When Le Play teaches us that the essential condition of society implies

A double foundation—the Decalogue and paternal authority,
A twofold link—religion and sovereignty, and
Three kinds of material—the community, private property, and employers,

we cannot help thinking that the so-called method of observation has a very pronounced trait of dogmatism in its constitution.

[1050] “The principal object to aim at here is the limitation of the ecclesiastical _personnel_ with a view to keeping them all fully employed,” as he adds later on. He had the same antipathy to religious congregations as he had to other forms of association.

[1051] “No social phenomenon can ever be explained if it is taken out of its own setting. All social science is based upon this law.” (Demolins, _La Classification sociale_.)

[1052] The similarity noted here has given rise to emphatic protests on the part of certain members of this school. There is no need to take offence at the epithet, however, provided we are careful to distinguish it from philosophic materialism and recognise that it does not necessarily exclude idealism.

[1053] This branch of the school, of which Tourville and Demolins were the earliest leaders, has given us several excellent books. Demolins’ own work on the superiority of the Anglo-Saxons caused quite a stir. Then there is M. de Rousiers’ book on producers’ industrial unions, and P. du Maroussem’s. We would also specially mention Paul Bureau’s _Le Contrat de Travail_ (1902), _La Participation aux Bénéfices_, and _La Crise morale des Temps nouveaux_. Bureau’s work is characterised by precise impartial analysis of facts combined with great moral fervour.

[1054] Huet was a professor at Ghent, which accounts for his being considered a Belgian, just as Walras is generally considered a Swiss.

[1055] He was the first to emphasise the importance of borrowers combining. Only in this way can the poor hope to offer some real security. “How is it that the worker cannot borrow? Simply because he has no security to offer except just his work in the future. That future guarantee can only become real and certain by means of combination. Union eliminates the uncertainty which hitherto made the security worthless and the loan impossible.” (_La Question du Travail_, p. 25.)

“The problem is to outline a state of society where working men will work only for themselves and not for others; where none will reap but has already sown, and where each will enjoy the fruits of his own labour.” (_Ibid._)

[1056] “Christianity and revolution as far as humanity is concerned have identical aims, and the one is the natural outcome of the other.” (Buchez, _Traité de la Politique_, vol. ii, p. 504.)

[1057] Moufang’s principal writings were published in 1864 under the title of _Le Question ouvrière et le Christianisme_. He could never make up his mind as between the corporative and the co-operative ideal, however. The latter was very much to the front just then, not only in France, but also with the English Christian Socialists and with the German socialist Lassalle. This was before the co-operative movement was eclipsed by trade unionism.

Hitze, however, shows none of his master’s hesitation, but emphatically declares that “the solution of the social question is essentially and exclusively bound up with a reorganisation of trades and professions. We must have the mediæval _régime_ of corporations re-established—a _régime_ which offers a better solution of the social problem than any which existed either before or after. Of course times have changed, and certain features of the mediæval _régime_ would need modification. But some such corporative _régime_ conceived in a more democratic spirit must form the economic basis.” (_Capital and Labour._)

[1058] “We must direct all our private initiative and concentrate public attention upon this one reform—the corporative reorganisation of society.” (_Programme de l’Œuvre des Cercles ouvriers_, April 1894.)

Co-operative association is dismissed altogether. The Social Catholics have especially little sympathy with the small retail co-operative stores, because they threaten the existence of the small merchant and the small artisan—types of individuals that are dear to the heart of the Catholics. On the other hand, it shows itself very favourably inclined towards co-operative credit, because of the possibility of assisting the classes already referred to—the shopkeeper and the small merchant.

[1059] In 1894 the Congress of Catholic Circles which met at Rheims declared that, “without minimising the difficulties which stand in the way of extending the mixed _syndicats_, the formation of such _syndicats_ must be our chief aim.” In 1904 Father Rutten, one of the leaders of the Belgian Catholic Syndical movement, in a report on the syndicalist movement writes as follows: “We do not despair of the mixed _syndicat_, which in theory we certainly think is nearest perfection. But we must not blind ourselves to facts, and whether we will or no we have to admit that at the present moment the mixed _syndicat_ in ninety industries out of every hundred seems quite Utopian.” (Quoted by Dechesne, _Syndicats Ouvriers belges_, p. 76; 1906.)

[1060] Such is the programme as outlined especially in Austria, which is one of the countries where Social Catholicism seems fairly powerful. As a matter of fact, the corporative _régime_ has never quite disappeared there, and for some years now attempts have been made to revive it in the smaller crafts. The new corporation would take the form of a centralised organisation, whose regulations would be obligatory upon all the members of the craft.

[1061] “The commune has always been organised. Is there any reason why the trade should not be? In both cases special relations are established, special needs arise, there are frequent conflicts and occasional harmony between the different interests. But all of them are nevertheless intimately bound together, and the links connecting them must be co-ordinated on some regular plan if every one is to be safe, and free to follow his own bent.” (Henri Lorin, _Principes de l’Organisation professionnelle_, in _L’Association catholique_, July 15, 1892.)

To this it might be replied that the majority generally makes the law for the commune, but that in the case of a free corporation it is often the minority that rules. To which it might be retorted that the so-called majority is often not better than a minority of the electors, and a very small minority indeed of the whole inhabitants—who of course include women, who generally have no votes. Moreover, as soon as the rules of the _syndicat_ became really obligatory the majority if not the whole of the workers in the trade would be found within the union.

[1062] Father Antoine writes as follows in his _Cours d’Économie sociale_, p. 154; “The social question can never be completely solved until we have a complete revival of Christian morals.” Still more categorical is the declaration of M. Léon Harmel in _L’Association catholique_ for December 1889: “We can see only one remedy, and that is that the authority of the Pope should be recognised all the world over, and his ruling accepted by all people.”

The annual study reunions which go by the name of _les Semaines sociales_, and which afford one of the best manifestations of the kind of activities which Social Christianity gives rise to everywhere, are not so exclusive. Economic questions of all kinds are discussed, but the programme is not strictly Catholic at all, and the basis is wide enough to include everyone who is a professed Christian.

[1063] “The corporations which would be set up under the ægis of religion would aim at making all their members contented with their lot, patient in toil and disposed to lead a tranquil, happy life” (_sua sorte contentos, operumque patientes et ad quietam ac tranquillam vitam agendam inducant_). (Encyclical of Leo XII, December 28, 1878, called the _Quod Apostolici_. See _History of Corporations_, by M. Martin Saint-Leon.)

[1064] “The corporation is simply the model of the Church. Just as for the Church all the faithful are equal in the sight of God, so here. But equality ends there. For the rest it is a hierarchy.” (Ségur-Lamoignon, _L’Association catholique_, July 13, 1894.)

[1065] The Ligue sociale d’Acheteurs, founded in Paris in 1900, is of Social Catholic inspiration.