Socialism and the Social Movement in the 19th Century

Transcriber's Note:
Inconsistent hyphenation in the original document has been preserved.


While rambling through quaint old Nuremberg, last summer, I was driven for shelter from rain into a bookshop. In a conversation with the genial proprietor, he called my attention to a book, lately published, that had already made a deep impression upon the world of German readers. A reading and re-reading of the little book convinced me that English readers, as well, will be glad to follow Professor Sombart in his comprehensive and suggestive review of Socialism.
Thanks are due to the learned German professor, whose name appears on the title-page, for his courtesy in this matter; also to his German publisher. I would also express obligation to my friend, Professor Sigmon M. Stern, with whom I have consulted freely on some difficult points of translation. The Introduction by Professor John B. Clark, of Columbia University, will be appreciated, I know, by the reader as well as by myself.
A.P.A.
April, 1898.



The reader of this work will miss something which he has been accustomed to find in books on Socialism. Professor Sombart has not given us synopses of the theories of St. Simon, Proudhon, Marx, Owen, and others. His work marks the coming of a period in which socialism is to be studied, rather than the speculations of socialists. Theories and plans no longer constitute the movement. There are still schools of socialistic thought; but there is something actually taking place in the industrial world that is the important part of the socialistic movement. Reality is the essence of it.