State Socialism has the peculiar merit of being able to translate the confused aspirations of a new epoch in the history of politics and economics into practical maxims without arousing the suspicions of the public to the extent that socialism generally does. Legislators and public men generally have been supplied with the necessary arguments with which to defend the inauguration of that new policy upon which they had secretly set their hearts. A common ground of action is found for parties that are generally opposed to one another and for temperaments that are usually incompatible. That is the outstanding merit of a doctrine that seems eminently suitable for the attainment of tangible results.
And so by a curious inversion of functions by no means exceptional in the history of thought, State Socialism at the end of the century finds itself playing the part of its great adversary, the Liberal Optimism of the early century. One of the outstanding merits of that earlier Liberalism was the preparation it afforded for a policy of enfranchisement or liberty, which was absolutely necessary for the development of the industrial régime. And so it became the interpreter of the great economic currents of the time. In pursuance of this exclusive task all traces of its scientific origin disappeared, the elaboration of economic theory was neglected, and the habit of close reasoning so essential to systematic thinking was abandoned. In a somewhat similar manner State Socialism has become the creed of all those who desire to put an end to the abuses of economic liberty in its extremer aspects, or such as are generally concerned about the miserable condition of an increasing number of the working classes. Absorbed in immediate matters of this kind, the promoters of State Socialism have managed to influence practical politics without shedding much light upon economic theory. And now they in their turn find their system threatened by the fate which awaits all political doctrines. Even at the present moment one is tempted to ask whether this growing multiplicity of State function is not in danger of arousing on the part of consumers, entrepreneurs, and workmen a general feeling of contempt for the economic capacity of the State.
In conclusion, we must note another characteristic fact. Whereas during the greater part of the nineteenth century the attacks of Socialism were directed against Liberalism and economic orthodoxy, Neo-Marxian syndicalism is concentrating its attention almost exclusively upon State Socialism. Sorel emphasises the similarity that exists between Marxism and Manchesterism, and on more then one point he finds himself in agreement with a “Liberal” like Pareto. On the other hand, no words are sufficiently vigorous to express his condemnation of the partisans of social peace and interventionism, which appear to him to corrupt the working classes. Syndicalist working men have on more than one occasion shown their contempt for the State by refusing to avail themselves of measures passed on their behalf—old-age pensions, for example. This attitude is perhaps due to the influence of the anarchists upon the leaders of French syndicalism.
The fusion of these two currents of ideas—the Neo-Marxian and the anarchist—and their effect in turning the attention of the French working classes away from State Socialism, is an interesting fact whose political results will by no means prove negligible.[963]
CHAPTER III: MARXISM
I: KARL MARX[964]
Everyone knows of the spell cast over the socialism of the last forty years by the doctrines of Karl Marx and the contempt with which this newer so-called scientific socialism refers to the earlier or Utopian kind. But what is even more striking than the success of Marxian socialism is its want of sympathy with the heretical doctrines of its predecessors the Communists and Fourierists, and the pride it takes in regarding itself as a mere development or rehabilitation of the great Classical tradition.
To give within the limits of a single chapter a résumé of a doctrine that claims to review and to reconstruct the whole of economic theory is clearly impossible, and we shall merely attempt an examination of two of Marx’s more essential doctrines, namely, his theory of surplus labour and value and his law of automatic appropriation, more familiarly but less accurately known as the law of concentration of capital. The first is based upon a particular conception of exchange value and the second upon a special theory of economic evolution. To employ Comtean phraseology, the one belongs to the realm of economic statics, the other to the domain of economic dynamics.