The changes introduced into the programme as a result of this have transformed its character almost completely. When it was first drawn up and issued as a part of the Communist Manifesto nearly fifty years ago everybody expected that the final disappearance of the small proprietor was a matter of only a few years, and that at the end of that time property of every description would be concentrated in the hands of a powerful few. This continuous expropriation would, of course, swell the ranks of the proletariat, so that compared with their numbers the proprietors would be a mere handful. This would make the final expropriation all the easier. With such disparity in numbers the issue was a foregone conclusion, no matter what method was employed, were it a revolution or merely a parliamentary vote.
Unfortunately for the execution of this programme, not only do we find the great capitalist still waxing strong, which is quite in accordance with the orthodox Marxian view, but there is no evidence that the small proprietor or manufacturer is on the wane. The Marxian can scarcely console himself with the thought that the revolution is gradually being accomplished without opposition when he sees hundreds of peasant proprietors, master craftsmen, and small shopkeepers on every side of him. Nor is there much chance of forcing this growing mass of people, which possibly includes the majority of the community even now, to change its views. We can hardly expect them to be very enthusiastic about a programme that involves their own extinction.
A distinction has obviously been drawn between two classes of proprietors. The socialisation of the means of production is only to apply to the case of wealthy landowners and manufacturers on a large scale—to those who employ salaried persons. But the property of the man who is supporting himself with the labour of his own hands will always be respected. The Marxians defend themselves from the reproach of self-contradiction and opportunism by stating that their action is strictly in accordance with the process of evolution. You begin by expropriating those industries that have arrived at the capitalistic and wage-earning stage. The criterion must be the presence or otherwise of a surplus value.
The conclusion is logical enough, but one would like to know what is going to become of the small independent proprietor. Will he be allowed to grow and develop alongside of the one great proprietor—the State? We can hardly imagine the two systems coexisting and hopelessly intermingled, as they would have to be, but still with freedom for the individual to choose between them. The collectivists have at any rate made no attempt to disguise the fact. They look upon it merely as a temporary concession to the cowardice of the small proprietor, who will presently willingly abandon his own miserable bit of property in order to share in the benefits of the new régime, or who will at any rate be put out of the running by its economic superiority. But since the prospects do not seem very attractive to those immediately concerned, it may be as well to dispense with any further consideration of the subject.
But there is another question. What has become of the class struggle in Neo-Marxism? The doctrine, though not altogether denied, is no longer presented as a deadly duel between two classes and only two, but as a kind of confused mêlée involving a great number of classes, which makes the issue of the conflict very uncertain. The picture of society as consisting merely of two superimposed layers is dismissed as being altogether too elementary. On the contrary, what we find is increasing differentiation even within the capitalist class itself. There is a perpetual conflict going on between borrower and lender, between manufacturer and merchant, between trader and landlord, the last of which struggles is especially prominent in the annals of politics. It has a long history, but in modern times it takes the form of a political battle between the Conservative and Liberal parties, between Whigs and Tories. These undercurrents complicate matters a great deal, and on occasion they have a way of dramatically merging with the main current, when both parties seek the help of the proletariat. In England, for example, the manufacturers succeeded in repealing the Corn Laws, which dealt a hard blow at the landed proprietors, who in turn passed laws regulating the conditions of labour in mines and factories. In both cases the working classes gained something—tertius gaudens! Then there are the struggles among the working classes themselves. Not to speak of the bitter animosity between the syndicats rouges and the syndicats jaunes, there is the rivalry between syndicalists and non-syndicalists, between skilled workmen and the unskilled. As Leroy-Beaulieu remarks, not only have we a fourth estate, but there are already signs of a fifth.
And what of the great catastrophe? The Neo-Marxians no longer believe in it. The economic crises which furnished the principal argument in support of the catastrophic theory are by no means as terrible as they were when Marx wrote. They are no longer regarded as of the nature of financial earthquakes, but much more nearly resemble the movements of the sea, whose ebb and flow may to some extent be calculated.
And the materialistic conception of history? “Every unbiased person must subscribe to that formula of Bernstein: The influence of technico-economic evolution upon the evolution of other social institutions is becoming less and less.”[1017] What a number of proofs of this we have! Marxism itself furnishes us with some. The principle of class war and the appeal to class prejudice owe much of the hold which they have to a feeling of antagonism against economic fatalism. In other words, they draw much of their strength from an appeal to a certain ideal. It is, of course, true that facts of very different character, economic, political, and moral, react upon one another, but can anyone say that some one of them determines all the others? Economists have been forced to recognise this, and the futile attempt to discover cause or effect has recently given place to a much more promising search for purely reciprocal relations.
It is by no means easy to determine how much Marxism there is in Neo-Marxism. “Is there anything beyond the formulæ which we have quoted, and which are becoming more disputable every day? Is it anything more than a philosophical theory which purports to explain the conflicts of society?”[1018] Bernstein tells us somewhere that socialism is just a movement, and that “the movement is everything, the end is nothing.”[1019]
2. The Neo-Marxian Syndicalists
Doctrinaire Marxism seemed languishing when a number of professed disciples found a fresh opportunity of reviving its ideals and of justifying its aims in a new movement of a pre-eminently working-class character known as Syndicalism.