By the operation of the iron law, the capitalist is enabled to appropriate to himself an increasing amount of the earnings of labor. This appropriated amount is called the surplus value. Marx developed at length the concept of surplus value. Capitalism exploits the laborer by taking possession of as large a proportion of the earnings of labor as it can obtain—through its might and its shrewdness.
The growth of capitalism, also, causes a class consciousness to develop among the members of the proletariat. This class consciousness is increasing. It produces labor organizations; these organizations are acquiring vast power. The struggles between them and the capitalistic classes go on. The two groups have little in common. By force of numbers the proletariat are bound finally to win, and to overthrow the capitalistic classes which are now in power. They will seize the means of production and manage them for the good of all.
Marx did not outline an utopia. He described the historical evolution of society as he saw it, and he participated in plans for the organization of all laborers for their common good. Inasmuch as Marx advocated compulsory labor, the laboring class under Marxian socialism would include all people. Marx advocated an equal distribution of wealth, not in the sense of the popular misconception of that term, but in the sense that the earnings from the industry shall be distributed to the workers in proportion to their achievements.
In Russia, Marxian socialism in 1918 came into power. The Bolsheviki represent the radical wing of the Marxian followers. They established essentially a dictatorship of the proletariat, substituting it for the dictatorship of capitalists which existed under the reign of the czars. Bolshevism substitutes occupation for geographic area as a basis of representative government. This program is deficient and sociologically untenable, because occupational groups do not encompass all phases of human personality. A government based on occupational group needs is representative of only a portion of the elements of human life. When seventy-five per cent of the people are illiterate, as has been the case in Russia, no form of government whether democratic or not can be other than a dictatorship.
Revolutionary socialism coincides, in part, with syndicalism, a movement which developed in France and England. Syndicalism is a radical form of trade unionism. It declares that workingmen cannot hope for genuine betterment through politics. They must organize and inaugurate a general strike. This universal strike will paralyze the present régime and render it helpless. As a result the workers will come into power. In the meantime, the workers must keep up a running warfare with capitalists and the government which supports capitalism. Sabotage is a common concept among syndicalists. It implies a program of destroying machinery, hindering the production of economic goods, and creating inefficiency in capitalistic industry. In both England and the United States, syndicalism has appeared. In the United States, the Industrial Workers of the World, or I. W. W., confess to doctrines similar to those which have been espoused in Europe under the name of syndicalism. The philosophic exponent of syndicalism has been George Sorel.
Revolutionary socialism has been paralleled in certain ways by anarchism. These teachings first acquired force through the writings of Proudhon. Another leading anarchist was the Russian nobleman and military officer, Michael Bakunin (1814–1876). Although of aristocratic birth, Bakunin became furious when he observed the human misery among the masses which Russian autocracy was producing. He became an agitator. He was confined in dungeons and exiled to Siberia. He escaped from Siberia, and by way of California went to England and then to Switzerland. His chief work is God and the State. Vital, vigorous, magnetic, fearless—these are the adjectives which describe the personality of Bakunin.
Bakunin scorned rank, birth, and fortune. He attacked external authority of all kinds. He denied the validity of concepts such as “God” and the “state”; they are parts of systems which enslave the free will of man. Classes must be abolished and the masses of individuals freed from all enslaving institutions, such as marriage, the church, the state.
In a related way Prince Kropotkin (1842–1921) developed anarchistic principles. Peter A. Kropotkin was of aristocratic Russian birth and a person of mild, courteous manners. His father was a serf owner; the son could not bear to see the sufferings which the serfs underwent. He threw away the privileges of rank and became a defender of the oppressed. He attempted to correlate the theories of anarchism with those of mutual aid, and fought socialism with the concept of centralized control on the ground that it would destroy individual liberty.[XIV-6] In [Chapter XXII], Kropotkin’s theory of mutual aid will be analyzed.
Anarchism and socialism make similar attacks upon the evils of capitalism. Both are determined to overthrow capitalism. Both believe in revolt. They part ways when they advocate a constructive program for the new order which shall follow the violent overthrow of capitalism. Unlike socialism, anarchism holds that all government is an evil and that industry can go on without organization. It advocates a free communism.
One of the essentials in the Communist Manifesto was the appropriation of rents for public purposes. Starting from a viewpoint distinctly different from that of Karl Marx, Henry George (1839–1897) became the founder of single tax propaganda. In early manhood Henry George came to San Francisco and established a struggling newspaper. At once he found himself practically overwhelmed by the brutal competition of the metropolitan press and telegraphic news service. George was crushed by monopoly. It was this defeat which gave him a new idea—an idea that was to command the attention of the world.