CHAPTER IX.
RODBERTUS.
In turning our attention to Germany “we come to the period of classical epoch-making socialism.” It is the only living socialism of world-wide importance; for, with few comparatively unimportant exceptions, all socialism of to-day, whether found in Paris or Berlin, in New York or Vienna, in Chicago or Frankfort-on-the-Main, is through and through German.
The German socialists are distinguished by the profundity of their systems. These are not exhausted by a few hours’ study. You can come back to them time and time again, and obtain ever new ideas. A great German economist (Schäffle) declares that it took him years to comprehend the full significance of German socialism. It gives no evidence of decreasing power, but, on the contrary, its influence is manifestly spreading and becoming more and more deeply rooted in the minds and hearts of large masses. Its vitality is due, on the one hand, to the logical and philosophical strength of the systems on which it is based; on the other, to the patience and indomitable perseverance of its leaders.
One of its leading characteristics is its thoroughly scientific spirit. Sentimentalism is banished, and a foundation sought in hard, relentless laws, resulting necessarily from the physiological, psychological, and social constitution of man, and his physical environment. Like French socialism, its most prominent side is its negative character, but this is not declamatory. Coldly, passionlessly, laws regulating wages and value are developed, which show that in our present economic society the poverty of laborers and their robbery by capitalists are as inevitable facts as the motions of the planets. Histories, blue books, and statistical journals are searched, and facts are piled on facts, mountain-high, to sustain every separate and individual proposition. Mathematical demonstrations as logical as problems in Euclid take the place of fine periods, perorations, and appeals to the Deity. Political economy is not rejected, but in its strictest and most orthodox form becomes the very corner-stone of the new social structure. No writer is valued so highly as Ricardo, who, in political economy, was the strictest of the strict, a Pharisee of the Pharisees. English political economy is developed to its logical and consistent conclusion with wonderful learning and skill. In the German socialists, says Rudolf Meyer, “we have learned men belonging to the higher mercantile and professional classes, in affluent circumstances, who, out of pure love for the cause, devoted themselves to profound economic investigations, and who united a serious, searching mind with thorough knowledge of history, philology, and law. They are political economists equal to the great English leaders in this study, but having at their command a greater scientific apparatus, especially such as is afforded by statistics.”[155] Roscher, indeed, finds in them alike the strength and the weakness of the English school. He describes them thus in his “History of Political Economy in Germany.” “Some of them seem to be more historical than the Free-trade School, but this is only an appearance, as they apply history so sophistically. As far as doctrinal abstractions are concerned, they are at least equal to the extreme Free-traders.[156] They indulge in the same cosmopolitism, which entirely overlooks real peoples, states, and degrees of culture, in the same naïve assumption of the equality of all men, ... and in the same mammonistic undervaluation of ideal goods.”[157]
Two of the earliest adherents of this school were Friedrich Engels, who wrote a work on the “Condition of the Laboring Classes in England;”[158] and K. Marlo, who published, in 1849, his “System of World-Economy, or Investigations Concerning the Organization of Labor;”[159] and proposed a federation of socialistic communities. Both of these writers, however, were soon so far surpassed in importance by the three socialists, Rodbertus, Marx, and Lassalle, that they are scarcely noticed in the great current of German socialism. We will consequently at once proceed to the consideration of the life and teachings of Rodbertus, from whom it may be considered as taking its beginning. Its growth from the time he published his doctrines has been unbroken.
Karl Rodbertus, who lived from 1805 to 1875, was a man of social standing, universally respected alike for learning and character. He was at first a jurist, and afterwards a farmer, having purchased the estate in Pomerania called Jagetzow. On this account he is often called Rodbertus-Jagetzow.[160]
Rodbertus took some part in politics during the stirring events of 1848, and for a short time thereafter. He was member of the National Assembly in 1848, and in 1849 of the Second Chamber of the Prussian Parliament. He was Prussian Minister of Education and Public Worship for a brief period. But he finally abandoned politics and led a quiet life in his country home, devoting himself chiefly to scientific and literary pursuits. His knowledge of some parts of Roman history is considered quite profound.
Rodbertus, one of the ablest socialists who ever lived, is perhaps the best representative of pure theoretical socialism. Professor Wagner of Berlin calls him the Ricardo of socialism. This gives him an important place in the history of political economy, for political economists may be considered as practically unanimous in the opinion that “scientific socialism represents an economic system which no science of political economy can any longer neglect” (Wagner). It is certain that he resembles Ricardo in many respects, and I personally am quite inclined to think he equalled him, though his name has never become very popular, as his life was a quiet, retired one, and he took no part in agitation. His writings are rather difficult reading for laborers, and they are consequently little acquainted with him. His influence on the greatest living economists has been remarkable.[161]