Socialism and Democracy in Europe

by Samuel Peter Orth

It is not unnatural that this movement has made leaders. Of these, Herr August Bebel is the most remarkable example. This woodturner, turned party autocrat and statesman, is a never-ending wonder to the German aristocracy. His speeches are read as eagerly as those of the Chancellor, and his opinions are quoted as widely as the Kaiser's. When in 1911 he made his great speech on the Morocco Question in the Social Democratic Convention, it was reported by the column in all of the great Continental and English dailies. Bebel is an example of what the open door of opportunity will do, and he had to force the door himself. A few years ago, in a moment of reminiscent confidence, he confessed that he used to cherish as an ideal the time when he could, for once, have all the bread and butter he could eat. In America we are accustomed to this rising into power of obscure and untried men. But in Europe it is rare. European Social Democracy is an expression of the desire on the part of the people for the open highways of opportunity.

In the third place, Social Democracy is self-conscious. I have not used the word class-conscious, because it is more than the consciousness of an economic group. History is replete with instances that reveal the irresistible power generated by mass consciousness. This is the psychology of nationalism. The dynamo that generates the mysterious voltage of patriotism, of tribal loyalty, is the heart. Socialism has replaced tribal and national ideals and welded its devotees into a self-conscious international unity. Whatever danger there may be in Socialism is the danger of the zealot. The ideal may be impracticable and discarded, but the devotion to it may be blind and destructive.

As a rule, Socialist leaders and writers maintain that this drawing together of Socialism and democracy is only transitory, and that beyond this lies the promised land of social production. Jaurès has explained this clearly: "Democracy, under the impetus given it by organized labor, is evolving irresistibly toward Socialism, and Socialism toward a form of property which will deliver man from his exploitation by man, and bring to an end the régime of class government. The Radicals flatter themselves that they can put a stop to this movement by promising the working classes some reforms, and by proclaiming themselves the guardians of private property. They hope to hold a large part of the proletariat in check by a few reforming laws expressing a sentiment of social solidarity, and by their policy of defending private property to rouse the conservative forces, the petty bourgeoisie, the middle classes, and the small peasant proprietors to oppose Socialism."[6]

So we see that in spite of their experiences Socialists still draw a clear distinction between their Socialism and democracy. The Socialist is willing to ignore the experiences of the past twenty years in his ecstasy of vision. He claims that whatever has been done is mere reform. He affects to belittle it, the Marxian scorns it. To the Socialist, democracy is only the halfway house on the road to the economic paradise. He has his gaze fixed on the New Jerusalem of "co-operative production" and "distributive justice." Whether this New City, with its streets paved with the gold of altruism and its gates garnished with the pearls of good will and benevolence, will be brought from the fleecy clouds of ecstatic imagination to our sordid earth remains a question of speculation to that vast body of sincere and practical citizens who have not scaled the heights of the Socialistic Patmos.

European Socialism has been transplanted to America. But its growth until quite recently has been very slow, and confined largely to immigrants. There is no political spur to hasten the movement. Here democracy has been achieved. The universal ballot, free speech, free press, free association are accomplished. Many of the economic policies espoused by the Social Democratic parties of Europe are written into the platforms of our political parties. There will be no independent labor party of any strength until the old parties have aroused the distrust of the great body of laboring men, and until the labor unions cut loose from their traditional aloofness and enter politics. How socialistic such a party will be must depend upon the circumstances attending its organization. The two third-party movements which have flourished since the Civil War, the Greenback movement of the '70's and the Populist movement of the '90's, were virtually "class" parties, restricted to the agricultural population of the Middle and Far West; and both of them feared Socialism as much as they hated capitalism. Neither of these parties outlived a decade. Economic prosperity abruptly ended both.[7]

The stress of political exclusiveness and the harsh hand of government will not produce a reactionary movement among the workingmen of America. But economic circumstances may do so. We are still a young country full of the hope of youth. The ranks of every walk of life are filled with those who have worked their way to success from humble origin. Most of our famous men struggled with poverty in their youth. Their lives are constantly held up to the children of the nation as examples of American pluck, enterprise, and opportunity. A nation that lures its clerks toward proprietorship and its artisans toward independence offers barren soil for the doctrines of discontent. We have no stereotyped poverty in the European sense. Our farmers own their acreage, and many of the urban poor are able to buy a cottage in the outskirts of the city.

But there are signs that these conditions are undergoing profound changes. Unlimited competition has led to limitless consolidation of industries, and the financial destinies of the Republic repose in the hands of comparatively few men. So much of the Marxian proposition is fulfilled, at the moment, in America. This concentrated wealth has not been unmindful of politics. Governmental power and money power are closely identified in the public mind. Our cities are overflowing with a new population from the excitable portions of southern Europe, a population that is proletarian in every sense of the word. Panics follow one another in rapid succession. The uneasiness of business is fed by the turmoil of politics. Unrest is everywhere. Labor and business are engaged in constant struggles that affect all members of society. The cost of living has increased alarmingly in the last ten years. We are becoming rapidly a manufacturing nation; the balance of power is shifting from the farm to the city.[8]

European Socialists are taking a keen interest in American affairs. Bebel said to me: "You are getting ready for the appropriation of the great productive enterprises and the railways. Your trusts make the problem easy." John Burns prophesied that violence and bloodshed alone would check us in our mad career for wealth. Jaurès asked how long it would take before our poverty would be worse than that of Europe. At a distance they see us plunging headlong into a Socialist régime.

Professor Brentano of Munich knows us better. He said to me, "Conservation will be your Socialism."[9] If the fundamental principles of conservation can be embodied in constitutional laws, then there will be an almost indefinite extension of the power of the state over industry. It will embrace mines, forests, irrigated deserts; it will extend to the sources of all water supply and water power; the means of transportation may ultimately be included. So that without radical legal and institutional changes it will be possible for many of the sources of our raw materials to be placed under governmental surveillance, leaving the processes of manufacture and exchange in the hands of private individuals.

There are at present many indications that this will be our general process of "socialization." The people appear to want it; and in a democracy the will of the people must prevail.