A history of socialism

by Thomas Kirkup

In this way capital has become an independent, active, and self-generating power which oppresses its producer. Money makes money. The labour of the past, appropriated and capitalised, crushes the labour of the present. ‘The dead captures the living.’ ‘The instrument of labour, which has become independent, and has exchanged rôles with the workmen, which has degraded the living workmen to a dead instrument of labour, and has developed itself, the dead instrument of labour, into the living organ of production—that is capital.’[^[9]] In such highly metaphorical language does Lassalle sum up his history of capital. We have already commented on that aspect of it, the Iron Law of Wages, which Lassalle has most emphasised. The whole subject is much more comprehensively treated in the Kapital of Karl Marx; therefore we need not dwell upon it further at present.

It will not be wrong, however, to say a word here about the use of the word capital, as current in the school of socialists to which Lassalle and Marx belong. It is not applied by them in its purely economic sense, as wealth utilised for further production: it is used as the name of the social and economic system in which the owners of capital are the dominant power. With them it is the economic factor as operating under the existing legal and social conditions, with all these conditions clinging to it. It would be much better to restrict the word to its proper economic use, and employ the new word capitalism as a fairly accurate name for the existing system.

The function of capital under all social systems and at all historical epochs is fundamentally the same; it is simply wealth used for the production of more wealth. But the historical, legal, and political conditions under which it is utilised vary indefinitely, as do also the technical forms in which it is embodied.

No real excuse can be offered for the ignorance or confusion of language of controversialists who maintain that the object of socialism is to abolish capital. So far from abolishing capital, socialists wish to make it still more effective for social well-being by placing it under social control. What they wish to abolish is the existing system, in which capital is under the control of a class. It would be a considerable gain in clearness if this system were always called capitalism.

We have already remarked upon Lassalle’s theory of the State, and his treatment of the Iron Law of Wages. Our further criticism of his social-economic position can best be brought out by reference to his controversy with Schulze-Delitzsch, the economic representative of German Liberalism.

In general it may be said that Lassalle meets the one-sided individualism of Schulze by a statement of the socialistic, theory, which is also one-sided and exaggerated. His view of the influence of the community as compared with that of the individual is the most prominent example of this. The only accurate social philosophy is one which gives due attention to both factors; both are of supreme importance, and either may fitly be the starting-point of investigation and discussion.

His theory of conjunctures is overstated. It is to a considerable degree well founded; in the great economic storms which sweep over the civilised world the fate of the individual is largely determined by conditions over which he has no control. Yet now as ever the homely virtues of industry, energy, sobriety, and prudence do materially determine the individual career.

For our present purpose, however, it is more important to consider Lassalle’s polemic against the practical proposals of his opponent. Lassalle contended that the unions for providing credit and raw material would benefit the hand-workers only, whereas hand-labour is destined to disappear before the large industry. But, we may ask, why should not such methods of mutual help be utilised for associations of working men even more than for isolated workers? These unions may be regarded as affording only a very partial and limited relief to the workmen, but why should the principle of association among workmen stop there?

The system of voluntary co-operation must begin somewhere; it began most naturally and reasonably with such unions, and it proceeds most naturally and reasonably along the line of least resistance to further development. In these unions the workmen have been acquiring the capital and experience necessary for further progress. No limit can be assigned to the possible evolution of the system. They are properly to be regarded as only the first beginnings of social control over the economic processes, the goal and consummation of which we find in socialism. If in the controversial struggle Lassalle had listened to the clear voice of science, he would have seen that, for his opponent as well as for himself, he must maintain that all social institutions are subject to and capable of development.

For the methods of Schulze it may be claimed that they do not provide a ready-made solution of the social question, but they are a beginning. For the associations of Schulze, not less than for those of Lassalle, we may contend that they supply the organic principle of an incessant development. In this way the workmen may attain to the complete management of their own industrial interests with their own joint capital. They may thus obtain for themselves the full product of their labour, in which case the objection of Lassalle, with regard to the increase of population, under the influence of the cheap provisions supplied by the stores, would no more apply to the scheme of Schulze than they would to his own. In both cases we are to suppose that the means of subsistence would be more abundant and more easily obtained; in both cases there might be the risk of a too rapidly increasing population. We may suppose that this increase of population would be met by a still greater increase in the product of labour, all going to the workers. But for the schemes of Schulze there would be this great advantage that, the capital and experience of the workers having been acquired by their own exertions, they would have all the superior training requisite for the solution of the population question, and all other questions, which can be obtained only from a long course of social discipline.