Lassalle would have done well to remember his own statement, that the only real point of difference between them was, that one believed in State help, and the other in ‘self help.’ And we may further ask, Do the two exclude each other?
In fact, the controversy, considered purely on its merits, was barren enough. Yet it led to profitable results, inasmuch as it directed the mind of Germany to the questions involved, and led to a more thorough discussion of them.
Better, however, than any argument which can be urged is the verdict of history on the merits of the question, as already pronounced during the period which has elapsed since the date of the controversy. In 1885, just twenty-one years after the bitter controversy between the two representatives of State help and self help, the societies established by Schulze in Germany alone possessed one hundred million thalers of capital of their own. It will be remembered that this is the amount of the loan required by Lassalle from the State to bring his productive associations into operation. If the workmen fail in productive association, it will not be, as Lassalle maintained, for want of capital. Productive association with State credit is therefore not the only way out of the wilderness.
Must we go further and say that Lassalle’s method of State help was not the right method at all? It is certain that the Government of Germany, though organised on the principle of universal suffrage, has not granted the credit demanded by Lassalle, and that his agitation in this matter has failed owing, it might be alleged, to his early death, and to the fact that since his time German socialism has prematurely moved on international, and even anti-national, lines, thus alienating from itself the sympathies of the Emperor and his Chancellor. We need not say how very improbable it is that the German Government would have guaranteed its credit, however submissive and conciliatory the attitude of the Social Democrats might have been. The Social Democrats themselves, though they gave a place to Lassalle’s scheme on the Gotha programme of 1875, seem now disposed to attach little or no importance to it. It does not appear in the Erfurt programme of the party, which was adopted in 1891. In short, Lassalle’s agitation has in the point immediately in question been a failure. At the same time, it would be absolutely incorrect to assert that experience has pronounced against his scheme, inasmuch as no Government has ever seriously taken it in hand.
Like many other pioneers, Lassalle has not accomplished what he intended, yet he has achieved great results. We cannot quite accept the dictum of Schiller, that the world’s history is the world’s judgment. We are not prepared to believe that all things that have succeeded were good, and all things that have failed were evil; or that things are good or evil only in so far as they succeed or fail. Still, we may well sum up the controversy between Lassalle and Schulze by stating that in 1885 the societies founded by the latter had in Germany a membership of 1,500,000 with a capital of £15,000,000, and at the election of 1890 the Social Democracy of Germany, originated by Lassalle, polled 1,427,000 votes. Both have done great things, which are destined to be greater still. In this, as in so many other instances, the course of history has not respected the narrow limits prescribed to it by controversialists.
We need not, however, insist further on the details of Lassalle’s controversy with Schulze-Delitzsch. Much more important is it to recall the leading aspects of his teaching. What Lassalle contemplated and contended for was a democracy in which the claims of Might and Right should be reconciled, a democracy of working men, guided by science, and through universal suffrage constituting a State which would rise to the high level of its function as representative and promoter of freedom, culture, morality, and progress in the fullest and deepest significance of those great ideas. Above all, this democracy was to be a social democracy, in which the political idea should be subordinate to the social; hence the duty of the State at least to initiate the solution of the social question by granting credit for productive associations. But this was only to be a beginning; the solution of the social question must be ardently worked out for generations until labour should be entirely emancipated.
With such an ideal, contrast the Prussian-German State as it actually is. The German State must still find its basis in the army and police, the most intelligent of the working class being in profound discontent. It is a fact worth considering by our economists and politicians, that the élite of the working men of probably the best educated and most thoughtful nation in the world have gone over to the Social Democratic party. Nor can the German or any other State devote itself heartily to the solution of the social question, for Europe is like a vast camp, in which science and finance are strained to the uttermost in order to devise and provide instruments for the destruction of our fellow-men. Of this state of things the young Emperor who ascended the throne in 1888 is only the too willing representative; but even if he were inclined, he would be powerless to prevent it, as its causes are too deeply rooted in human nature and in the present stage of social development to be removed by anything less than a profound change in the motives and conditions of life. The historical antecedents and geographical position of Germany are such that it must long continue to be a military State; and most other nations have hindrances of their own. Reformers must therefore wait long and strive earnestly before they can hope to see such an ideal as that of Lassalle realised. That the ideal was a noble one, and that the gratitude of all lovers of progress is due to him for his energetic and eloquent advocacy of it, notwithstanding certain unworthy passages in his career, few will deny.
| [1] | Bastiat-Schulze, p. iii., Berlin 1878. |
| [2] | See Working Men’s Programme. |