A history of socialism

by Thomas Kirkup

Throughout the history of socialism we naturally also observe the contrast between the tendency which more or less emphasises State authority and the need of centralisation, and that other tendency which regards the local body as cardinal and decisive. As we have seen, that contrast was perfectly clear in the earliest French socialism, in the schools of Saint-Simon and Fourier. While calling on the State to furnish credit for productive associations, both L. Blanc and Lassalle strongly insisted that these associations should be self-governing and self-developing. The centralising tendency was very marked in Rodbertus. Though it cannot be maintained that the Marx school insist excessively on the claims of authority, yet in the conduct of the International they had a severe struggle with the anarchist following of Bakunin. It is simply the old question of authority and order in relation to individual and local freedom, which always reappears under the newest conditions, and which cannot be solved on absolute principles.

Notwithstanding those general features of resemblance, it would be a serious mistake to identify socialism with any of its forms, past or present. They are only passing phases of a movement which will endure. If socialism has given proof of a persistent vitality, it has also undergone many transformations, and will in all probability undergo many more. Our task now is to inquire into the significance, tendency, and value of the general movement.

The problem before us is one of historical interpretation in the widest sense of the word. It is not an academic question which can be settled by the scholarly comparison of texts and systems.

If the socialistic movement were complete and finished, it would be merely a subject of sympathetic analysis and generalisation by the historian. But the socialistic movement is not complete; it is in process of making—probably only in its early stage. It is a question, therefore, which must be treated not only in the light of history and human nature, but with special reference to the now prevailing forces—industrial, political, social, and ethical. For on these will depend the future course of the movement and its prospects of success. While socialism has a past, it has also a profound significance for the present and the future. The great task for the student is to find out the rational meaning and purport of socialism, its probable significance for the present time and the time coming.

For the rational interpretation of socialism we cannot too often emphasise the fact that it is not an abstract system, but a thing in movement. It is not wedded to any stereotyped set of formulas, whether of Marx or any other, but must be rooted in reality, and, while moulding facts, it must adapt itself to them. Above all, we must ever remember that it claims to represent the aspirations after a better life of the toiling and suffering millions of the human race.

Even a cursory review of the historic socialism is enough to show that, while it has been prolific of new thought in economics, it has been disfigured by every kind of extravagance. In general, it has been far too artificial, arbitrary, and absolute in its treatment of social questions. As we have seen, the early theorists especially were profoundly ignorant of the laws governing the evolution of society. Many later socialists of great influence have laid excessive stress on revolution as the lever of social progress. Few of them have really appreciated the bearings of the population question on the great problems of society. Most of them have been far too absolute in their condemnation of competition. In fact, their general position consists far too much in a sweeping condemnation of the present society, forgetful the while that it is only out of the present that the future, in which they place their hopes, can proceed.

The current socialism, too, has very prematurely shown a tendency to degenerate into a stiff and barren orthodoxy, which seeks to apply narrow and half-digested theories, without adapting or even reasonably understanding them, to circumstances for which they are not suited. This is particularly apparent in the attempts to introduce into England and America formulas and modes of action which have grown up in the very different atmosphere of the European continent. It has not sufficiently recognised the fluent and many-sided variety of modern life, which cannot be embodied in any formula, however comprehensive and elastic.

Finally, socialistic speculation has in many cases tended, not to reform and humanise, but to subvert the family, on the soundness of which social health above all things depends. It has not understood the solidity and value of the hereditary principle in the development of society. Socialists have, in short, been far too ready to attack great institutions, which it must be the aim of all rational progress, not to subvert, but to reform and purify.

In the socialistic treatment of other questions, such as capital, rent and interest, the same defects of arbitrariness and absoluteness are apparent. But the extravagances of the historic socialism are so obvious that they confute themselves, and we shall not dwell on this aspect of our subject. We must remember that most historic systems have had to run themselves clear of the turbid elements with which they were originally mixed. Socialism, considered both as a movement and as a system of economic thought, is still in process of development. Its theories must undergo the rough-hewing of continual controversy, discussion, and criticism. The whole movement must pass through the test, the tear and wear of experience, under the conditions prescribed by history and the fundamental laws of human nature, before its ideals can hope to be wedded to fact. We might add that it will receive the purification of experience; only, we have to lament that it is the fate of our ideals to submit also to the degradation of experience.

A like charge of abstractness may justly be brought against the two great German economists, Adolf Wagner and Schäffle, whose writings have so largely promoted a better comprehension of socialism. Their economic works are monuments of learning and lucidity, but their exposition and interpretation of the subject are marked by that excessive love of system which is usually characteristic of German specialists. They have brought to the discussion of the historic socialism the same systematising spirit with which German economists have treated Adam Smith. The economists of the Fatherland have reduced the teaching of Adam Smith to a set of abstract propositions, and so have transformed it beyond recognition. In like manner Adolf Wagner laboriously sums up socialism in abstract language, whereas it is above all things a concrete movement, instinct with change and with human passion. In his Bau und Leben des sozialen Körpers Schäffle’s construction of socialism is an elaborate attempt to conceive society as transformed and dominated by a single principle.