Socialism and the Social Movement in the 19th Century

by Werner Sombart

But on the other side, we must not confuse idealism with fantasy or utopism. Enthusiasm for an object should be combined with common sense. In the one is warmth, in the other clearness; in the one lies the ideal, in the other the programme, that will offer ways and means for reaching the end.

Only when we learn to distinguish between these two fundamental thoughts shall we be able to unite ideal enthusiasm with practical common sense. For as the confusion of programme with ideal tends on the one side to a decline into useless commonplace, so on the other side it leads to a crippling of practical activity. But he who learns to distinguish the road from the goal will see that tireless exertion is needed in order to press towards the mark. An understanding of the importance and necessity of gradual reform is only awakened as a deeper insight into the worth and essence of the ideal is obtained.

It must be allowed that a certain contradiction will remain in any full understanding of the evolution idea in a social movement. We cannot avoid the fact that the sceptical pessimist stands by the side of the light-hearted optimist; that there will always be some who hope for a speedy entrance into the promised land, while others are of the opinion that the march thereto lies through the wilderness and will last long. Hence the differences of position that men take regarding what we call practical reforms. Men who believe that we are about to move into a new building will not be willing to try to improve the old structure; but those who think that the new edifice may be long in rising will be contented to live for a while longer as comfortably as possible in the old structure. This contradiction is in the nature of man. It will continue ineradicable. It is enough for a man to be conscious of its existence.

What we have learned to recognise thus far of antithesis rests upon essentially different conceptions of the essence of social development or upon different interpretations of one of these conceptions—the evolutionary. Let me now, in a few words, speak of a matter which rests upon the different interpretations—at least when they arise to consciousness—which men place upon the progress and the direction of social development. This contradiction rests upon a variation of ideal, and consequently of programme; and it may be expressed in the antithesis democratic or socialistic. In order to understand properly this most important contradiction, which to-day stands as the central point of discussion and which finds its acutest expression in the exciting "agrarian question," I must remind you of something said heretofore—at that hour when I spoke to you concerning the necessary limitation of the proletarian-socialistic ideal. You remember that there I specified as a necessary condition for the development of socialism as the object of the modern social movement, the previous development of capitalism and with it the impoverishment of the masses. There must be a thorough proletarian condition.

But now consider the following. When the proletariat sets up this object upon the basis of its economic conditions of existence, how will the proletariat conduct itself with all those strata of society who have not this same basis of economic existence? What will be the relation of the proletariat to those masses who are not yet made proletarian in character—as, for example, the lower middle-classes? And there is a question yet more important—What will be the relation of the proletariat to that part of the people, the demos, who cannot possibly ever have a tendency towards becoming proletarian? Here arises the great dilemma, and this is the deep contradiction which comes here to expression: Shall the aim of the proletariat remain essentially and preponderantly proletarian, or shall it become on the whole democratic? And further, if the working-men's party will interest itself in all these component parts of the demos, how shall the proletariat conduct itself with them? If there is to be a general democratic "people's party," what then becomes of the proletarian programme? For this is clear: the whole reason for the existence of socialistic agitation, as it is to-day attempted, with the cry of a "need of nature" in the economic development, falls to the ground in the moment when this economic development does not lead to the proletarianisation of the masses and to the communisation of the processes of production—to mercantile operations on a large scale. If socialism is postulated upon any other grounds of ethics or expediency, it cannot be "scientific" in the thought of the day. Here, as I believe, lies the justification for the antithesis "socialistic or democratic." And in the opposition of these two general thoughts, each of which is represented within the social movement, is expressed that deeply lying conflict of which we speak.

How these tendencies will settle themselves we cannot yet clearly see.

I believe that the following considerations may tend towards a clearing of the situation.

The whole strength of the social movement, all chances for the final victory of its ideas, so far as I see, rest upon the fact that it proposes to be the representative of the highest form of economic life at every period of production upon the largest scale. It tries to climb upon the shoulders of the bourgeoisie, who are now the representatives of the most highly developed forms of economy; and it thinks that it will be able to overtop. History teaches us that what we call advance has always been only change to a higher system of economy, and that those classes thrive who represent this higher system. Behind capitalism there is no "development"; possibly there may be ahead. The degree of production which has been reached by it must in any case be rivalled by any party that will secure the future for itself. In that is shown, I think, the standard of any advance movement.

If the social democracy is to maintain its historic mission, if it is to be a party of advance, it must avoid compromise with the notoriously declining classes, as the hand-workers and other economically low organisations. Even a temporary compact with them is dangerous. It will not be admissible, also, to change the programme and goal of the social movement to suit the middle-class elements that have crept in, if that great aim of production upon the largest scale shall be held fast—because we know positively that their hand-work represents in general a low form of economy. But now the other side of the question. If there are spheres in economic life which are not to be subjected to this process of communisation, because the smaller method of business is under the conditions more profitable than the larger,—how about the farmer? That is the whole problem which to-day stands before the social democracy as the "agrarian question." Must the communistic ideal of production on a large scale, and the developed programme connected with it, undergo any essential change as applied to the peasantry? And if a man reaches the conclusion that in agrarian development no tendency to production on a large scale exists, but that here operation on a large scale is not at all the highest form of management, then we see before us the decisive question—Shall we now be democratic in the sense of allowing production on a small scale in this sphere and thus change our programme and desert the communistic ideal; or shall we remain proletarian, hold fast to the communistic ideal and exclude this class from our movement? In this case the former decision would not be reactionary, because, in spite of the acceptance of that lower middle-class element into the movement, it is not necessary to come down from the level of production that has been reached in the spheres of industry that have been communised.

I have here been obliged to speak doubtfully because thus far, so far as I know, there is no certainty either as to the tendency of development among the agriculturalists or as to the form of management, nor are we certain as to whether any specific form of agrarian production is the superior. But, so far as I see, the Marxian system breaks down on this point; the deductions of Marx are not applicable to the sphere of agriculture without change. He has said much of importance concerning agrarian matters; but his theory of development, which rests upon an assumption of business upon a large scale and upon the proletarianising of the masses, and which necessarily leads to socialism in its development, is only for the sphere of manufactures. It does not apply to agricultural development; and to me it seems that only a scientific investigation will be able to fill the gap which now exists.