The Socialism of to-day

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Monograph

Identifikator:: 835096955

URN:: urn:nbn:de:zbw-retromon-28834

Document type:: Monograph

Author:: Laveleye, Émile de

Title:: The Socialism of to-day

Place of publication:: London

Publisher:: Field & Tuer

Year of publication:: 1884

Scope:: 1 Online-Ressource (XLIV, 331 S.)

Collection:: Economics Books

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SOCIALISM IN ENGLAND. 319 plunder. It is as they say, “ a class war,” in its literal and terrible sense, to which they are urging the people. I do not propose to criticise in detail all “ the stepping- stones to a happier period ” above mentioned. I believe that, so far as they depend for their efficacy on the principle of plunder, they will be rejected, as soon as they are understood, by the overwhelming majority of the working classes of this country. The three first articles of the New Charter, however, are not necessarily revolutionary in any proper sense of the term ; the only question is whether they would be beneficial. As to the compulsory construction of labourers’ dwellings “ in proportion to the population, to be let at rents to cover the cost of construction and maintenance alone,” unless—as, indeed, appears to be intended—the sites are to be obtained as part of the “ spoils of war,” it is by no means certain that the State, with all its inevitable jobbery, incompetence, and extravagance, is the best agency for providing labourers with good houses at low ' rents. In any case, on Mr. Hyndman’s own principle of the bare-subsistence wage, the net result, under existing economic conditions, would be to benefit the “ slave-drivers ” by lowering the rate of wages. All thinking persons, however, are fully convinced that stringent measures are imperatively called for to put an end to the scandalous way in which large numbers of the labourers in town and country are housed. The question is beset with difficulties, but it seems to me that such measures, so far as they require a change in the law, should take the direction of obliging those who profit by the letting of houses, to see that they fulfil certain minimum sanitary requirements, or, in the alternative, to surrender them up at a price to be determined having regard to that obligation, rather than that of calling in an elaborate State machinery for any large construc tive effort. Persons should not be allowed “to profit by their own wrong,” but it is better, where possible, to enforce individual responsibility than to supersede it by officialism. As to “ free education ” with “ one wholesome meal a day,” this too, as far as the parents are concerned, would seem, on Mr. Hyndman’s principles, to be equivalent to a rate in aid of wages ; for what the parents gain by having their children’s

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