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. 321 more important than the mere material loss, involved in the means proposed, is the end in view in itself desirable ? Shorter hours of labour, more leisure, a more equal distribution of wealth, the substitution of an “ intelligently ordered co-operation for existence ” for the present “ physically disordered struggle for existence ”—all this sounds very inviting. Let us see what are the probabilities of obtaining it, and, apart from the initial cost, what price must we pay for its maintenance. The Social Democrats never attempt to give any clear notion of the working of the Collectivist State, either because they have formed none themselves, or because a frank statement would expose its absurdity. All they say is that land, mines, and all raw Materials ; railways, shipping, and all means of communication ; factories, machinery, and all instruments of production all the land and capital of the country, in short—is to be con centrated in the hands of a democratic State, and the work of production, distribution, and exchange is to be carried on “agricultural and industrial armies under State control. Competition will, it seems, be merged in the huge State nionopoly, and exchange will be effected, in some undescribed way, without profit. Every article produced will, I suppose, be ticketed as equivalent to so many hours’ labour, and will be inter changeable with labour-notes in some such way as suggested by Rodbertus.* As nobody will have any private capital, everybody will have to enlist in the service of the State ; and to produce the wealth necessary to secure a reasonable competence, something like two hours’ work a day will, they maintain, suffice. 1 here will be a great saving, they say, in the wages of superintendence and in the costs of distribution. The superintendents—includ ing, I presume, the whole hierarchy of State officials who are to organize labour—are to be remunerated on the same basis as that of productive labourers, pure and simple, j This little admission —which is, indeed, only the logical consequence of the Socialist theory of value—enables us to form an estimate of the probable efficiency with which the gigantic task of organization will be * See supra. Chapter III. r t See Mr. Bax’s article, “ The Modem Revolution, m To-day, for July, 1884, pp. 71, 72.

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