The Socialism of to-day

Bibliographic data

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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64 THE SOCIALISM OF TO-DAY. capital should be at the service of labour. Man created capital to help him in his work ; it is not necessary that he should work for the benefit of capital. It is well for him to make capital, but not to have “ capital made out of him.” Instead of wages, always reduced to the minimum by the “ iron law,” the labourer should get the entire produce of his labour. Capital and labour should cease to make war upon each other; they should live in peace and act in unison. The solu tion is plain : let them be united in the same person. In order to obtain this result, which would effect the transformation of existing society, there is no need to seek what is new, nor to rush into Utopias. It would suffice to favour the development of institutions already working under our eyes in different countries. These are co-operative societies of production. The labourers are there the owners of the capital ; they direct the enterprise and receive all the profits. Thus, capital is the servant of labour, and the workman receives as remuneration the entire product of his work. Societies of this kind, which have been founded in Paris and England, and of which those established by the “ Equitable Pioneers of Rochdale ” are the best known, prove, beyond doubt, the possibility of success for these combinations. But the only way of insuring their progress, and of thus changing the face of society, is to largely increase their number ; and for that purpose the intervention of the State is necessary. When Schulze-Delitzsch rejects such intervention, says Lassalle, he has “ a mere night-watchman's ” idea of the State. * According to Lassalle, the rô/e of the State is not merely that of maintaining order, but also of furthering all the great enterprises of civilization. And this, he declares, is what the State has always done. Is it not to the intervention of the State that we owe our roads, harbours, canals, postal and tele graph systems, and our schools ? When the construction of a railway is in question, does not the State frequently grant a * [Lassalle calls this a night-watchman’s idea, or a policeman’s idea, “ because it represents to itself the State from the point of view of a police man, whose whole function consists in preventing robbery and burglary.” Arbeiter-programiHy Peters’ translation, p. 53.—Tr.'\

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