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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120 THE SOCIALISM OF TO-DAY. they will find there an inexhaustible arsenal. Upon this ground Catholicism and Socialism may easily meet ; it is sufficient if they merely remember their antecedents and return to their principles.* There is no stranger aberration than that of the levelling Democrats who attack Christianity and adopt the doctrines of scientific materialism. If the existing social organization is to be changed, it must be by invoking certain rights that have been ignored, and by showing another ideal to be attained. It is a spiritualist philosophy alone that seeks, among abstract ideas of justice and rational order, for the notion of a right superior to any recognized at present, and one to which all existing rights ought to be subject. It is Christianity which has put into the minds of the Western world the idea of the “ kingdom,” that is, an ideal world completely different from this world of ours. Socialism and Christianity both aspire to so change things that justice shall reign everywhere. Scientific materialism will say, after the manner of Pilate, What is justice? It cares only for the facts it verifies; and when these facts recur with regularity and sequence, it calls them natural laws which must be submitted to. How can a right be conceived which is contrary to facts, that is, to natural laws ? In the struggle for existence the best armed succeed ; the feeble disappear leaving no posterity, and thus progress is attained by natural selection. The Economist, who confines * In the sermons of Bossuet there are numerous passages which Socialists might take as a text for their demands. For example, in the Sermon sur la dignité des pauvres dans P Église, he says, “ God has sent me, says the Saviour, to preach the Gospel to the poor—Evangelisare pauperibus misit me. The rich are tolerated only in order that they may assist the poor. This is why, in the primitive Church, everything was in common, so that none should be guilty of leaving any one in want. For what injustice, my brethren, that the poor should bear the whole burden, and that the whole weight of misery should fall on their shoulders ! If they complain and murmur against Divine Providence—Lord ! let me say it—it is not without some colour of justice ; for, as we are all kneaded of the same lump, and there cannot be much difference between clay and clay, why do we see, on the one side, joy, honour, and affluence, and, on the other, sorrow and despair, extreme want, and, more often still, contempt and servitude ? Why should one lucky individual live in abundance and be able to satisfy his every little useless fancy, while some unfortunate wretch, a man as much as he, cannot maintain his poor family, nor allay the pangs of hunger that devour them ? ”

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