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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148 THE SOCIALISM OF TO-DA Y. The conclusion to be drawn from this reasoning is that the working men of one country, in order to resist a lowering of wages, must enter into an understanding with those of other opposition must be made, and if it takes place in a foreign country, then in that foreign country resistance must be organized. It is therefore easy to see how the cosmopolitan character of capital, the facility of transport and exchange, and the identity of manufacturing processes naturally lead to an international association of working men. Another circumstance of a more special character led in the same direction. Sometimes English employers, when their workmen refused the conditions offered to them and went out on strike, imported foreign workmen—Germans, Belgians, or Danes—who were ready to take less wages. They even threatened to introduce Chinese coolies, who, subsisting on rice can live in comfort on sixpence a day. How were the workmen to escape from this competition imported from with out > Obviously, by forming an understanding with foreign workmen, by proving to them that the interests of all labourers are mutually dependent, and by inducing them accordingly to refuse any offers that employers of another country might make to them. Clearly the International grew, at the outset, on economical ground and under the influence of the new condi tions of modern industry. This is proved beyond question by the fact that the Inter national came into being immediately after the holding of the International Exhibition at London, in 1862. At least it was then that it took bodily shape, for the idea, m its theoretical form, dates from much earlier. In 1847 there was held m London an assembly of German Communists under the di^c tion of Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, who had just published his book on the condition of working men in England, manifesto was printed in several languages. The programme adopted may be summarized as follows ; Abolition of private property ; centralization of credit in the hands of the State y means of a national bank ; agricultural operations on a large scale to be carried on according to a scientific plan, and industry

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