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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188 THE SOCIALISM OF TO-DAY. profound thought, admirably expressed by De Tocqueville, in the seventeenth chapter of L'Ancieii Régime: “ When the people are overwhelmed with misery, they are resigned. It is when they begin to hold up their heads and to look above them, that they are impelled to insurrection.” When the votes were taken, the Anarchists found themselves in a minority. They then declared that the principles of the two schools were too opposed for common action, and the schism was definitively established. The anarchical principle had accomplished its work of dissolution. The second Inter national disappeared like that of Marx. The word is still frequently employed to designate certain groups of aggressive Socialism, but there now no longer exists any universal associa tion to which this name can be applied. Its ghost, however, survives and continues to act as if it still had some reality. It is true, indeed, that the International was never more than a shade, that is to say, an idea which was unable to take bodily form. Let us now sum up this sketch of the rise and fall of the International. As one of its leaders, Eccarius, said, it was born of the union of two tendencies : that of the English trades unions, aiming at an increase of wages by means of combina tions and strikes, on the practical economic ground, and that of French and German Socialism, looking forward to a radical change of the existing social order. The first of these ten dencies predominated up to 1869. Since then, and especially after the fall of the Commune, the revolutionary element got the upper hand. What made the success of the International so rapid and, in appearance, so alarming, was that it answered to that sentiment of discontent and revolt which has gradually spread among the labouring classes of all countries. The same irritations, the same aspirations everywhere fermenting, it was not difficult to establish among them a bond of union ; but the real power at the disposal of the Association was always insignificant It never knew, even approximately, the number of its adherents. As M. Fribourg, one of its former members, said, one affiliated oneself to the International “ as one takes a glass of wine.” From i866 to 1870 the greater number of

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