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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O 193 BAKUNIN THE APOSTLE OF NIHILISM. Economists to State intervention to an extreme, he ends by crying up “anarchy,” that is to say, the suppression of the State. He extols individualism and liberty. Order will result he asserts, from the initiative of individuals freed from the shackles of all kinds which at present impede and crush them. Bakunin reproduces these ideas, but he clothes them in Russian garb. He demands the collective ownership of the soil and of the instruments of production, but he confers it upon the Commune in like manner as such ownership exists with regard to land in the villages of Great Russia. He desires “ anarchy,” but with a sort of mystic enthusiasm quite foreign to Proudhon. He dreams of the total destruction of all existing institutions, and the formation of an “ amorphous ” society ; that is to say, â society without any form, which means, in reality, a return to the savage state. To attain this end, there is wanted a revolu tion knowing no pity—a revolution which, by fire and sword, will extirpate to the very last traces the old social order. Thé final aim, then, is Collectivism, or, better still, “ Amorphism,” and the means of attaining it “pan-destruction.” It might be supposed that these were the ideas of a raving lunatic, but they are not without precedent in the history of human thought. At certain troublous epochs the souls of those who yearn for the ideal bemoan and are indignant at the evils and iniquities that afflict the human race. They catch a glimpse of a better order where justice will reign supreme, but they believe that it can never be attained by slow and successive reforms. They, therefore, look for the destruction of the old order, so that from its ruins the regenerated order may arise Such was the idea of primitive Christianity. In order that the Kingdom of Heaven might come, this perverse world must perish ; not, it is true, by a political or social revolution but by a cosmical catastrophe. Everything was to be consumed not by the torch of the incendiary, as certain Anarchists wish to-day, but by fire from heaven. “ Dies iræ, dies ilia Solvet sæclum in favilla.” * • The idea of palingenesis arose from the problem of evil. The just

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