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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BAKUNIN THE APOSTLE OF NIHILISM. I95 end of the world did not come, those who persisted in these hopes, the Millenarians, were declared heretics. The Anchor ites and the Ascetics, too, fled from a world hopelessly given up to evil Finally, the same thought inspired Rousseau in his famous Essays on Letters, and on the Origin of Inequality. Jean-Jacques was struck with the evils and iniquities of the social order. Civil institutions consecrate inequality and pro perty, whence spring the servitude and misery of the masses. Science, art, and literature, of which we are so proud, are they not the agents of demoralization ? Civilization is the source of all evils. What is the remedy ? Rousseau sees only one, and that he believes impossible : a return to the primitive state. We must, then, as Voltaire put it, return to the woods and go on all fours. The Revolutionists of to-day reproduce the same train of reasoning. Formerly they called for universal suffrage and the republic, as the panacea against the social disorder. These institutions exist in America, together with commercial auto nomy and complete liberty; nevertheless, the progress of civilization is bringing about the same situation there as in monarchical Europe. The Utopian systems of Robert Owen, Fourier, Cabet, and Louis Blanc have been tried, and have failed. The difficulty of economic reforms has been demon strated by science and by facts. Must we wait until the gradual development of education and of equality brings about a better situation ? But then we shall have to endure, per haps for some centuries, the hell that at present exists. No it is too much. Accursed be society ! Down with its institu tions and its laws ! Let us overthrow all that is, and, according to Rousseau’s wish, go back again to the savage state. This genesis of the extreme revolutionary idea in the West takes, in the case of Bakunin, a peculiar tone of exaltation and mysticism that springs, I believe, from the Russian charac ter. Whether it is the effect of race or of social surroundings, we see social phenomena produced in Russia which would seem impossible with other nations. Thus, as one knows, there is in Russia a considerable sect who, in spite of severe penalties, practise systematically the self-inflicted mutilation of

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