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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202 THE SOCIALISM OF TO-DAY. declares, “ desires a universal revolution, at once social, philo sophical, economical, and political, in order that the existing order of things—which is founded on property, on exploitation, on the principle of authority, whether religious, metaphysical, doctrinaire after the manner of the bourgeoisie, or revolutionary after the manner of the Jacobins—may be absolutely over thrown, so that not one stone of it shall remain upon another, first throughout Europe, and then in the rest of the world. Raising the cry of ‘ Peace for the workers ! Liberty for the oppressed ! ’ and ‘ Death to tyrants, exploiters, and patrons of all kinds ! ’ we wish to destroy all States and all Churches, w ith all their institutions and laws, religious, political, juridical, finan cial, magisterial, academical, economical, and social, in order that all these millions of poor human beings, who are cheated, enslaved, overworked', and exploited—having been at last delivered from their masters and benefactors, whether official or officious, whether associations or individuals—may hence forth and for ever breathe in absolute freedom.” This is plainly Rousseau’s idea, expressed with the emphasis of the Oriental and the violence of the Tartar. Man, especially the worker, is crushed by the immense superstructure of the social edifice which the centuries have piled up. How to free him ? There is only one way : to hurl it all down and level it even with the ground. Everything must be swept away so as to produce “perfect amorphism ;” for if one single ancient form be preserved, “ it will become the embryo from which all the old social iniquities will spring up again.” Still, however perfect this amorphism may be, to whatever extreme the work of destruction may be pushed, there will yet remain some men living and working beside each other. What political tie will unite them ? How w ill property and the dis tribution of products be regulated ? In the programme of the Alliance, we can find only vague indications on this head. The ideal of the future is evidently borrowed from what exists in Russia to-day. Land will be the collective property of the Commune, which will distribute it among the inhabitants. Industrial workers will be associated in “ artel,” that is to say, in co-operative societies. But it is a crime to attempt at pre-

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