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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244 THE SOCIALISM OF TO-DAY. CHAPTER XL COLLECTIVISM AND LAND NATIONALIZATION. HE word Collectivism is quite modern, but the idea forms part of every system of Radical Socialism. Radical Socialism would either abolish altogether, or restrict within narrow limits, the right of hereditary succession, even in the direct line, because its effect is to increase inequality, and to give to the heirs the enjoyment of property which they have not produced themselves—an effect contrary to the principle of distributive justice, which derives property, and consequently the right to its enjoyment, from personal labour. If the right of hereditary succession were abolished or limited, the property thus left without an heir would lapse, as it does at present, to the State, or through the State to the Commune, and in this way collective property would necessarily arise. Collectivism may be conceived more or less completely applied, according as the State is endowed with the ownership of the soil alone, as is proposed in England in the schemes for “ land nationalization ; ” or also with the ownership of all fixed capital ; or even with that of circulating capital as well, in this case leaving to individuals the power of acquiring objects of enjoyment only as the immediate product of labour. The St Simonians went deeper than anybody towards the root of this problem. Without stopping to trace the plan of any ideal organization, as Fourier, Cabet, or even Louis Blanc did, and without relying on the doctrines of political economy, as Marx and Lassalle have since so skilfully done, they at once attacked the principle of hereditary succession, upon which, io point of fact, everything depends.

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