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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COLLECTIVISM AND LAND NATIONALIZATION. 249 growth of intellectual power ; but when land is collectively appropriated, the wealth of all increases in proportion to the activity of each, and to the advance of civilization. Colins has also developed some original views on the history of communities, which have been reproduced by M. L. de Potter in his Dictionnaire Rationnel. At the first, the supremacy of brute force is established : the father of the family rules, the strongest of the tribe com mands. But in a tolerably large community, this kind of supremacy can never long endure, for he who is at one time the strongest cannot always remain such. What does he do, then ? In order to continue master, he converts, as Rousseau '’^ys, his strength into a right, and obedience to him into a duty, ''^ith this object in view, he asserts that there exists an anthro pomorphic almighty being, called God ; that God has revealed ^ules of action, and has appointed him the infallible lawgiver and interpreter of this revelation ; that God has endowed every ^an with an immortal soul ; and, finally, that man will be rewarded or punished in a future life, according as he has has not regulated his conduct by the revealed law. It is not enough, however, for the legislator to assert these dogmas ; he must further preserve them from examination, and ^his is done by maintaining ignorance and repressing thought, theocratic sovereignty, or the divine right of kings, is thus established, and a feudal aristocracy arises. This is the historic period, called by Rational Socialism “ the period of social ignorance and of compressibility of examination.” After a longer or shorter interval, in consequence of the growth of intelligence, the discoveries thereby made, and the Increasing facility of communication between nations, it becomes impossible to repress all examination entirely. Then the super human basis of society is disputed, and its authority falls to the ground. The divine right of kings loses its theocratic mask, ^ud the government is transformed into a mere supremacy of force—that is to say, of the majority of the people. Aristocratic society becomes bourgeois, and enters upon the historic period “ ignorance and incompressibility of examination.” Society, then, becomes profoundly agitated and disorganized.

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