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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XXX INTRODUCTION. the workman merely to live and perpetuate his kind, comes too often into operation. As soon as this law, formulated by economists, began to be understood by working men, they said, “ Since our wages depend upon the supply of our labour, let us cease to work until we get higher wages.” Hence those strikes and coalitions on the Continent, in America, and especially in England, which almost daily interrupt work and interfere with every trade. Masters and men are in a state of constant warfare, having their battles, their victories, and their defeats. It is a dark and bitter civil war, wherein he wins who can longest hold out without earning anything ; a struggle far more cruel and more keen than that decided by bullets from a barricade ; one where all the furniture is pawned or sold, where the savings of better times are gradually devoured, and where, at last, famine and misery besiege the home, and oblige the wife and little ones to cry for mercy. In the course of this volume it will be seen how freedom of trade with foreign countries, joined to free competition at home, gave rise to the International League of labourers. As a consequence, this struggle between capital and labour is extending everywhere. It may be said that among the industrial nations, who now form one vast market, two armies stand facing each other ; on the one side, the capitalists, on the other, the labourers. The International, no longer in existence as a regular organization, still finds devoted and fanatical apostles to spread its doctrines. It is due to their propaganda, either secret or avowed, that Socialism has invaded all countries. It has become a kind of cosmopolitan religion. It oversteps frontiers, it obliterates race-antipathies, and, above all, it eradicates patriotism and tries to efface the very idea of it. Fellow-countrymen are enemies if they are employers, foreigners are brothers if they live by wages. From the moment that the Republic was proclaimed in France, the German Socialists declared against their own armies, and working men of London, Pesth, Vienna, and Berlin applauded the struggles and excused the crimes of the Commune. Economic con ditions being nearly the same in all countries, Socialism finds

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