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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SOCIALISM IN ENGLAND. 309 rents, as there could not be an unlimited supply of houses in the most desirable situations, but probably Professor Symes means that the improved houses should be built in as suitable positions as may be in numbers proportional to the poor in each district The competition rents would no doubt be lowered as the supply of houses increased, but it is certain that the transaction would result in a huge pecuniary loss to the State. Perhaps this is not a fatal objection in Professor Symes’ eyes, for he further believes that “ it would be desirable to incur some pecuniary loss in establishing government workshops which should partly mitigate the uncertainties of modern industrialism.” How State workshops would have this result is not made clear. Of course, if the State undertook to provide work for those out of employment, much of the uncertainty of finding employment would, for a time at least, disappear. But at what cost and with what ulterior consequences? At the immediate cost of the tax-payers, and ultimately at that of the nation as well, for, as Professor Symes admits, “ the expense would, on the average, be greater than the waste involved in the existing industrialism.” But this is not all or nearly all. Just at the moment when, owing to a glut in the market, manu facturers would be lessening their production, labourers, thrown out of employment, would be demanding work at the hands of the State in increasing numbers. The State would be obliged to extend its operations to meet, not a demand for commodities, but the excessive supply of labour ; and the period of equili brium would be indefinitely postponed. Indeed, to remedy the confusion worse confounded, the cry of the Collectivists, that the State should take into its possession and management all the land, capital, machinery, and credit of the country, would become irresistible. It is impossible to estimate with any approach to accuracy the influence of this movement among the clergy of the Church of England. Mr. Headlam tells me that it is certainly spreading among them, though he admits that he could not name fifty who would call themselves “Christian Socialists.” The roll of the Guild of St Matthew now contains 119 names, of which forty-five are those of clerical members. The increasing atten-

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