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. 323 great.” We beg leave to differ from Mr. Bax’s estimate of the relative efficiency of the Collectivist factory as compared with the individualist owner of a needle and thread, but it is more important to observe that, in the absence of prohibitory laws, the old “ profit-mongering, competitive, individualistic system ” will be sure to creep in again. In process of time, even if a counter-revolution does not hasten matters, energetic individuals, in spite of the levelling system of remuneration, will amass capital by working overtime. They will then compete with the State in production, and, unless we read history all awrong, they will in the end prevail. Thus it appears that the Collectivist experiment can only be tried after the sacrifice of national honour j the experiment itself, if workable at all, would deprive life of most of what makes life endurable, and sooner or later it would inevitably f^-il and leave us centuries behind even our present stage of development Moreover, the Social Democrats of England are never tired of asserting—what, indeed, is sufficiently obvious—that a forcible revolution will be necessary before they can try their Collectivist scheme. It cannot, they say, like the systems of Owen and Fourier, be tried experimentally on a small scale. T hey there fore lay themselves open to the strictures passed by J. S. Mil on the Revolutionary Socialists of the Continent in respect of similar schemes proposed by them. It must be acknow ledged,” he says, “ that those who would play this game on the strength of their own private opinion, unconfirmed as yet by ^ny experimental verification—who would forcibly deprive all ^ho have now a comfortable physical existence of their only present means of preserving it, and would brave the frightfu bloodshed and misery that would ensue if the attempt was msisted—must have a serene confidence in their own wisdom on the one hand, and a recklessness of other people s sufferings on the other, which Robespierre and St. Just, hitherto the typical instances of those united attributes, scarcely came up to.” * Unless a great change comes over the workers of England, * “ Chapters on Socialism,” lortnightly Review (April, 1879).

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