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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324 SOCIALISM IN ENGLAND. they will never consent to have the Collectivist experiment tried upon them. They have always shown a jealousy, in the main a wholesome one, of State interference ; and though more inclined of late to trust officialism in some matters, they will never consent to surrender to any government, however democratically con stituted, the entire regulation of the whole economy of life. Possibly the Germans, who have long been accustomed to a bureaucratic régime—an excellent one of its kind—may submit to the growth of State Socialism among them, and the experi ment will be watched with great interest by many of us ; but the love of personal liberty, with all its accompanying draw backs, and the sense of self-reliance, are too deeply engraved in the English nature to render possible even the modified form of State help likely to be adopted in Germany. Indeed, the feelings I speak of, though more noticeable with us,* are not confined to Englishmen ; they are shared in a greater or less degree by the whole civilized world ; and a true analysis would, I think, show that it is these feelings which have driven many of those most profoundly dissatisfied with the present social régime to adopt the principle of Anarchism or Amorphism—a principle which Mr. Hyndman justly calls “ Individualism run mad ”—rather than any form of centralized or authoritarian Collectivism or Communism. Bakunin, in fact, bears the same relation to Karl Marx that Herbert Spencer does to the modern State Socialist Though starting with a very different estimate of the present régime, and moving on a very different plane, they each represent a revolt from what they severally think would be an excessive inter ference of centralized authority. Nevertheless, these two ideas of Anarchism and of cen tralized Socialism, though separated theoretically by the whole diameter of economic being, if reduced to practice in the * The difference between the English and the French workman was once more brought into strong relief at the Working Men’s Conference held at Paris last year, and attended by Messrs. Proadhurst, .Shipton, and others, as delegates from the Trades Unions. The English official report states that at one time the Conference looked as though it would fail : “The point of difference was the extent to which the State should be asked to protect labour.”

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