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. 327 revolution, peaceful or bloody, will be effectual. The labourers must, by force, if necessary, take possession of the land and capital of the country and expropriate without compensation the present holders. Production for profit must be abolished, competition done away with, and the work of production and exchange must be carried on, in some undefined way, by “ industrial and agricultural armies ” marshalled by the State. Social Reformers, on the other hand, say that a revolution of this kind, apart from its gross injustice and accompanying Reign cf Terror, if successful at all, would be ineffectual, and could only lead to anarchy, reaction, and despotism ; that the real revolution, if such it is to be called, must take place in the minds and hearts of men ; that this revolution can only be brought about gradually, must, in short, be an evolution, and in fact, going on at present ; and, finally, that they do not consider production for profit necessarily a crime, nor com petition necessarily an evil, while they look upon the vast extension of State action contemplated by Socialists as giving fbe death-blow to progress and substituting comparative slavery ^cr comparative freedom. 1 here is no panacea for the maladies which affect society. They must be subjected to various influences, moral and intel lectual as well as material. But of all the influences likely to benefit the social organism on its industrial side, the co-opera tive movement is the most promising. It is a purely democratic movement which, without revolution and without State-aid, bas for its aim to resolve the discords that exist between dis tributors and consumers, and between employers and employed, ^nd also to promote the material, moral, and intellectual elevation of the working classes. It is worth considering, for a moment, the wonderful strides "'hich this movement has made in the forty years which have elapsed since the “ Equitable Pioneers ” subscribed their ¡£2^ 3^nd opened their store on the principle of dividing profits on fbe amount of purchases. According to the Registrar’s returns Ibr 1882, there were then in the United Kingdom 134b Co operative Societies, doing an annual trade of ;¿^2Ó,ói6,ooo, out of which they were making a profit of ^2,100,000. Ihese

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