The Socialism of to-day

Bibliographic data

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

Usage license:: Get license information via the feedback formular.

KARL MARX. 21 to enable conclusions to be drawn from them with certainty. As M. H. Passy justly remarks, if too short, definitions are false, because they do not take exceptions into account ; if too long, they perplex and serve no purpose. The best plan is to use words in their usual sense, to employ concrete terms that everybody understands, and to avoid as far as possible abstract and general expressions which give rise to frequent mistakes and bootless discussions. Thus contests are always arising among economists as to what is to be understood by “capital” and “rent” Why not simply say, food, machines, tools, money or income, and the produce of land ? It would take a little longer, but it would be much more clear. Bossuet and Pascal did not employ vague abstract terms ; they always expressed themselves in an incisive and intelligible manner. To confine one’s self to the language of the seventeenth century would suffice to put an end to most of the misunder standings and idle discussions which encumber Political Economy, and to render impossible such mistakes as are to be found in Das Kapital. What made Karl Marx one of the leaders of European Socialism was that he was the founder and organizer of the International. There is nothing of the .revolutionary agitator either in his writings or in his life. His books have the pre tension of being purely scientific, and his life, after some stormy incidents, was .that of a scholar pursuing his favourite studies in peaceful seclusion. Marx was born at Trêves, on the 2nd May, 1818. His father, a baptized Jew, was an inspector of mines. Karl studied law with great success at the university of Bonn, and after returning to Trêves, married, in 1843, Jenny von West- phalen, sister of the Count von Westphalen, who had been a member of the Manteuffel ministry, and who had recently died. He refused the advantageous posts held out to him in the service of the State in order to give himself entirely up to studying Political Economy, and in particular the social question. Prosecuted by the Prussian Government for his extreme opinions, he took refuge in Paris, and there published, jointly with Arnold Ruge, the Deutsch-Französische yahrbücher^

Access restriction

Copyright

fullscreen: The Socialism of to-day

Monograph

Table of contents

Download

Monograph

This page

Image fragment

Citation links

Citation recommendation