244

THE  SOCIALISM  OF  TO-DAY.

CHAPTER  XL

COLLECTIVISM  AND  LAND  NATIONALIZATION.
HE  word  Collectivism  is  quite  modern,  but  the  idea  forms

part  of  every  system  of  Radical  Socialism.  Radical
Socialism  would  either  abolish  altogether,  or  restrict  within
narrow  limits,  the  right  of  hereditary  succession,  even  in  the
direct  line,  because  its  effect  is  to  increase  inequality,  and  to
give  to  the  heirs  the  enjoyment  of  property  which  they  have
not  produced  themselves—an  effect  contrary  to  the  principle
of  distributive  justice,  which  derives  property,  and  consequently
the  right  to  its  enjoyment,  from  personal  labour.  If  the  right
of  hereditary  succession  were  abolished  or  limited,  the  property
thus  left  without  an  heir  would  lapse,  as  it  does  at  present,  to
the  State,  or  through  the  State  to  the  Commune,  and  in  this
way  collective  property  would  necessarily  arise.
Collectivism  may  be  conceived  more  or  less  completely
applied,  according  as  the  State  is  endowed  with  the  ownership
of  the  soil  alone,  as  is  proposed  in  England  in  the  schemes  for
“  land  nationalization  ;  ”  or  also  with  the  ownership  of  all  fixed
capital  ;  or  even  with  that  of  circulating  capital  as  well,  in  this
case  leaving  to  individuals  the  power  of  acquiring  objects  of
enjoyment  only  as  the  immediate  product  of  labour.
The  St  Simonians  went  deeper  than  anybody  towards  the
root  of  this  problem.  Without  stopping  to  trace  the  plan  of
any  ideal  organization,  as  Fourier,  Cabet,  or  even  Louis  Blanc
did,  and  without  relying  on  the  doctrines  of  political  economy,
as  Marx  and  Lassalle  have  since  so  skilfully  done,  they  at  once
attacked  the  principle  of  hereditary  succession,  upon  which,  io
point  of  fact,  everything  depends.