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Socialism and the Social
Movement in the
19th Century
BY
WERNER SOMBART
Professor in the University of Breslau
With a Chronicle of the Social Movement 1750-1896
"_Je ne propose rien, je ne suppose rien; j'expose_"
TRANSLATED BY
ANSON P. ATTERBURY
Pastor of the Park Presbyterian Church New York
WITH INTRODUCTION BY
JOHN B. CLARK
Professor of Political Economy
Columbia University
G.P. PUTNAM'S SONS
NEW YORK LONDON
27 WEST TWENTY-THIRD STREET 24 BEDFORD STREET, STRAND
The Knickerbocker Press
1898
COPYRIGHT, 1898
BY
G.P. PUTNAM'S SONS
Entered at Stationers' Hall, London
The Knickerbocker Press, New York
TO THE OTHER AND BETTER MEMBER
OF THE COMMUNISTIC SOCIETY TO WHICH WE BELONG
THIS TRANSLATION IS INSCRIBED
PREFACE, BY THE TRANSLATOR
While rambling through quaint old Nuremberg, last summer, I was driven
for shelter from rain into a bookshop. In a conversation with the
genial proprietor, he called my attention to a book, lately published,
that had already made a deep impression upon the world of German
readers. A reading and re-reading of the little book convinced me that
English readers, as well, will be glad to follow Professor Sombart in
his comprehensive and suggestive review of Socialism.
Thanks are due to the learned German professor, whose name appears on
the title-page, for his courtesy in this matter; also to his German
publisher. I would also express obligation to my friend, Professor
Sigmon M. Stern, with whom I have consulted freely on some difficult
points of translation. The Introduction by Professor John B. Clark, of
Columbia University, will be appreciated, I know, by the reader as
well as by myself.
A.P.A.
APRIL, 1898.
INTRODUCTORY NOTE
The reader of this work will miss something which he has been
accustomed to find in books on Socialism. Professor Sombart has not
given us synopses of the theories of St. Simon, Proudhon, Marx, Owen,
and others. His work marks the coming of a period in which socialism
is to be studied, rather than the speculations of socialists. Theories
and plans no longer constitute the movement. There are still schools
of socialistic thought; but there is something actually taking place
in the industrial world that is the important part of the socialistic
movement. Reality is the essence of it.
The structure of the world of industry is changing. Great
establishments are exterminating small ones, and are forming
federations with each other. Machinery is producing nearly every kind
of goods, and there is no longer a place in the world for such a
middle class as was represented by the master workman, with his slowly
learned handicraft and his modest shop. These facts construed in a
certain way are the material of socialism. If we see in them the dawn
of an era of state industry that shall sweep competition and
competitors out of the field, we are evolutionary socialists.
We may need a doctrinal basis for our view of the evolution that is
going on; and we may find it in the works of Marx and others; but
already we have ceased to have an absorbing interest in the contrasts
and the resemblances that their several theories present. We have
something to study that is more directly important than doctrinal
history.
In Professor Sombart's study, Owenism, indeed, has an important place,
since the striking element in it is something that the present
movement has completely put away, namely, utopianism. No one now
thinks, as did Owen, that merely perceiving the beauty of the
socialistic ideal is enough to make men fashion society after that
pattern. No one thinks that society can be arbitrarily shaped after
any pattern. Marxism, in practice, means realism and a reliance on
evolution, however little the wilder utterances of Marx himself may
suggest that fact. Internationalism is also a trait of this modern
movement; but it is not of the kind that is represented by the
International Working-Men's Association. It is a natural affiliation
of men of all nations having common ends to gain.
The relation of a thinker to a practical movement cannot lose its
importance. It is this connection that Professor Sombart gives us, and
his work is an early representative of the coming type of books on
Socialism. It treats of realities, and of thought that connects itself
with realities. It treats, indeed, of a purposeful movement to assist
evolution, and to help to put the world into the shape that
socialistic theorists have defined. Here lies the importance of the
study of theory.
Professor Sombart's work contains little that is directly
controversial; but it gives the impression that the purpose of the
socialists is based on a fallacy, that it is not, in reality, in
harmony with evolution, and that it will not prevail. It may be added
that the style of the work is worthy of the thought that it
expresses, and that the English translation is worthy of the
original. The book will take its place among the more valuable of the
works on Socialism that have thus far appeared.
JOHN B. CLARK,
Columbia University, New York.
PREFACE
What is here published was originally delivered in the form of
lectures, in the Fall of 1896, in Zurich, before miscellaneous but in
general appreciative and inspiring audiences. The approval which they
received, and the earnestly expressed wish of many hearers that the
addresses might appear in print, have finally overcome a not
inconsiderable reluctance on my part, felt by all in like position.
The lectures are in many places enlarged; indeed, largely put into new
form--changed from extemporaneous utterance into the more formal style
proper for the written word. But their character remains, especially
the restricted setting into which a great mass of material had to be
compressed. This is done intentionally, since what I would offer to a
larger public through this book is a brief, pointed, well-defined view
of "Socialism and the Social Movement in the Nineteenth Century."
W.S.
CONTENTS
PAGE
TRANSLATOR'S PREFACE v
INTRODUCTORY NOTE by Professor John B. Clark viii
AUTHOR'S PREFACE ix
CHAPTER
I. WHENCE AND WHITHER 1
Class struggle--Kant--The meaning of the social
movement--Essential elements in every social
movement--Characterisation of the social
movement--Conditions under which the working class
lives--Russian peasants--Irish "rack-rent" tenants--
Uncertainty of existence--The Japanese--The Kurd--
Hegel--The ground of revolutionary passions in the
modern proletariat--Time environment of the modern
social movement--"Revolutionism."
II. CONCERNING UTOPIAN SOCIALISM 19
Social literature, old and new--Adam Smith--David
Ricardo--"Christian socialism"--Lamennais--Kingsley--
"Ethical socialism"--Sismondi--Carlyle--"Philanthropic
socialism"--Pierre Leroux--Grün--Hess--
Anti-capitalistic literature--Adam Müller--Leopold von
Haller--Capitalistic methods of production--Utopian
socialists--St. Simon--Fourier--Owen.
III. THE ANTECEDENTS OF THE SOCIAL MOVEMENT 37
Beginnings of the social movement carried on by the
masses--Historic occurrences--Middle-class
movements--French Revolution--_Loi martiale_--
"Coalition Law"--Marat--The men of Montaigne--The
Sans-culottes--Danton--Robespierre--Constitution of
1793--_Droits de l'Homme_--Insurrection of
Babeuf--The first proletarian agitation--Elizabethan
trade law--The Chartist movement--English type of
working-men's movement--French type--German
type--Variations of the social movement--English
social development--Carlyle's teaching.
IV. THE DEVELOPMENT OF NATIONAL PECULIARITIES 62
Characterisation of the English working-men's
movement--English industrial monopoly, 1850-1880--
Alternation of power between Tories and Whigs--Value
of legislation in favour of the working man--
Temperament of the English working-man--Practical
tendency of the old English trade-union--English
"social peace"--French "revolutionism"--Factionism--
Clubbism--Putschism--Proudhon--The bourgeoisie--
Significance of the Reign of Terror--Difference
between Roman type of the born revolutionist and the
English working-man--Victor Hehn--French anarchism--
Bakunin--The peculiarities of social agitation in
Germany--Ferdinand Lassalle--Schulze-Delitzsch--The
Lassalle movement.
V. KARL MARX 90
Birthplace, 1818--Parentage--Cosmopolitanism of the
Marx family--At Bonn--Bruno Bauer--Driven from
Prussia--From Paris--Finds rest in London--Death,
1883--Marxian theory of social agitation--Communistic
Manifesto of Karl Marx and Frederic Engels--The
theory of value--Marx's application of the evolution
idea to the social movement--Ideal and material
emancipation of the proletariat--Creation of class
interest--Marxism as a social-political realism--
Engels's _Struggle of Classes in France_.
VI. THE TREND TOWARDS UNITY 121
The proletarian-socialistic character of the revolution
of 1848--Internationalism--First attempt for
international combination--The "International"--The
"Inaugural Address"--_Alliance Internationale de la
Démocratie Sociale_--Dissolution of the
"International"--Internal and external unification of
the proletariat--Lassalle's "Working-Men's
Union"--Wilhelm Liebknecht--August Bebel--The
Social-Democratic Working-Men's Party--The
"Honourables"--The "Social-Democratic Party"--The
"Gotha" programme--Gradual extension of the Marxian
system--French trade-union agitation--Approach of the
English working-men's movement to that of the
Continental--The "minimum programme" of all social
agitation--Centripetal and centrifugal tendency of
the social agitation.
VII. TENDENCIES OF THE PRESENT 142
Contradiction apparent in the great social movement--
Sources from which contradictions spring--Political
influence of the social movement--Revolutionism a
manifestation of unripeness--Meaning of social
evolution--Theoretical and practical social
development--Confusion of "ideal" and "programme"--
Relation of the proletariat to the _demos_--The
social movement to be the representative of the
highest form of economic life at every period of
production upon the largest scale--The "agrarian
question"--The Marxian theory of development only for
the sphere of manufactures--Does not apply to
agricultural development--Anti-religious nature of
the proletarian movement--The grounds for this enmity
to religion--The movement anti-ecclesiastical--
Patriotism--Not the heritage of a particular class--
Nationalism--Feeling of nationalism not shared by the
proletariat--No reason in the essence of modern
socialism for anti-nationalism--Asiatic development--
Advancement of Japan--Attitude of America towards
Asiatic development.
VIII. LESSONS 169
Necessity of the social movement--Lorenz von
Stein--"Class strife" not identical with civil
war--Various forms of "class strife"--Struggle the
solution in social life--Conflict not necessarily the
beginning of a new culture--Can also betoken the end
of the old--Social struggle should be determined
within legal bounds--Must be carried on with proper
weapons--English social agitation as a model.
APPENDIX. CHRONICLE OF THE SOCIAL MOVEMENT (1750-1896) 178
Notable inventions of modern machinery--"Machine
Riots"--Petitions against machines and
manufactories--Laws for the protection of
machines--Adam Smith's "Wealth of Nations"--Robert
Owen's chief writing's--Fourier's first great
book--Complete removal of Elizabethan trade
restrictions--The "Savannah" arrives at
Liverpool--Chief work of St. Simon--More liberal
coalition law--Opening of the Manchester-Liverpool
Railroad--Insurrection of the silk workers in
Lyons--Beginning of specific legislation for working
men--Founding of the German Zollverein--Beginnings of
German national industry--Introduction of Rowland
Hill's penny postage--Telegraph first applied to
English railroads--German governmental regulations
for the repression of the working-men's
movement--Severe laws of Napoleon III. for the
repression of all social agitation--First World's
Exposition in London--Bismarck forces the general,
equal, secret, and direct ballot--Liberal trade
regulation for the German Empire--Rapid development
of capitalism in Germany, especially after the
war--Trade-union act (English) supplemented in
1875--Law concerning the socialists in
Germany--Beginning of governmental working-men's
association in Germany--Insurance for the sick,
against accident, for the sick and aged, in
Germany--Endorsement of a legal establishment of the
eight-hour work-day by the Trade-Union Congress in
Liverpool--International Working-Men's Protection
Conference in Berlin--Third International
Working-Men's Congress in Zurich, at which English
trade-unions deliberate officially with the
Continental socialists--Fourth International
Working-Men's Congress in London.
SOCIALISM AND THE SOCIAL MOVEMENT IN THE XIXTH CENTURY
CHAPTER I
WHENCE AND WHITHER
"Da ist's denn wieder, wie die Sterne wollten:
Bedingung und Gesetz; und aller Wille
Ist nur ein Wollen, weil wir eben sollten,
Und vor dem Willen schweigt die Willkür stille."
GOETHE, _Urworte_.
When Karl Marx began a communistic manifesto with the well-known
words, "The history of all society thus far is the history of class
strife," he uttered, in my opinion, one of the greatest truths that
fill our century. But he did not speak the whole truth. For it is not
fully true that all history of society consists exclusively in
struggle between classes. If we would put "world history" into a
single phrase we shall be obliged, I think, to say that there is an
antithesis around which the whole history of society turns, as around
two poles: social and national--using the word national in the widest
meaning. Humanity develops itself into communities, and then these
communities fight and compete with each other; but always within the
community the individual begins to strive for elevation over others,
in order, as Kant once expressed it, to make distinction of rank among
his fellows, whom he does not like, from whom, however, he cannot
escape. So we see on the one side the exertion of the community for
wealth, power, recognition; and on the other side the same exertion,
by the individual, after power, wealth, honour. These, as it seems to
me, are the two matters which in fact fill all history. For history
begins as this antithesis unfolds itself. It is merely a figure of
speech, and you must not be shocked by the harsh expression, as I say
that human history is a fight either for food division, or for
feeding-place, upon our earth. These are both great contradictions
which constantly emerge, which invariably control mankind. We stand
to-day at the conclusion of an historic period of great national
pride, and in the midst of a period of great social contrasts; and
the varying views, world-wide in their differences, which obtain day
by day in different groups of men, all lead back, as it seems to me,
to the alternative, "national or social."
Before I now proceed with my theme, "Socialism and the Social Movement
in the Nineteenth Century,"--that is, to one member of this
antithesis, the social,--I would first suggest the question: "What is
a _social movement_?" I answer: _By a social movement we understand
the aggregate of all those endeavours of a social class which are
directed to a rational overturning of an existing social order to suit
the interests of this class._ The essential elements in every social
movement are these: First, an existing order in which a certain
society lives, and particularly a social order which rests chiefly
upon the manner of production and distribution of material goods as
the necessary basis of human existence. This specific system of
production and distribution is the point of issue for every social
movement. Secondly, a social class which is discontented with the
existing conditions. By a "social class" I understand a number of
similarly interested persons, especially persons who are similarly
interested in economic matters--the distinctive point; that is, of men
who are interested in a specific system of production and
distribution. We must, in understanding any social class, go back to
this economic system; and we should not allow ourselves to be blinded
or confused by the inbred notions of certain classes. These
prepossessions, which frequently control, are only bulwarks of classes
differing economically. And, thirdly, an aim which this class,
discontented with the existing order of things, holds up to reach; an
ideal, which presents compactly all that for which the society will
agitate, and which finds its expression in the postulates, demands,
programmes of this class. In general, where you can speak of a social
movement you find a point of issue, the existing social order; a
supporter of the movement, the social class; an aim, the ideal of the
new society.
In what follows I shall attempt to give some points of view for an
understanding of a specific--the modern--social movement. But what do
we mean by the phrase "to _understand_ a social movement"? This: to
comprehend the social movement in its essential historic limitations,
in its causal connection with historic facts out of which, of
necessity, that is produced which we describe as a social movement.
That is, to comprehend why specific social classes are formed, why
they present these particular points of opposition, why especially a
pushing, aggressive social class has, and must have, that particular
ideal for which it reaches. We mean, above all, to see that the
movement springs not out of the whim, the choice, the malevolence of
individuals; that it is not made, but becomes.
And now to the modern social movement. How is it to be characterised?
If we would hold fast to those elements which constitute every social
movement, we must describe the modern social movement on two sides:
according to its aim, and according to the class that supports the
movement. The modern social movement is, from the standpoint of its
aim, a socialistic agitation, because, as will be shown, it is
uniformly directed to the establishment of communal ownership, at
least of the means of production; that is, to a socialistic, communal
order of society in place of the existing method of private ownership.
It is characterised, on the other side, in accordance with the
adherents of the movement, by the fact that it is a proletarian
agitation, or, as we customarily say, it is a working-men's movement.
The class which supports it, upon which it rests, which gives to it
the initiative, is the proletariat, a class of free wage-workers.
And now we ask the question: Is it possible to distinguish those
circumstances which would make such a movement evidently a necessary
historic development? I said that the social movement has, as its
supporters, the modern proletariat, a class of free, lifelong
wage-workers. The first condition of its existence is the rise of this
class itself. Every social class is the result, the expression, of
some specific form of production; the proletariat, of that form of
production which we are accustomed to call capitalistic. The history
of the rise of the proletariat is also the history of capitalism. This
latter cannot exist, it cannot develop, without producing the
proletariat. It is not now my purpose to give to you a history of
capitalism. Only this much may be presented for the understanding of
its nature: the capitalistic system of production involves the
co-operation of two socially separated classes in the manufacture of
material goods. One class is that which is in possession of the
matter and means of production, as machines, tools, establishments,
raw material, etc.--the capitalistic class; the other class is that of
the personal factors of production, the possessors only of workman's
craft--the free wage-workers. If we realise that all production rests
upon the union of the material and the personal factors of production,
then the capitalistic system of production distinguishes itself from
others in that both the factors of production are represented through
two socially separated classes which must necessarily come together by
free consent, the "free wage compact," so that the processes of
production may take place. The method of production thus formed has
entered into history as a necessity. It arose in that moment when
demand had become so strong that the earlier methods of production
could not longer satisfy the enlarging conditions, in the time when
new and large markets were opened. It appeared originally solely with
the historic task of implanting the mercantile spirit of manufacture
for the maintaining of these new markets. The mercantile talent forces
itself on as leader of production and draws great masses of mere
hand-workers into its service. It then becomes yet more of a
necessity as the development of the technique of production
complicates the whole operation so greatly that the combination of
many kinds of work in one product is unavoidable; especially since the
introduction of steam for the production and transportation of goods.
The supporters of the capitalistic method of production are, as a
class, the _bourgeoisie_, the middle class. How gladly would I speak
of the great historic mission which this class has fulfilled! But
again I must content myself with this mere reference, that we see this
historic mission in the wonderful development which this class has
given to the material forces of production. Under the compulsion of
competition, lashed by the passion of accumulation which enters with
it into modern history, this class has wrought into reality for us
those fairy tales of the Thousand and One Nights, those wonders in
which daily we rejoice, as through the streets or the industrial
expositions of our great cities we stroll, as we talk with the
antipodes, as we sail in floating palaces over the ocean, or bask in
the glory of our luxurious parlours. But our point is this: the
existence of this capitalistic system of production is the necessary
condition for that class which is the supporter of the modern
socialistic movement--the proletariat. I have already said that the
proletariat follows the capitalistic form of production as its shadow.
This scheme of production cannot exist otherwise, cannot develop
itself otherwise, than under the condition that, subject to the
command of individuals, troops of possessionless workers are herded in
great undertakings. It has as a necessary presupposition the rending
of all society into two classes: the owners of the means of
production, and the personal factors in production. Thus the existence
of capitalism is the necessary preliminary condition of the
proletariat, and so of the modern social movement.
But how stands it with the proletariat? What are the conditions under
which the working-class lives? And how has it come to pass that out of
these conditions those particular tendencies and demands have arisen
which, as we shall find, have come out of this proletariat? Usually,
when one is asked concerning the characteristics of the modern
proletariat, the first answer is--the great misery in which the masses
are sunk. That may pass with some qualification; only it must not be
forgotten that misery is not specifically confined to the modern
proletariat. Thus, how miserable is the condition of the peasants in
Russia, of the Irish "rack-rent" tenants! There must be a specific
kind of misery which characterises the proletariat. I refer, here,
particularly to those unhealthy work-places, mines, manufactories with
their noise and dust and heat, that have arisen with the modern method
of production; I think of the conditions produced by these methods of
production which tend to draw into the work certain categories of
workers,--as women and children; I think further of how the
concentration of population in industrial centres and in the great
cities has increased the misery of external life for the individual.
At all events, we may consider the intensification of misery as a
primary cause for the growth and insistence of new thoughts and new
feelings. But that is not the most important point, when we ask after
the essential conditions of existence of the proletariat. It is much
more characteristic that in the moment when great masses sink into
misery, upon the other side, shining like a fairy's creation, the
millionaire arises. It is the contrast between the comfortable villa
and elegant equipage of the rich, the magnificent stores, the
luxurious restaurants which the workman passes as he goes on his way
to his manufactory or workshop in the dreary part of the city; it is
the contrast in condition which develops hate in the masses. And that,
again, is a peculiarity of the modern system, that it develops this
hate and permits hate to become envy. It seems to me that this happens
principally for the reason that those who display this grandeur are no
longer the churches or the princes; but that they are those very
persons on whom the masses feel themselves dependent, in whose direct
economic control they see themselves, in whom they recognise their
so-called "exploiters." This definite modern contrast is that which
principally excites the intensity of this feeling of hate in the
masses. Yet one thing further. It is not merely the miserable
condition, the contrast with the well-to-do; but another terrible whip
is swung over the heads of the proletariat--I mean the uncertainty in
their lives. Also in this we have to do with a peculiarity of modern
social life, if we rightly understand it. Uncertainty of existence is
indeed elsewhere: the Japanese trembles at the thought of the
earthquake that may at any moment overwhelm him and his possessions;
the Kurd is afraid of the sand-storm in summer, of the snow-storm in
winter, which blight the feeding-place for his flocks; a flood or
drought in Russia may rob the peasant of his harvest and expose him to
starvation. But what constitutes the specific uncertainty of the
proletariat, which expresses itself in the loss of wage and work, is
this, that this uncertainty is understood as a result not of the
natural causes of which I have spoken, but of the specific form of
organisation of economic life--that is the chief point. "Against
nature no man can assert a right; but in the constitution of society
lack becomes immediately a form of injustice done to one or another
class"--(Hegel). Further, this uncertainty as to matters of nature
leads to superstition or bigotry; but this social uncertainty, if I
may so express it, develops a sharpening and refinement of judgment.
Man seeks after the causes which lead to this uncertainty. It works
simply an increase of that feeling of resistance which grows up in the
masses; it permits hate and envy to rise threateningly. Here, then, is
the ground on which the revolutionary passions, hate, envy,
insubordination, grow in the modern proletariat: peculiar forms of
misery, the contrast of this wretchedness with the glitter of the
bread-masters, the uncertainty of existence, supposed to arise out of
the forms of organisation of economic life.
In order now to be able to understand how these growths have pressed
forward into the peculiar manifestations which characterise the modern
social movement, we must realise that the masses which we have learned
to know in the position thus described have been developed as if by
magic, have not slowly grown into this condition. It is as if earlier
history had been completely effaced for millions of men. For, as the
presupposition of capitalism is combination in large operations, there
is involved in this also the accumulation of masses of men in cities
and centres of industry. This massing, however, means nothing other
than this, that completely incoherent, amorphous crowds of men out of
the most widely separated regions of the land are thrown together at
one point, and that upon them the demand is made "Live!" This involves
a complete break with the past, a tearing apart of all ties of home,
village, family, custom. It means as well the overthrow of all the
earlier ideals of these homeless, possessionless, and coherentless
masses. This is a matter which is often underestimated. We forget that
it is an entirely new life which the hordes of the modern proletariat
have to begin. But what kind of a life is it? In its characteristics I
find as many points of explanation for the positive construction of
the proletarian world of ideas as for the destruction of all that has
heretofore been dear and precious to man. I mean, the socialistic
ideals of communal life and work must of necessity spring out of the
industrial centres and the resorts of the working-men in the great
cities. In the tenement-houses, the huge manufactories, the public
houses for meetings and for pleasures, the individual proletarian, as
if forsaken by God and man, finds himself with his companions in
misery again together, as members of a new and gigantic organism. Here
are new societies forming, and these new communities bear the
communistic stamp, because of modern methods of work. And they
develop, grow, establish themselves in the mass of men, in proportion
as the charm of separate existence fades from the individual; the more
dreary the attic room in the suburb of the city, the more attractive
is the new social centre in which the outcast finds himself again
treated as a man. The individual disappears, the companion emerges. A
uniform class consciousness matures itself, also the habit of communal
work and pleasure. So much for the psychology of the proletariat.
In order now to gain a full understanding of the modern social
movement, let us look at its general time environment. Also here
merely a remark or two must suffice. Perhaps this phrase will
sufficiently describe the modern period: there is in it conspicuously
an exuberance of life, as I think in no earlier period. A stream of
vigorous life flows through modern society as at no earlier time; and
for this reason a quickness of contact between all the individual
members of a society is made possible now as never heretofore. This
has been accomplished by the modern means of transportation which
capitalism has created for us. The possibility in these days of
informing oneself in a few hours concerning the occurrences throughout
a great country by means of telegraph, telephone, newspaper, and the
possibility of throwing great masses of men from one place to another
by modern means of transportation, have produced a condition of
solidarity throughout great groups of men, a sense of omnipresence,
which was unknown in all earlier times. Particularly is this true in
the large cities of these days. The ease of movement of masses has
grown enormously. And in like manner has that grown which we are
accustomed to call education--knowledge, and with knowledge demands.
With this vigour of life, however, is most closely united that which I
would call the nervosity of modern times, an unsteadiness, haste,
insecurity of existence. Because of the distinctive character of
economic relations, this trace of unrest and haste has forced itself
into all branches not only of economic but as well of social life. The
age of free competition has stamped itself upon all spheres of life.
Every man strives with others, no one feels himself sure, no one is
contented with his condition. The beauty and calm of rest are gone.
One thing more. I will call it "revolutionism," and I mean by that
term the fact that never has there been another time, like ours, of
such entire change in all the conditions of life. All is in
flux--economics, science, art, morals, religion. All ideas on these
matters are in such a process of change that we are impelled to the
delusion that there is nothing now certain. And this is perhaps one of
the most important considerations for the explanation of the real
meaning of modern social agitation. It explains in two ways. In it we
see the reason for that destructive criticism of all that exists,
which allows nothing as good, which throws away all earlier faith as
old iron in order to enter with new material upon the market. Also, it
explains the fanatical belief in the feasibility of the desired future
state. Since so much has already changed, since such wonders, for
which no one has dared to hope, have been realised before our very
eyes, why not more? Why not all that man wishes? Thus the
revolutionism of the present becomes fertile soil for the Utopia of
the future. Edison and Siemens are the spiritual fathers of Bellamy
and Bebel.
These seem to me the essential conditions under which a social
movement has developed itself in this later time: the peculiar
existence of the proletariat; the specific misery, contrast,
uncertainty, springing from the modern economic system; a
reorganisation of all forms of life, through the tearing apart of
earlier relations and the upbuilding of entirely new social forms upon
a communistic basis, and of new consolidations in the great cities and
operations; finally, the peculiar spirit of the time in which the
social movement exhibits itself, intensity of life, nervosity,
revolutionism.
Now let us consider this social movement itself, in theory and
practice.