of daily, trivial protests, who see nothing in politics but a struggle
between individuals--and those tactics no longer produce any effect
either on the public or on legislative assemblies, because they have at
last become wonted to them--produce just about as much effect as would
fantastic champions of hygiene who should attempt to render a marsh
inhabitable by killing the mosquitoes one by one with shots from a
revolver, instead of adopting as their method and their goal the
draining of the pestilential marsh.
No individual conflicts, no personal violence, but a Class Struggle. It
is necessary to make the immense army of workers of all trades and of
all professions conscious of these fundamental truths. It is necessary
to show them that their class interests are in opposition to the
interests of the class who possess the economic power, and that it is by
class-conscious organization that they will conquer this economic power
through the instrumentality of the other public powers that modern
civilization has assured to free peoples. It may, nevertheless, be
foreseen that, in every country, the ruling class, before yielding, will
abridge or destroy even these public liberties which were without danger
for them when they were in the hands of laborers not organized into a
class-conscious party, but forming the rearguard of other purely
political parties, as radical on secondary questions as they are
profoundly conservative on the fundamental question of the economic
organization of property.
A Class-Struggle, therefore a struggle of class against class; and a
struggle (this is understood), by the methods of which I will soon speak
in discussing the four modes of social transformation:
evolution--revolution--rebellion--individual violence. But a
Class-Struggle in the Darwinian sense, which renews in the history of
Man the magnificent drama of the struggle for life between species,
instead of degrading us to the savage and meaningless brute strife of
individual with individual.
We can stop here. The examination of the relations between Darwinism and
socialism might lead us much further, but it would go on constantly
eliminating the pretended contradiction between the two currents of
modern scientific thought, and it would, on the contrary, confirm the
essential, natural and indissoluble harmony that there is between them.
Thus the penetrating view of Virchow is confirmed by that of Leopold
Jacoby.
"The same year in which appeared Darwin's book (1859) and coming from a
quite different direction, an identical impulse was given to a very
important development of social science by a work which long passed
unnoticed, and which bore the title: _Critique de l'économie politique_
by KARL MARX--it was the forerunner of _Capital_.
"What Darwin's book on the _Origin of Species_ is on the subject of the
genesis and evolution of organic life from non-sentient nature up to
Man, the work of Marx is on the subject of the genesis and evolution of
association among human beings, of States and the social forms of
humanity."[42]
And this is why Germany, which has been the most fruitful field for the
development of the Darwinian theories, is also the most fruitful field
for the intelligent, systematic propaganda of socialist ideas.
And it is precisely for this reason that in Berlin, in the windows of
the book-stores of the socialist propaganda, the works of Charles Darwin
occupy the place of honor beside those of Karl Marx.[43]
FOOTNOTES:
[37] LARFARGUE, _Le Matérialisme économique_, in _Ere nouvelle_, 1893.
[38] Avoiding both of the mutually exclusive theses that civilization is
a consequence of race or a product of the environment, I have always
maintained--by my theory of the natural factors in criminality--that it
is the resultant of the combined action of the race and the environment.
Among the recent works which support the thesis of the exclusive or
predominant influence of race, I must mention LE BON, _Les lois
psychologiques de l'évolution des peuples_, Paris, 1894. This work is,
however, very superficial. I refer the reader for a more thorough
examination of these two theses to Chap. IV of my book _Omicidio nell'
anthropologia criminale_, Turin, 1894.
[39] I use the expression "mercantile ethics," which LETOURNEAU used in
his book on the Evolution of Ethics (_L'évolution de la morale_), Paris,
1887. In his scientific study of the facts relating to ethics,
Letourneau has distinguished four phases: _animal_ ethics--_savage_
ethics--_barbarous_ ethics--_mercantile_ (or bourgeois) ethics; these
phases will be followed by a higher phase of ethics which Malon has
called _social_ ethics.
[40] Some persons, still imbued with political (Jacobin) artificiality,
think that in order to solve the social question it will be necessary to
generalize the system of _métayage_. They imagine, then--though they do
not say so--a royal or presidential decree: "Art. 1. Let all men become
métayers!"
And it does not occur to them that if métayage, which was the rule, has
become a less and less frequent exception, this must be the necessary
result of natural causes.
The cause of the transformation is to be found in the fact that
_métayage_ represents (is a form typical of) petty agricultural
industry, and that it is unable to compete with modern agricultural
industry organized on a large scale and well equipped with machinery,
just as handicrafts have not been able to endure competition with modern
manufacturing industry. It is true that there still are to-day some
handicraft industries in a few villages, but these are rudimentary
organs which merely represent an anterior phase (of production), and
which no longer have any important function in the economic world. They
are, like the rudimentary organs of the higher species of animals,
according to the theory of Darwin, permanent witnesses of past epochs.
The same Darwinian and economic law applies to _métayage_, which is also
evidently destined to the same fate as handicrafts.
_Conf._ the excellent propagandist pamphlet of BIEL, _Ai contadini
toscani_, Colle d' Elsa, 1894.
[41] HENRY GEORGE, Progress and Poverty, New York, 1898. Doubleday &
McClure Co.
[42] L. JACOBY, _L'Idea dell' evoluzione_, in _Bibliotheca dell'
economista_, série III, vol. IX, 2d part, p. 69.
[43] At the death of Darwin the _Sozialdemokrat_ of the 27th of April,
1882, wrote: "The proletariat who are struggling for their emancipation
will ever honor the memory of Charles Darwin."
Conf. LAFARGUE, _La théorie darwinienne_.
I am well aware that in these last years, perhaps in consequence of the
relations between Darwinism and socialism, consideration has again been
given to the objections to the theory of Darwin, made by Voegeli, and
more recently by Weismann, on the hereditary transmissibility of
acquired characters. See SPENCER, _The Inadequacy of Natural Selection_,
Paris, 1894.--VIRCHOW, _Transformisme et descendance_, Berlin, 1893. But
all this merely concerns such or such a detail of Darwinism, while the
fundamental theory of metamorphic organic development remains
impregnable.
PART SECOND.
EVOLUTION AND SOCIALISM.
The theory of universal evolution which--apart from such or such a more
or less disputable detail--is truly characteristic of the vital tendency
of modern scientific thought, has also been made to appear in absolute
contradiction with the theories and the practical ideals of socialism.
In this case the fallacy is obvious.
If socialism is understood as that vague complex of sentimental
aspirations so often crystallized into the artificial utopian creations
of a new human world to be substituted by some sort of magic in a single
day for the old world in which we live; then it is quite true that the
scientific theory of evolution condemns the presumptions and the
illusions of artificial or utopian political theories, which, whether
they are reactionary or revolutionary, are always romantic, or in the
words of the American Senator Ingalls, are "iridescent dreams."
But, unfortunately for our adversaries, contemporary socialism is an
entirely different thing from the socialism which preceded the work of
Marx. Apart from the same sentiment of protest against present
injustices and the same aspirations toward a better future, there is
nothing in common between these two socialisms, neither in their logical
structure nor in their deductions, unless it be the clear vision, which
in modern socialism becomes a mathematically exact prediction (thanks to
the theories of evolution) of the final social organization--based on
the collective ownership of the land and the means of production.
These are the conclusions to which we are led by the evidence of the
facts--facts verified by a scientific examination of the three principal
contradictions which our opponents have sought to set up between
socialism and scientific evolution.
From this point it is impossible not to see the direct causal connection
between Marxian socialism and scientific evolution, since it must be
recognized that the former is simply the logical consequence of the
application of the evolutionary theory to the domain of economics.
IX.
THE ORTHODOX THESIS AND THE SOCIALIST THESIS IN THE LIGHT OF THE
EVOLUTION THEORY.
What, in substance, is the message of socialism? That the present
economic world can not be immutable and eternal, that it merely
represents a transitory phase of social evolution and that an ulterior
phase, a differently organized world, is destined to succeed it.
That this new organization must be collectivist or socialist--and no
longer individualist--results, as an ultimate and certain conclusion,
from the examination we have made of Darwinism and socialism.
I must now demonstrate that this fundamental affirmation of
socialism--leaving out of consideration for the moment all the details
of that future organization, of which I will speak further on--is in
perfect harmony with the experiential theory of evolutionism.
Upon what point are orthodox political economy and socialism in absolute
conflict? Political economy has held and holds that the economic laws
governing the production and distribution of wealth which it has
established are _natural laws_ ... not in the sense that they are laws
naturally determined by the conditions of the social organism (which
would be correct), but that they are _absolute laws_, that is to say
that they apply to humanity at all times and in all places, and,
consequently, that they are immutable in their principal points, though
they may be subject to modification in details.[44]
Scientific socialism holds, on the contrary, that the laws established
by classical political economy, since the time of Adam Smith, are laws
peculiar to the present period in the history of civilized humanity, and
that they are, consequently, laws essentially _relative_ to the period
of their analysis and discovery, and that just as they no longer fit the
facts when the attempt is made to extend their application to past
historical epochs and, still more, to pre-historic and ante-historic
times, so it is absurd to attempt to apply them to the future and thus
vainly try to petrify and perpetuate present social forms.
Of these two fundamental theses, the orthodox thesis and the socialist
thesis, which is the one which best agrees with the scientific theory of
universal evolution?
The answer can not be doubtful.[45]
The theory of evolution, of which Herbert Spencer was the true creator,
by applying to sociology the tendency to relativism which the historical
school had followed in its studies in law and political economy (even
then heterodox on more than one point), has shown that everything
changes; that the present phase--of the facts in astronomy, geology,
biology and sociology--is only the resultant of thousands on thousands
of incessant, inevitable, natural transformations; that the present
differs from the past and that the future will certainly be different
from the present.
Spencerism has done nothing but to collate a vast amount of scientific
evidence, from all branches of human knowledge, in support of these two
abstract thoughts of Leibnitz and Hegel: "The present is the child of
the past, but it is the parent of the future," and "Nothing is;
everything is becoming." This demonstration had already been made in the
case of geology by Lyell who substituted for the traditional
catastrophic theory of cataclysmic changes, the scientific theory of the
gradual and continuous transformation of the earth.[46]
It is true that, notwithstanding his encyclopædic knowledge, Herbert
Spencer has not made a really profound study of political economy, or
that at least he has not furnished us the evidence of the _facts_ to
support his assertions in this field as he has done in the natural
sciences. This does not alter the fact, however, that socialism is,
after all, in its fundamental conception only the logical application of
the scientific theory of natural evolution to economic phenomena.
It was Karl Marx who, in 1859 in his _Critique de l'économie politique_,
and even before then, in 1847, in the famous _Manifesto_ written in
collaboration with Engels, nearly ten years before Spencer's _First
Principles_, and finally in _Capital_ (1867) supplemented, or rather
completed, in the social domain, the scientific revolution begun by
Darwin and Spencer.
The old metaphysics conceived of ethics--law--economics--as a finished
compilation of absolute and eternal laws. This is the conception of
Plato. It takes into consideration only historical times and it has, as
an instrument of research, only the fantastic logic of the school-men.
The generations which preceded us, have all been imbued with this notion
of the absoluteness of natural laws, the conflicting laws of a dual
universe of matter and spirit. Modern science, on the contrary, starts
from the magnificent synthetic conception of monism, that is to say, of
a single substance underlying all phenomena--matter and force being
recognized as inseparable and indestructible, continuously evolving in a
succession of forms--forms relative to their respective times and
places. It has radically changed the direction of modern thought and
directed it toward the grand idea of universal evolution.[47]
Ethics, law and politics are mere superstructures, effects of the
economic structure; they vary with its variations, from one parallel (of
latitude or longitude) to another, and from one century to another.
This is the great discovery which the genius of Karl Marx has expounded
in his _Critique de l'économie politique_. I will examine further on the
question as to what this sole source or basis of the varying economic
conditions is, but the important point now is to emphasize their
constant variability, from the pre-historic ages down to historical
times and to the different periods of the latter.
Moral codes, religious creeds, juridical institutions both civil and
criminal, political organization:--all are constantly undergoing
transformation and all are relative to their respective historical and
material environments.
To slay one's parents is the greatest of crimes in Europe and America;
it is, on the contrary, a duty enjoined by religion in the island of
Sumatra; in the same way, cannibalism is a permitted usage in Central
Africa, and such it also was in Europe and America in pre-historic ages.
The family is, at first (as among animals), only a sort of sexual
communism; then polyandry and the matriarchal system were established
where the supply of food was scanty and permitted only a very limited
increase of population; we find polygamy and the patriarchal system
appearing whenever and wherever the tyranny of this fundamental economic
cause of polyandry ceases to be felt; with the advent of historical
times appears the monogamic form of the family the best and the most
advanced form, although it is still requisite for it to be freed from
the rigid conventionalism of the indissoluble tie and the disguised and
legalised prostitution (the fruits of economic causes) which pollute it
among us to-day.
How can any one hold that the constitution of property is bound to
remain eternally just as it is, immutable, in the midst of the
tremendous stream of changing social institutions and moral codes, all
passing through evolutions and continuous and profound transformations?
Property alone is subject to no changes and will remain petrified in its
present form, _i. e._, a monopoly by a few of the land and the means of
production![48]
This is the absurd contention of economic and juridical orthodoxy. To
the irresistible proofs and demonstrations of the evolutionist theory,
they make only this one concession: the subordinate rules may vary, the
_abuses_ may be diminished. The principle itself is unassailable and a
few individuals may seize upon and appropriate the land and the means of
production necessary to the life of the whole social organism which thus
remains completely and eternally under the more or less direct
domination of those who have control over the physical foundation of
life.[49]
Nothing more than a perfectly clear statement of the two fundamental
theses--the thesis of classical law and economics, and the economic and
juridical thesis of socialism--is necessary to determine, without
further discussion, this first point of the controversy. At all events,
the theory of evolution is in perfect, unquestionable harmony with the
inductions of socialism and, or the contrary, it flatly contradicts the
hypothesis of the absoluteness and immutability of the "natural" laws of
economies, etc.
FOOTNOTES:
[44] U. RABBENO, _Le leggi economiche e il socialismo_, in _Rivista di
filos. scientif._, 1884, vol. III., fasc. 5.
[45] This is the thesis of COLAJANNI, in _Il socialismo_, Catane, 1884,
P. 277. He errs when he thinks that I combatted this position in my book
_Socialismo e criminalità_.
[46] MORSELLI, _Antropologia generale--Lezioni sull' uomo secondo la
teoria dell' evoluzione_, Turin, 1890-94, gives an excellent _resumé_ of
these general indications of modern scientific thought in their
application to all branches of knowledge from geology to anthropology.
[47] BONARDI, _Evoluzionismo e socialismo_, Florence, 1894.
[48] ARCANGELI, _Le evoluzioni della proprietà_, in _Critica sociale_,
July 1, 1894.
[49] This is exactly analogous to the conflict between the partisans and
the opponents of free-will.
The old metaphysics accorded to man (alone, a marvelous exception from
all the rest of the universe) an absolutely free will.
Modern physio-psychology absolutely denies every form of the free-will
dogma in the name of the laws of natural causality.
An intermediate position is occupied by those who, while recognizing
that the freedom of man's will is not absolute, hold that at least a
remnant of freedom must be conceded to the human will, because otherwise
there would no longer be any merit or any blameworthiness, any vice or
any virtue, etc.
I considered this question in my first work: _Teoria dell' imputabilità
e negazione del libero arbitrio_ (Florence, 1878, out of print), and in
the third chapter of my _Sociologie criminelle_, French trans., Paris,
1892.
I speak of it here only in order to show the analogy in the form of the
debate on the economico-social question, and therefore the possibility
of predicting a similar ultimate solution.
The true conservative, drawing his inspiration from the metaphysical
tradition, sticks to the old philosophical or economic ideas with all
their rigid absolutism; at least he is logical.
The determinist, in the name of science, upholds diametrically opposite
ideas, in the domain of psychology as well as in those of the economic
or juridical sciences.
The eclectic, in politics as in psychology, in political economy as in
law, is a conservative through and through, but he fondly hopes to
escape the difficulties of the conservative position by making a few
partial concessions to save appearances. But if the eclecticism is a
convenient and agreeable attitude for its champions, it is, like
hybridism, sterile, and neither life nor science owe anything to it.
Therefore, the socialists are logical when they contend that in the last
analysis there are only two political parties: the individualists
(conservatives [or Republicans], progressives [or Democrats] and
radicals [or Populists]) and the socialists.
X.
THE LAW OF APPARENT RETROGRESSION AND COLLECTIVE OWNERSHIP.
Admitting, say our adversaries, that in demanding a social
transformation socialism is in apparent accord with the evolutionist
theory, it does not follow that its positive conclusions--notably the
substitution of social ownership for individual ownership--are justified
by that theory. Still further, they add, we maintain that those
conclusions are in absolute contradiction with that very theory, and
that they are therefore, to say the least, utopian and absurd.
The first alleged contradiction between socialism and evolutionism is
that the return to collective ownership of the land would be, at the
same time, a return to the primitive, savage state of mankind, and
socialism would indeed be a transformation, but a transformation in a
backward direction, that is to say, against the current of the social
evolution which has led us from the primitive form of collective
property in land to the present form of individual property in land--the
form characteristic of advanced civilization. Socialism, then, would be
a return to barbarism.
This objection contains an element of truth which can not be denied; it
rightly points out that collective ownership should be a
return--apparent--to the primitive social organization. But the
conclusion drawn from this truth is absolutely false and anti-scientific
because it altogether neglects a law--which is usually forgotten--but
which is no less true, no less founded on scientific observation of the
facts than is the law of social evolution.
This is a sociological law which an able French physician merely pointed
out in his studies on the relations between Transmutation and
Socialism,[50] and the truth and full importance of which I showed in my
_Sociologie criminelle_ (1892)--before I became a militant
socialist--and which I again emphasized in my recent controversy with
Morselli on the subject of divorce.[51]
This law of apparent retrogression proves that the reversion of social
institutions to primitive forms and types is a fact of constant
recurrence.
Before referring to some obvious illustrations of this law, I would
recall to your notice the fact that M. Cognetti de Martiis, as far back
as 1881, had a vague perception of this sociological law. His work,
_Forme primitive nell' evoluzione economica_, (Turin, 1881), so
remarkable for the fullness, accuracy and reliability of its collation
of relevant facts, made it possible to foresee the possibility of the
reappearance in the future economic evolution of the primitive forms
characteristic of the status which formed the starting-point of the
social evolution.