Like Karl Marx, the chief of international socialism, he was of Jewish
extraction. His father, a prosperous merchant in Breslau, intended
Ferdinand for a business career, and with this view sent him to the
commercial school at Leipsic; but the boy, having no liking for that
kind of life, got himself transferred to the university, first at
Breslau, and afterwards at Berlin. His favourite studies were philology
and philosophy; he became an ardent Hegelian, and in politics was one of
the most advanced. Having completed his university studies in 1845, he
began to write a work on _Heracleitus_ from the Hegelian point of view;
but it was soon interrupted by more stirring interests, and did not see
the light for many years.
From the Rhine country, where he settled for a time, he went to Paris,
and made the acquaintance of his great compatriot Heine, who conceived
for him the deepest sympathy and admiration. In the letter of
introduction to Varnhagen von Ense, which the poet gave Lassalle when he
returned to Berlin, there is a striking portrait of the future agitator.
Heine speaks of his friend Lassalle as a young man of the most
remarkable endowments, in whom the widest knowledge, the greatest
acuteness, and the richest gifts of expression are combined with an
energy and practical ability which excite his astonishment; but adds, in
his half-mocking way, that he is a genuine son of the new era, without
even the pretence of modesty or self-denial, who will assert and enjoy
himself in the world of realities. At Berlin, Lassalle became a
favourite in some of the most distinguished circles; even the veteran
Humboldt was fascinated by him, and used to call him the _Wunderkind_.
Here it was also, early in 1846, that he met the lady with whom his life
was to be associated in so striking a way, the Countess Hatzfeldt. She
had been separated from her husband for many years, and was at feud with
him on questions of property and the custody of their children. With
characteristic energy Lassalle adopted the cause of the countess, whom
he believed to have been outrageously wronged, made a special study of
law, and, after bringing the case before thirty-six tribunals, reduced
the powerful count to a compromise on terms most favourable to his
client.
The process, which lasted eight years, gave rise to not a little
scandal, especially that of the _Cassettengeschichte_. This ‘affair of
the casket’ arose out of an attempt by the countess’s friends to get
possession of a bond for a large life-annuity settled by the count on
his mistress, a Baroness Meyendorf, to the prejudice of the countess and
her children. At the instigation of Lassalle, two of his comrades
succeeded in carrying off a casket, which was supposed to contain the
document in question (but which really contained her jewels), from the
baroness’s room at a hotel in Cologne. They were prosecuted for theft,
one of them being condemned to six months’ imprisonment. Lassalle
himself was accused of moral complicity, but was acquitted on appeal.
His intimate relations with the countess, which continued till the end,
certainly did not tend to improve Lassalle’s position in German society.
Rightly or wrongly, people had an unfavourable impression of him, as of
an adventurer. Here we can but say that he claimed to act from the
noblest motives; in the individual lot and suffering of the countess he
saw the social misery of the time reflected, and his assertion of her
cause was a moral insurrection against it. While the case was pending,
he gave the countess a share of his allowance from his father; and after
it was won, he received according to agreement, from the now ample
resources of the lady, an annual income of four thousand thalers (£600).
Added to his own private means, this sum placed the finances of Lassalle
on a sure footing for the rest of his life. His conduct was a mixture of
chivalry and business, which every one must judge for himself. It was
certainly not in accordance with the conventionalities, but for these
Lassalle never entertained much respect.
In 1848 Lassalle attached himself to the group of men, Karl Marx,
Engels, Freiligrath, and others, who in the Rhine country represented
the socialistic and extreme democratic side of the revolution, and whose
organ was the _New Rhenish Gazette_. But the activity of Lassalle was
only local and subordinate. He was, however, condemned to six months’
imprisonment for resisting the authorities at Dusseldorf. On that
occasion Lassalle prepared the first of those speeches which made so
great an impression on the men of his time; but it was not delivered. It
contains the first important statement of his social and political
opinions. ‘I will always joyfully confess,’ he said, ‘that from inner
conviction I am a decided adherent of the Social Democratic republic.’
Till 1858 Lassalle resided mostly in the Rhine country, prosecuting the
suit of his friend the countess, and afterwards completing his work on
Heracleitus, which was published in that year. He was not allowed to
live in Berlin because of his connection with the disturbances of 1848.
In 1859 he returned to the capital disguised as a carter, and finally,
through the influence of Humboldt with the king, received permission to
remain.
In the same year he published a remarkable pamphlet on _The Italian War
and the Mission of Prussia_, in which he came forward to warn his
countrymen against going to the rescue of Austria in her war with
France. He argued that if France drove Austria out of Italy she might
annex Savoy, but could not prevent the restoration of Italian unity
under Victor Emmanuel. France was doing the work of Germany by weakening
Austria, the great cause of German disunion and weakness; Prussia should
form an alliance with France in order to drive out Austria and make
herself supreme in Germany. After their realisation by Bismarck, these
ideas have become sufficiently commonplace; but they were nowise obvious
when thus published by Lassalle. In this, as in other matters, he showed
that he possessed both the insight and foresight of a statesman.
In the course of the Hatzfeldt suit Lassalle had acquired no little
knowledge of law, which proved serviceable to him in the great work,
_System of Acquired Rights_, published in 1861. The book professes to
be, and in a great measure is, an application of the historical method
to legal ideas and institutions; but it is largely dominated also by
abstract conceptions, which are not really drawn from history, but read
into it. The results of his investigation are sufficiently
revolutionary; in the legal sphere they go even farther than his
socialistic writings in the economic and political. But with one
important exception he made no attempt to base his socialistic agitation
on his _System of Acquired Rights_; it simply remained a learned work.
Hitherto Lassalle had been known only as the author of two learned
works, and as connected with one of the most extraordinary lawsuits of
the nineteenth century, which had become a widespread scandal. Now began
the brief activity which was to give him an historical significance. His
revolutionary activity in 1848, though only a short phase in his career,
was not an accident; it represented a permanent feature of his
character. In him the student and the man of action were combined in a
notable manner, but the craving for effective action was eminently
strong. The revolutionary and the active elements in his strangely mixed
nature had for want of an opportunity been for many years in abeyance.
A rare opportunity had at last come for asserting his old convictions.
In the struggle between the Prussian Government and the Opposition he
saw an opportunity for vindicating a great cause, that of the working
men, which would outflank the Liberalism of the middle classes, and
might command the sympathy and respect of the Government. But his
political programme was entirely subordinate to the social, that of
bettering the condition of the working classes; and he believed that as
their champion he might have such influence in the Prussian State as to
determine it on entering on a great career of social amelioration.
The social activity of Lassalle dates from the year 1862. It was a time
of new life in Germany. The forces destined to transform the Germany of
Hegel into the Germany of Bismarck were preparing. The time for the
restoration and unification of the Fatherland under the leadership of
Prussia had come. The nation that had so long been foremost in
philosophy and theory was to take a leading place in the practical walks
of national life, in war and politics, and in the modern methods of
industry. The man who died as first German Emperor of the new order
ascended the throne of Prussia in 1861. Bismarck, whose mission it was
to take the chief part in this great transformation, entered on the
scene as Chief Minister of Prussia in the autumn of 1862. The
Progressist party, that phase of German Liberalism which was to offer
such bitter opposition both to Bismarck and Lassalle, came into
existence in 1861.
For accomplishing this world-historic change the decisive factor was the
Prussian army. The new rulers of Prussia clearly saw that for the
success of their plans everything would depend on the efficiency of the
army. But on the question of its reorganisation they came into conflict
with the Liberals, who, failing to comprehend the policy of Bismarck,
refused him the supplies necessary for realising ideals dear to every
German patriot.
In the controversy so bitterly waged between the Prussian monarchy and
the Liberals, Lassalle intervened. As might be expected, he was not a
man to be bound by the formulas of Prussian Liberalism, and in a
lecture, _On the Nature of a Constitution_, delivered early in 1862, he
expounded views entirely at variance with them. In this lecture his aim
was to show that a constitution is not a theory or a document written on
paper; it is the expression of the strongest political forces of the
time. The king, the nobility, the middle class, the working class, all
these are forces in the polity of Prussia; but the strongest of all is
the king, who possesses in the army a means of political power, which is
organised, excellently disciplined, always at hand, and always ready to
march. The army is the basis of the actual working constitution of
Prussia. In the struggle against a Government resting on such a basis,
verbal protests and compromises were of no avail.
In a second lecture, _What Next?_, Lassalle proceeded to maintain that
there was only one method for effectually resisting the Government, to
proclaim the facts of the political situation as they were, and then to
retire from the Chamber. By remaining they only gave a false appearance
of legality to the doings of the Government. If they withdrew it must
yield, as in the present state of political opinion in Prussia and in
civilised Europe no Government could exist in defiance of the wishes of
the people.
In a pamphlet subsequently published under the title of _Might and
Right_, Lassalle defended himself against the accusation that in these
lectures he had subordinated the claims of Right to those of Force. He
had, he said, not been expressing his own views of what ought to be; he
had simply been elucidating facts in an historical way, he had only been
explaining the real nature of the situation. He now went on to declare
that no one in the Prussian State had any right to speak of Right but
the old and genuine democracy. It had always cleaved to the Right,
degrading itself by no compromise with power. With the democracy alone
is Right, and with it alone will be Might.
We need not say that these utterances of Lassalle had no influence on
the march of events. The rulers pushed on the reorganising of the army
with supplies obtained without the consent of the Prussian Chambers, the
Liberal members protesting in vain till the great victory over Austria
in 1866 furnished an ample justification for the policy of Bismarck.
But their publication marked an important crisis in his own career, for
they did not recommend him to the favourable consideration of the German
Liberals with whom he had previously endeavoured to act. He and they
never had much sympathy for one another. They were fettered by formulas
as well as wanting in energy and initiative. On the other hand, his
adventurous career; his temperament, which disposed him to rebel against
the conventionalities and formulas generally; his loyalty to the extreme
democracy of 1848, all brought him into disharmony with the current
Liberalism of his time. They gave him no tokens of their confidence, and
he chose a path of his own.
A more decisive step in a new direction was taken in 1862 by his
lecture, _The Working-Men’s Programme; On the special Connection of the
Present Epoch of History with the Idea of the Working Class_. The gist
of this lecture was to show that we are now entering on a new era of
history, of which the working class are the makers and representatives.
It is a masterly performance, lucid in style, and scientific in method
of treatment. Yet this did not save its author from the attentions of
the Prussian police. Lassalle was brought to trial on the charge of
exciting the poor against the rich, and in spite of an able defence,
published under the title of _Science and the Workers_, he was condemned
to four months’ imprisonment. But he appealed, and on the second hearing
of the case made such an impression on the judges that the sentence was
commuted into a fine of £15.
Such proceedings naturally brought Lassalle into prominence as the
exponent of a new way of thinking on social and political subjects. A
section of the working men were, like himself, discontented with the
current German Liberalism. The old democracy of 1848 was beginning to
awake from the apathy and lassitude consequent on the failures of that
troubled period. Men imbued with the traditions and aspirations of such
a time could not be satisfied with the half-hearted programme of the
Progressists, who would not decide on adopting universal suffrage as
part of their policy, yet wished to utilise the workmen for their own
ends. A Liberalism which had not the courage to be frankly democratic,
could only be a temporary and unsatisfactory phase of political
development.
This discontent found expression at Leipsic, where a body of workmen,
displeased with the Progressists, yet undecided as to any clear line of
policy, had formed a Central Committee for the calling together of a
Working Men’s Congress. With Lassalle, they had common ground in their
discontent with the Progressists, and to him in 1863 they applied, in
the hope that he might suggest a definite line of action. Lassalle
replied in an _Open Letter_, with a political and social-economic
programme, which, for lucidity and comprehensiveness of statement, left
nothing to be desired. In the _Working Men’s Programme_, Lassalle had
drawn the rough outlines of a new historic period, in which the
interests of labour should be paramount; in the _Open Letter_ he
expounds the political, social, and economic principles which should
guide the working men in inaugurating the new era. The _Open Letter_ has
well been called the Charter of German Socialism. It was the first
historic act in a new stage of social development. We need not say that
it marked the definite rupture of Lassalle with German Liberalism.
In the _Open Letter_ the guiding principles of the Social Democratic
agitation of Lassalle are given with absolute clearness and decision:
that the working men should form an independent political party—one,
however, in which the political programme should be entirely
subordinated to the great social end of improving the condition of their
class; that the schemes of Schulze-Delitzsch[2] for this end were
inadequate; that the operation of the iron law of wages prevented any
real improvement under the existing conditions; that productive
associations, by which, the workmen should secure the full product of
their labour, should be established by the State, founded on universal
suffrage, and therefore truly representative of the people. The Leipsic
Committee accepted the policy thus sketched, and invited him to address
them in person. After hearing him the meeting voted in his favour by a
majority of 1300 against 7.
A subsequent appearance at Frankfort-on-the-Main was even more
flattering to Lassalle. In that as in most other towns of Germany the
workmen were generally disposed to support Schulze and the Progressist
party. Lassalle therefore had the hard task of conciliating and gaining
a hearing from a hostile audience. His first speech, four hours in
length, met at times with a stormy reception, and was frequently
interrupted. Yet he gained the sympathy of his audience by his eloquence
and the intrinsic interest of his matter, and the applause increased as
he went on. When, two days afterwards, he addressed them a second time,
the assembly voted for Lassalle by 400 to 40. It was really a great
triumph. Like Napoleon, he had, he said, beaten the enemy with their own
troops. On the following day he addressed a meeting at Mainz, where 700
workmen unanimously declared in his favour.
These successes seemed to justify Lassalle in taking the decisive step
of his agitation—the foundation of the Universal German Working Men’s
Association, which followed at Leipsic on May 23, 1863. Its programme
was a simple one, containing only one point—universal suffrage.
‘Proceeding from the conviction that only through equal and direct
universal suffrage[3] can a sufficient representation of the social
interests of the German working class and a real removal of class
antagonisms in society be realised, the Association pursues the aim, in
a peaceful and legal way, especially by winning over public opinion, to
work for the establishment of equal and direct universal suffrage.’
Hitherto Lassalle had been an isolated individual expressing on his own
responsibility an opinion on the topics of the day. He was elected
President, for five years, of the newly founded Association, and was
therefore the head of a new movement. He had crossed the Rubicon, not
without hesitation and misgiving.
In the summer of 1863 little was accomplished. The membership of the
Association grew but slowly, and, according to his wont, Lassalle
retired to the baths to recruit his health. In the autumn he renewed his
agitation by a ‘review’ of his forces on the Rhine, where the workmen
were most enthusiastic in his favour. But the severest crisis of his
agitation befell during the winter of 1863-4. At this period his labours
were almost more than human; he wrote his _Bastiat-Schulze_,[4] a
considerable treatise, in about three months, defended himself before
the courts both of Berlin and the Rhine in elaborate speeches, conducted
the affairs of his Association in all their troublesome details, and
often before stormy and hostile audiences gave a succession of
addresses, the aim of which was the conquest of Berlin.
Lassalle’s _Bastiat-Schulze_, his largest economic work, bears all the
marks of the haste and feverishness of the time that gave it birth. It
contains passages in the worst possible taste; the coarseness and
scurrility of his treatment of Schulze are absolutely unjustifiable. The
book consists of barren and unprofitable controversy, interspersed with
philosophic statements of his economic position, and even they are often
crude, confused, and exaggerated. Controversy is usually the most
unsatisfactory department of literature, and of the various forms of
controversy that of Lassalle is the least to be desired, consisting as
it so largely did of supercilious verbal and captious objection. The
book as a whole is far below the level of the _Working Men’s Programme_
and the _Open Letter_.
After all these labours little wonder that we find him writing, on the
14th of February: ‘I am tired to death, and strong as my constitution
is, it is shaking to the core. My excitement is so great that I can no
longer sleep at night; I toss about on my bed till five o’clock, and
rise up with aching head, and entirely exhausted. I am overworked,
overtasked, and overtired in the frightfullest degree; the mad effort,
beside my other labours, to finish the _Bastiat-Schulze_ in three
months, the profound and painful disappointment, the cankering inner
disgust, caused by the indifference and apathy of the working class
taken as a whole—all has been too much even for me.’
Clearly the great agitator needed rest, and he decided to seek it, as
usual, at the baths. But before he retired, he desired once more to
refresh his weary soul in the sympathetic enthusiasm which he
anticipated from his devoted adherents on the Rhine. Accordingly, on the
8th May 1864, Lassalle departed for the ‘glorious review of his army’ in
the Rhine country. ‘He spoke,’ Mehring tells us, ‘on May 14th at
Solingen, on the 15th at Barmen, on the 16th at Cologne, on the 18th at
Wermelskirchen.’ His journey was like a royal progress or a triumphal
procession, except that the joy of the people was perfectly spontaneous.
Thousands of workmen received him with acclamations; crowds pressed upon
him to shake hands with him, to exchange friendly greetings with him.
On the 22nd May, the first anniversary festival of the Universal
Association, held at Ronsdorf, the enthusiasm reached its climax. Old
and young, men and women, went forth to meet him as he approached the
town; and he entered it through triumphal arches, under a deluge of
flowers thrown from the hands of working girls, amidst jubilation
indescribable. Writing to the Countess of Hatzfeldt about this time of
the impression made on his mind by his reception on the Rhine, Lassalle
says, ‘I had the feeling that such scenes must have been witnessed at
the founding of new religions.’
The speech of Lassalle at Ronsdorf corresponded in character with the
enthusiasm and exaltation of such a time and such an audience. The King
of Prussia had recently listened with favour to the grievances of a
deputation of Silesian weavers, and promised to help them out of his own
purse. Von Ketteler, Bishop of Mainz, had published a short treatise, in
which he expressed his agreement with Lassalle’s criticism of the
existing economic system. As his manner was, Lassalle did not
under-estimate the value of those expressions of opinion. ‘We have
compelled,’ he declared, ‘the workmen, the people, the bishops, the
king, to bear testimony to the truth of our principles.’
It would be easy to ridicule the enthusiasm for Lassalle entertained by
those workmen on the Rhine, but it will be more profitable if we pause
for a moment to realise the world-historic pathos of the scene. For the
first time for many centuries we see the working men of Germany aroused
from their hereditary degradation, apathy, and hopelessness. Change
after change had passed in the higher sphere of politics. One conqueror
after another had traversed these Rhine countries, but, whoever lost or
won, it was the working man who had to pay with his sweat and toil and
sorrow. He was the anvil on which the hammer of those iron times had
fallen without mercy and without intermission. His doom it was to
drudge, to be fleeced, to be drilled and marched off to fight battles in
which he had no interest. Brief and fitful gleams of a wild and
desperate hope had visited these poor people before, only to go out
again in utter darkness; but now in a sky which had so long been black
and dull with monotonous misery, the rays were discernible of
approaching dawn, a shining light which would grow into a more perfect
day. For in the process of history the time had come when the suffering
which had so long been dumb should find a voice that would be heard over
the world, should find an organisation that would compel the attention
of rulers and all men.
Such a cause can be most effectually furthered by wise and sane
leadership: yet it is also well when it is not too dependent on the
guidance of those who seek to control it. The career of Lassalle always
had its unpleasant features. He liked the passing effect too well. He
was too fond of display and pleasure. In much that he did there is a
note of exaggeration, bordering on insincerity. As his agitation
proceeded, this feature of his character becomes more marked. Some of
his addresses to the workmen remind us too forcibly of the bulletins of
the first Napoleon. He was not always careful to have the firm ground of
fact and reality beneath his feet. Many of his critics speak of the
failure of his agitation; with no good reason, considering how short a
time it had continued, hardly more than a year. Lassalle himself was
greatly disappointed with the comparatively little success he had
attained. He had not the patience to wait till the sure operation of
truth and fact and the justice of the cause he fought for should bring
him the reward it merited. On all these grounds we cannot consider the
event which so unworthily closed his life as an accident; it was the
melancholy outcome of the weaker elements in his strangely mixed
character.
While posing as the spokesman of the poor, Lassalle was a man of
decidedly fashionable and luxurious habits. His suppers were well known
as among the most exquisite in Berlin. It was the most piquant feature
of his life that he, one of the gilded youth, a connoisseur in wines,
and a learned man to boot, had become agitator and the champion of the
workers. In one of the literary and fashionable circles of Berlin he had
met a young lady, a Fräulein von Dönniges, for whom he at once felt a
passion which was ardently reciprocated. He met her again on the Rigi,
in the summer of 1864, when they resolved to marry. She was a young lady
of twenty, decidedly unconventional and original in character. It would
appear from her own confession that she had not always respected the
sacred German morality.
But she had for father a Bavarian diplomatist then resident in Geneva,
who was angry beyond all bounds when he heard of the proposed match, and
would have absolutely nothing to do with Lassalle. The lady was
imprisoned in her own room, and soon, apparently under the influence of
very questionable pressure, renounced Lassalle in favour of another
admirer, a Wallachian, Count von Racowitza. Lassalle, who had resorted
to every available means to gain his end, was now mad with rage, and
sent a challenge both to the lady’s father and her betrothed, which was
accepted by the latter. At the Carouge, a suburb of Geneva, the meeting
took place on the morning of August 28, 1864. Lassalle was mortally
wounded, and died on the 31st of the same month. In spite of such a
foolish ending, his funeral was that of a martyr, and by many of his
adherents he has since been regarded with feelings almost of religious
devotion.
How the career of Lassalle might have shaped itself in the new Germany
under the system of universal suffrage which was adopted only three
years after his death, is an interesting subject of speculation. He
could not have remained inactive, and he certainly would not have been
hindered by _doctrinaire_ scruples from playing an effective part, even
though it were by some kind of alliance with the Government. His
ambition and his energy were alike boundless. In the heyday of his
passion for Fräulein von Dönniges his dream was to be installed as the
President of the German Republic with her elevated by his side. As it
was, his position at his death was rapidly becoming difficult and even
untenable; he was involved in a net of prosecutions which were fast
closing round him. He would soon have had no alternative but exile or a
prolonged imprisonment.
Lassalle was undoubtedly a man of the most extraordinary endowments. The
reader of his works feels that he is in the presence of a mind of a very
high order. Both in his works and in his life we find an exceptional
combination of gifts, philosophic power, eloquence, enthusiasm,
practical energy, a dominating force of will. Born of a cosmopolitan
race, which has produced so many men little trammelled by the
conventionalism of the old European societies, he was to a remarkable
degree original and free from social prejudice; was one of the men in
whom the spirit of daring initiative is to a remarkable degree active.
He had in fact a revolutionary temperament, disciplined by the study of
German philosophy, by the sense of the greatness of Prussia’s historic
mission, and by a considerable measure of practical insight, for in this
he was not by any means wanting. In Marx we see the same temperament,
only in his case it was stronger, more solid, sell-restrained, matured
by wider reflection, and especially by the study of the economic
development of Europe, continued for a period of forty years.
But on the whole, Lassalle was a _vis intemperata_. He was deficient in
sober-mindedness, self-control, and in that saving gift of common sense,
without which the highest endowments may be unprofitable and even
hurtful to their possessors and to the world. His ambitions were not
pure; he had a histrionic as well as a revolutionary temperament; he was
lacking also in self-respect; above all, he had not sufficient reverence
for the great and sacred cause of which he had become the champion, a
cause which is fitted to claim the highest motives, the purest
ambitions, the most noble enthusiasms. His vanity, his want of
self-restraint, his deficient sense of the seriousness of his mission as
a Social Democratic leader, in these we see the failings that proved his
undoing. Throughout the miserable intrigue in which he met his death a
simple, straightforward sense of what was right and becoming would at
once have saved him from ruin. Yet he was privileged to inaugurate a
great movement. As the founder of the Social Democracy of Germany, he
has earned a place on the roll of historic names. He possessed in a
notable degree the originality, energy, and sympathy which fit a man to
be the champion of a new cause.
We may go further and say that at that date Germany had only two men
whose insight into the facts and tendencies of their time was in some
real degree adequate to the occasion—Bismarck and Lassalle. The former
represented a historic cause, which was ready for action, the
regeneration and unification of Germany to be accomplished by the
Prussian army. The cause which Lassalle brought to the front was at a
very different stage of progress. The working men, its promoters and
representatives, and Lassalle, its champion, had not attained to
anything like clearness either as to the end to be gained or the means
for accomplishing it. It was only at the crudest and most confused
initial stage.
-----
[1] The most important works of Lassalle are mentioned in the text. See
Georg Brandes, _Ferdinand Lassalle_; Franz Mehring, _Die Deutsche
Social-demokratie, ihre Geschichte und ihre Lehre_; W. H. Dawson,
_German Socialism and Ferdinand Lassalle_.
[2] Schulze-Delitzsch was born in 1808 at Delitzsch, in Prussian Saxony,
whence the second part of his name, to distinguish him from the many
other people in Germany who bear the familiar name of Schulze. It was
his great merit that he founded the co-operative movement in Germany on
principles of self-help. He was a leading member of the Progressist
party.
[3] In contrast to the unequal and indirect system existing in Prussia,
according to which the voters are on a property basis divided into three
classes. The voters thus arranged choose bodies of electors, by whom the
members for the Chamber are chosen.
[4] Bastiat was the populariser in France of the orthodox Political
Economy. Lassalle accused Schulze of being a mere echo of Bastiat’s
superficial views, and therefore called him Bastiat-Schulze.
II. Theories of Lassalle
The socialistic position of Lassalle may generally be described as
similar to that of Rodbertus and Karl Marx. He admits his indebtedness
to both of those writers, but at the same time he cannot be regarded as
a disciple of either of them. Lassalle himself was a thinker of great
original power; he had his own way of conceiving and expressing the
historic socialism.
Lassalle supplies the key to his general position in the preface to his
_Bastiat-Schulze_, when, quoting from his _System of Acquired Rights_,
he says: In social matters the world is confronted with the question,
whether now when property in the direct utilisation of another man no
longer exists, such property in his indirect exploitation should
continue—that is, whether the free realisation and development of our
labour-force should be the exclusive private property of the possessor
of capital, and whether the employer as such, and apart from the
remuneration of his intellectual labour, should be permitted to
appropriate the result of other men’s labours.[1] This sentence, he
says, contains the programme of a national-economic work, which he
intended to write under the title, _Outlines of a Scientific National
Economy_. In this sentence also, we need not say, the fundamental
position of socialism is implied. He was about to carry out his project
when the Leipsic Central Committee brought the question before him in a
practical form. The agitation broke out and left him no leisure for such
a work. But he had often lamented that the exposition of the theory had
not preceded the practical agitation, and that a scientific basis had
not been provided for it.
The _Bastiat-Schulze_ was itself a controversial work, written to meet
the needs of the hour. Lassalle has never given a full and systematic
exposition of his socialistic theory. All his social-economic writings
were published as the crises of his agitation seemed to demand. But, as
he himself says, they compensate by the life and incisiveness of the
polemical form of treatment for what they lose in systematic value. We
may add that it is often a scientific gain, for in the career of
Lassalle we see socialism confronted with fact, and thereby to a large
extent saved from the absoluteness, abstractness, and deficient sense of
reality which detract so much from the value of the works of Marx and
Rodbertus. The excessive love of system so characteristic of German
theorists may be as remote from historic reality and possibility as the
utopian schemes of French socialists. It is, however, also a natural
result of Lassalle’s mode of presentation that he is not always
consistent with himself either on practical or theoretical questions,
especially in his attitude towards the Prussian State.
On the whole, we can most clearly and comprehensively bring out the
views of Lassalle if we follow the order in which they are presented in
his three leading works, the _Working Men’s Programme_, the _Open
Letter_, and the _Bastiat-Schulze_.
The central theme of the _Working Men’s Programme_ is the _vocation of
the working class_ as the makers and representatives of a new era in the
history of the world. We have seen that Lassalle’s _System of Acquired
Rights_ was an application of the historical method to legal ideas and
institutions. In his social-economic writings we find the application of
the same method to economic facts and institutions. The _Working Men’s
Programme_ is a brilliant example of the historical method, and indeed
is a lucid review of the economic development of Europe, culminating in
the working men’s State, the full-grown democracy.
In the mediæval world the owners of land controlled politics, the army,
law, and taxation in their own interest, while labour was oppressed and
despised. The present _régime_ of the capitalist classes is due to a
gradual process of development continued for centuries, and is the
product of many forces which have acted and reacted on each other: the
invention of the mariner’s compass and of gunpowder; abroad the
discovery of America and of the sea-route to India; at home the
overthrow of the feudal houses by a central government, which
established a regular justice, security of property, and better means of
communication. This was to be followed in time by the development of
machinery, like the cotton-spinning machine of Arkwright, itself the
living embodiment of the industrial and economic revolution, which was
destined to produce a corresponding political change. The new machinery,
the large industry, the division of labour, cheap goods, and the
world-market—these were all parts of an organic whole. Production in
mass made cheap goods possible; the cheapening of commodities called
forth a wider market, and the wider market led to a still larger
production.
The rulers of the industrial world, the capitalists, became the rulers
also of the political; the French Revolution was merely a proclamation
of a mighty fact which had already established itself in the most
advanced portions of Europe. But the marvellous enthusiasm of the
Revolution was kindled by the fact that its champions at the time
represented the cause of humanity. Before long, however, it became
manifest that the new rulers fought for the interests of a class, the
_bourgeoisie_; and another class, that of the proletariat, or
unpropertied workers, began to define itself in opposition to them. Like
their predecessors, the _bourgeoisie_ wielded the legal and political
power for their own selfish ends. They made wealth the test and basis of
political and social right; they established a restricted franchise;
shackled the free expression of opinion by cautions and taxes on
newspapers, and threw the burden of taxation on the working classes.
We have seen that the development of the middle class was a slow and
gradual process, the complex result of a complex mass of forces.
Considering that the special theme of the _Working Men’s Programme_ is
the historical function of the working class, it is certainly a most
serious defect of Lassalle’s exposition that he says so little of the
causes which have conditioned the development of the working class as
the representatives of a new era. Their appearance on the pages of
Lassalle as the supporters of a great _rôle_ is far too sudden.
On the 24th of February 1848, he says, broke the first dawn of a new
historical period. On that day in France a revolution broke out, which
called a workman into the Provisional Government; which declared the aim
of the State to be the improvement of the lot of the working class; and
which proclaimed direct and universal suffrage, whereby every citizen
who had attained the age of twenty-one should, without regard to
property, have an equal share in all political activity. The working
class were therefore destined to be the rulers and makers of a new
society. But the rule of the working class had this enormous difference
from other forms of class rule, that it admits of no special privilege.
We are all workers, in so far as we have the will in any way to make
ourselves useful to the human society. The working class is therefore
identical with the whole human race. Its cause is in truth the cause of
entire humanity, its freedom is the freedom of humanity itself, its rule
is the rule of all.
The formal means of realising this is direct universal suffrage, which
is no magic wand, but which at least can rectify its own mistakes. It is
the lance which heals the wounds itself has made. Under universal
suffrage the legislature is the true mirror of the people that has
chosen it, reflecting its defects, but its progress also, for which it
affords unlimited expression and development.
The people must therefore always regard direct universal suffrage as its
indispensable political weapon, as the most fundamental and weightiest
of its demands. And we need not fear that they will abuse their power;
for while the position and interests of the old privileged classes
became inconsistent with the general progress of humanity, the mass of
the people must know that their interests can be advanced only by
promoting the good of their whole class. Even a very moderate sense of
their own welfare must teach them that each individual can separately do
very little to improve his condition. They can prevail only by union.
Thus their personal interest, instead of being opposed to the movement
of history, coincides with the development of the whole people and is in
harmony with freedom, culture, and the highest ideas of our time.
This masterly treatise of Lassalle concludes with an appeal to the
working class, in which we see the great agitator reach the high level
of a pure and noble eloquence. Having shown at length that the working
class are called to be the creators and representatives of a new
historical era, he proceeds: ‘From what we have said there follows for
all who belong to the working class the duty of an entirely new bearing.
‘Nothing is more suited to stamp on a class a worthy and deeply moral
impress than the consciousness that it is called to be the ruling class,
that it is appointed to raise its principle to be the principle of an
entire epoch, to make its idea the ruling idea of the whole society, and
so again to mould society after its own pattern. The high world-historic
honour of this vocation must occupy all your thoughts. The vices of the
oppressed, the idle amusements of the thoughtless, and the harmless
frivolity of the unimportant beseem you no longer. Ye are the rock on
which the church of the future should be built.’
Pity that in the miserable squabble which terminated his life he did not
realise that the leader of the working class should also be inspired by
a sense of the nobility of his calling.
This exposition of the vocation of the working class is closely
connected with another notable feature of Lassalle’s teaching, his
_Theory of the State_. Lassalle’s theory of the State differs entirely
from that generally held by the Liberal school. The Liberal school hold
that the function of the State consists simply in protecting the
personal freedom and the property of the individual. This he scouts as a
night-watchman’s idea, because it conceives the State under the image of
a night-watchman, whose sole function it is to prevent robbery and
burglary.
In opposition to this narrow idea of the State, Lassalle quotes
approvingly the view of August Boeckh: ‘That we must widen our notion of
the State so as to believe that the State is the institution in which
the whole virtue of humanity should be realised.’
History, Lassalle tells us, is an incessant struggle with Nature, with
the misery, ignorance, poverty, weakness, and unfreedom in which the
human race was originally placed.[2] The progressive victory over this
weakness, that is the development of the freedom which history depicts.
In this struggle, if the individual had been left to himself, he could
have made no progress. The State it is which has the function to
accomplish this development of freedom, this development of the human
race in the way of freedom. The duty of the State is to enable the
individual to reach a sum of culture, power, and freedom, which for
individuals would be absolutely unattainable. The aim of the State is to
bring human nature to positive unfolding and progressive development—in
other words, to realise the chief end of man: it is the education and
development of the human race in the way of freedom.
The State should be the complement of the individual. It must be ready
to offer a helping hand, wherever and whenever individuals are unable to
realise the happiness, freedom, and culture which befit a human being.
Save the State, that primitive vestal fire of culture, from the modern
barbarians, he exclaims on another occasion.
To these political conceptions Lassalle is true throughout. It certainly
is a nobler and more rational ideal of the State than the once prevalent
Manchester theory. When we descend from theory to practice all obviously
depends on what kind of State we have got, and on the circumstances and
conditions under which it is called upon to act.
That the State should, through its various organs, support and develop
individual effort, calling it forth, rendering it hopeful and effectual,
never weakening the springs of it, but stimulating and completing it, is
a position which most thinkers would now accept. And most will admit
with regret that the existing State is too much a great taxing and
fighting machine. The field of inquiry here opened up is a wide and
tempting one, on which we cannot now enter. We are at present concerned
with the fact that the State help contemplated by Lassalle was meant not
only to leave the individual free, but to further him in the free
realisation of himself.
The _Iron Law of Wages_ may well be described as the key to Lassalle’s
social-economic position. It holds the same prominent place in his
system of thinking as the theory of surplus value does in that of Marx.
Both, it may be added, are only different aspects of the same fact.
Lassalle insists chiefly on the small share of the produce of labour
which goes to the labourer; Marx traces the history of the share, called
surplus value, which goes to the capitalist.
Lassalle’s most careful statement of the Iron Law, to which he
frequently recurs in subsequent writings, is contained in his _Open
Letter_ (p. 13). ‘The Iron Economic Law, which, in existing
circumstances, under the law of supply and demand for labour, determines
the wage, is this: that the average wage always remains reduced to the
necessary provision which, according to the customary standard of
living, is required for subsistence and for propagation. This is the
point about which the real wage continually oscillates, without ever
being able long to rise above it or to fall below it. It cannot
permanently rise above this average level, because in consequence of the
easier and better condition of the workers there would be an increase of
marriages and births among them, an increase of the working population
and thereby of the supply of labour, which would bring the wage down to
its previous level or even below it. On the other hand, the wage cannot
permanently fall below this necessary subsistence, because then occur
emigration, abstinence from marriage, and, lastly, a diminution of the
number of workmen caused by their misery, which lessens the supply of
labour, and therefore once more raises the wage to its previous rate.’
On a nearer consideration, Lassalle goes on to say, the effect of the
Iron Law is as follows:—
‘From the produce of labour so much is taken and distributed among the
workmen as is required for their subsistence.
‘The entire surplus of production falls to the capitalist. It is
therefore a result of the Iron Law that the workman is necessarily
excluded from the benefits of an increasing production, from the
increased productivity of his own labour.’[3]
Such is Lassalle’s theory of the Iron Law of Wages. He accepts it as
taught by Ricardo and the economists of the orthodox school in England,
France, and Germany. We believe that his statement of it is
substantially just and accurate; that it fairly reflects the economic
science of his time, and, under the then prevailing economic conditions,
may be described as a valid law.
Lassalle held that the customary standard of living and the operation of
the law generally were subject to variation. Still it may reasonably be
maintained that he has not sufficiently considered the fact that, like
capital, the Iron Law of Wages is an historical category. He has not
overlooked the fact, and could hardly do so, as the Iron Law is an
implicate and result of the domination of capital. But his method of
exposition is too much the controversial one, of pressing it as an
_argumentum ad hominem_ against his opponents in Germany, and, as usual,
in controversy truth is liable to suffer. It may therefore be argued
that under the competitive system as now existing, changes have occurred
which render Lassalle’s theory of the Iron Law inaccurate and untenable.
Even while the present system continues to prevail, the law may undergo
very extensive modification through the progress of education and
organisation among the workmen, and through the general advance of
society in morality and enlightenment. The question of modification of
the Iron Law is one of degree, and it may fairly be contended by critics
of Lassalle that he has not recognised it to a sufficient degree.
On the other hand, it may also be rationally maintained that in so far
as education and organisation prevail among the workmen, in so far does
capitalism, with all its conditions and implicates, tend to be
superseded. Trade Unions, Co-operative Societies, Factory Legislation,
are all forms of the social control of economic processes, inconsistent
with competitive economics. The more they gain ground, the more does
capitalism tend to break up and disappear. From this higher point of
view, we may fairly contend that considerations which have been urged as
destructive of Lassalle’s argument are really symptoms of the decline of
capitalism. The Iron Law is an inevitable result of the historical
conditions contemplated by Lassalle. These conditions have changed, but
the change means that capitalism is passing away. We are thus thrown
back on the wider question, whether capitalism is disappearing, a
question which it would at present be premature to discuss.
In any case the position of Lassalle is perfectly clear. He accepted the
orthodox political economy in order to show that the inevitable
operation of its laws left no hope for the working class; and that no
remedy could be found except by abolishing the conditions in which those
laws have their validity—in other words, by abolishing the present
relations of labour and capital altogether. The great aim of his
agitation was to bring forward a scheme which would strike at the root
of the evil. The remedy for the evil condition of things connected with
the Iron Law of Wages is to secure the workmen the full produce of their
labour, by combining the functions of workmen and capitalists through
the establishment of productive associations. The distinction between
labourer and capitalist is thereby abolished. The workman becomes
producer, and for remuneration receives the entire produce of his
labour.
The associations founded by Schulze-Delitzsch, Lassalle went on to
argue, would effect no substantial improvement in the condition of the
working class. The unions for the supply of credit and raw materials do
not benefit the working class as such, but only the small hand-workers.
But hand-labour is an antiquated form of industry, which is destined to
succumb before the large industry equipped with machinery and an
adequate capital. To provide the hand-workers with the means of
continuing their obsolete trades is only to prolong the agony of an
assured defeat.
The consumers’ unions, or co-operative stores as we call them in
England, also fail, because they do not help the workman at the point
where he needs it most, as producers. Before the seller, as before the
policeman, all men are equal; the only thing the seller cares for is
that his customers are able to pay. In discussing the Iron Law, we saw
that the workman must be helped as producer—that is, in securing a
better share of his product. The consumers’ unions may indeed give a
restricted and temporary relief. So long as the unions include only a
limited number of workmen, they afford relief by cheapening the means of
subsistence, inasmuch as they do not lower the general rate of wages.
But in proportion as the unions embrace the entire working class and
thereby cause a general cheapening of the means of subsistence, the Iron
Law of Wages will take effect. For the average wage is only the
expression in money of the customary means of subsistence. The average
wage will fall in proportion to the general cheapening of the means of
subsistence, and all the pains taken by the workmen in founding and
conducting the consumers’ unions will be labour lost. They will only
enable the workman to subsist on a smaller wage.
The only effectual way to improve the condition of the working class is
through the free individual association of the workers, by its
application and extension to the great industry. The working class must
be its own capitalist.
But when the workmen on the one hand contemplate the enormous sums
required for railways and factories, and on the other hand consider the
emptiness of their own pockets, they may naturally ask where they are to
obtain the capital needed for the great industry? The State alone can
furnish it; and the State ought to furnish it, because it is, and always
has been, the duty of the State to promote and facilitate the great
progressive movements of civilisation. _Productive association with
State credit_ was the plan of Lassalle.[4]
The State had already in numerous instances guaranteed its credit for
industrial undertakings by which the rich classes had benefited—canals,
postal services, banks, agricultural improvements, and especially with
regard to railways. No outcry of socialism or communism had been raised
against this form of State help? Then why raise it when the greatest
problem of modern civilisation was involved—the improvement of the lot
of the working classes? Lassalle’s estimate was, that the loan of a
hundred million thalers (£15,000,000) would be more than sufficient to
bring the principle of association into full movement throughout the
kingdom of Prussia.
Obviously the money required for the promotion of productive
associations did not require to be actually paid by the Government; only
the State guarantee for the loan was necessary. The State would see that
proper rules for the associations should be made and observed by them.
It would reserve to itself the rights of a creditor or sleeping partner.
It would generally take care that the funds be put to their legitimate
use. But its control would not pass beyond those reasonable limits: the
associations would be free; they would be the voluntary act of the
working men themselves. Above all, the State, thus supporting and
controlling the associations, would be a democratic State, elected by
universal suffrage, the organ of the workers, who form an overwhelming
majority of every community.
But if we are to conceive the matter in the crudest way and consider the
money as actually paid, wherein would the enormity of such a transaction
consist? The State had spent hundreds of millions in war, to appease the
wounded vanity of royal mistresses, to satisfy the lust of conquest of
princes, to open up markets for the middle classes; yet when the
deliverance of humanity is concerned the money cannot be procured!
Further, as he takes care to explain, Lassalle did not propose his
scheme of productive associations as the solution of the social
question. The solution of the social question would demand generations.
He proposed his scheme as the means of transition, as the easiest and
mildest means of transition.[5] It was the germ, the organic principle
of an incessant development. Lassalle has indicated, though only in
vague outline, how such an organic development of productive
associations should proceed. They would begin in populous centres, in
cases where the nature of the industry, and the voluntary inclination of
the workmen to association, would facilitate their formation.
Industries, which are mutually dependent and work into each other’s
hands, would be united by a credit union; and there would further be an
insurance union, embracing the different associations, which would
reduce their losses to a minimum. The risks would be greatly lessened as
a speculative industry constantly tending to anarchy, and all the evils
of competition would be superseded by an organised industry;
over-production would give place to production in advance. In this way
the associations would grow until they embraced the entire industry of
the country. And the general application of the principle would give an
enormous advantage in international competition to the country adopting
it, for it would be rational, systematic, and in every way more
effective and economical.
The goal of the whole development, as conceived by Lassalle, was a
_collectivism_ of the same type as that contemplated by Marx and
Rodbertus. ‘Division of labour,’ he says, ‘is really common labour,
social combination for production. This, the real nature of production,
needs only to be explicitly recognised. In the total production,
therefore, it is merely requisite to abolish individual portions of
capital, and to conduct the labour of society, which is already common,
with the common capital of society, and to distribute the result of
production among all who have contributed to it, in proportion to their
performance.’[6]
In the controversial work against Schulze-Delitzsch, Lassalle has at
greater length expounded his general position in opposition to the
individualist theories of his opponents. He contends that progress has
not proceeded from the individual; it has always proceeded from the
community. In this connection he sums up briefly the history of social
development.
The entire ancient world, and also the whole mediæval period down to the
French Revolution of 1789, sought human solidarity and community in
bondage or subjection.
The French Revolution of 1789, and the historical period controlled by
it, rightly incensed at this subjection, sought freedom in the
dissolution of all solidarity and community. Thereby, however, it
gained, not freedom, but license. Because freedom without community is
license.
The new, the present period, seeks solidarity in freedom.[7] He then
proceeds in his _theory of conjunctures_ to prove that, instead of each
man being economically responsible for what he has done, each man is
really responsible for what he has not done. The economic fate of the
individual is determined by circumstances over which he has no control,
or very little. What does Lassalle mean by a _conjuncture_? We can best
understand it by reference to a great economic crisis which has occurred
since his time. No better example of a _conjuncture_ can be found than
in the recent history of British agriculture. In 1876, agriculture,
still the most important industry of the country, began to be seriously
threatened by American competition. The crisis caused by the low prices
due to this competition was greatly aggravated by bad seasons, such as
that of 1879. The farmers, obliged to pay rent out of capital, were many
of them ruined. In consequence of the diminished application of capital
to land the opportunities of labour were greatly lessened. Rents could
no longer be paid as formerly. All three classes directly concerned in
English agriculture suffered fearfully, without any special individual
responsibility in the matter. In Ireland, where the difficulty, great in
itself, was intensified by the national idea, an economic crisis grew
into a great political and imperial crisis. In the eyes of the impartial
inquirer, who of all the millions of sufferers was personally
responsible?
Such wide-spread disasters are common in recent economic history. They
are a necessary result of a competitive system of industry. Lassalle is
justly angry with the one-sided and ill-instructed economists that would
hold the individual responsible for his fate in such a crisis. Statesmen
little understand their duty who would leave their subjects without help
in these times of distress. And it must always be a praiseworthy feature
of socialism that it seeks to establish social control of these
_conjunctures_ as far as possible, and to minimise their disastrous
effects by giving social support to those menaced by them.
The main burden of the _Bastiat-Schulze_ is Lassalle’s account of
capital and labour.
For Lassalle _capital is a historic category_, a product of historical
circumstances, the rise of which we can trace, the disappearance of
which, under altered circumstances, we can foresee.
In other words, capital is the name for a system of economic, social,
and legal conditions, which are the result severally and collectively of
a long and gradual process of historical development. The
_Bastiat-Schulze_ is an elucidation of these conditions. The following
may be taken as a general statement of them:—
(1) The division of labour in connection with the large
industry.
(2) A system of production for exchange in the great
world-markets.
(3) Free competition.
(4) The instruments of labour, the property of a special class,
who after paying
(5) A class of free labourers in accordance with the Iron Law of
Wages, pocket the surplus value. Property consists not in the
fruit of one’s own labour, but in the appropriation of that of
others. _Eigenthum ist Fremdthum geworden._[8]
In this way capital has become an independent, active, and
self-generating power which oppresses its producer. Money makes money.
The labour of the past, appropriated and capitalised, crushes the labour
of the present. ‘The dead captures the living.’ ‘The instrument of
labour, which has become independent, and has exchanged _rôles_ with the
workmen, which has degraded the living workmen to a dead instrument of
labour, and has developed itself, the dead instrument of labour, into
the living organ of production—that is capital.’[9] In such highly
metaphorical language does Lassalle sum up his history of capital. We
have already commented on that aspect of it, the Iron Law of Wages,
which Lassalle has most emphasised. The whole subject is much more
comprehensively treated in the _Kapital_ of Karl Marx; therefore we need
not dwell upon it further at present.
It will not be wrong, however, to say a word here about the use of the
word capital, as current in the school of socialists to which Lassalle
and Marx belong. It is not applied by them in its purely economic sense,
as wealth utilised for further production: it is used as the name of the
social and economic system in which the owners of capital are the
dominant power. With them it is the economic factor as operating under
the existing legal and social conditions, with all these conditions
clinging to it. It would be much better to restrict the word to its
proper economic use, and employ the new word capitalism as a fairly
accurate name for the existing system.
The function of capital under all social systems and at all historical
epochs is fundamentally the same; it is simply wealth used for the
production of more wealth. But the historical, legal, and political
conditions under which it is utilised vary indefinitely, as do also the
technical forms in which it is embodied.
No real excuse can be offered for the ignorance or confusion of language
of controversialists who maintain that the object of socialism is to
abolish capital. So far from abolishing capital, socialists wish to make
it still more effective for social well-being by placing it under social
control. What they wish to abolish is the existing system, in which
capital is under the control of a class. It would be a considerable gain
in clearness if this system were always called capitalism.
We have already remarked upon Lassalle’s theory of the State, and his
treatment of the Iron Law of Wages. Our further criticism of his
social-economic position can best be brought out by reference to his
controversy with Schulze-Delitzsch, the economic representative of
German Liberalism.
In general it may be said that Lassalle meets the one-sided
individualism of Schulze by a statement of the socialistic, theory,
which is also one-sided and exaggerated. His view of the influence of
the community as compared with that of the individual is the most
prominent example of this. The only accurate social philosophy is one
which gives due attention to both factors; both are of supreme
importance, and either may fitly be the starting-point of investigation
and discussion.
His theory of conjunctures is overstated. It is to a considerable degree
well founded; in the great economic storms which sweep over the
civilised world the fate of the individual is largely determined by
conditions over which he has no control. Yet now as ever the homely
virtues of industry, energy, sobriety, and prudence do materially
determine the individual career.
For our present purpose, however, it is more important to consider
Lassalle’s polemic against the practical proposals of his opponent.
Lassalle contended that the unions for providing credit and raw material
would benefit the hand-workers only, whereas hand-labour is destined to
disappear before the large industry. But, we may ask, why should not
such methods of mutual help be utilised for associations of working men
even more than for isolated workers? These unions may be regarded as
affording only a very partial and limited relief to the workmen, but why
should the principle of association among workmen stop there?
The system of voluntary co-operation must begin somewhere; it began most
naturally and reasonably with such unions, and it proceeds most
naturally and reasonably along the line of least resistance to further
development. In these unions the workmen have been acquiring the capital
and experience necessary for further progress. No limit can be assigned
to the possible evolution of the system. They are properly to be
regarded as only the first beginnings of social control over the
economic processes, the goal and consummation of which we find in
socialism. If in the controversial struggle Lassalle had listened to the
clear voice of science, he would have seen that, for his opponent as
well as for himself, he must maintain that all social institutions are
subject to and capable of development.
For the methods of Schulze it may be claimed that they do not provide a
ready-made solution of the social question, but they are a beginning.
For the associations of Schulze, not less than for those of Lassalle, we
may contend that they supply the organic principle of an incessant
development. In this way the workmen may attain to the complete
management of their own industrial interests with their own joint
capital. They may thus obtain for themselves the full product of their
labour, in which case the objection of Lassalle, with regard to the
increase of population, under the influence of the cheap provisions
supplied by the stores, would no more apply to the scheme of Schulze
than they would to his own. In both cases we are to suppose that the
means of subsistence would be more abundant and more easily obtained; in
both cases there might be the risk of a too rapidly increasing
population. We may suppose that this increase of population would be met
by a still greater increase in the product of labour, all going to the
workers. But for the schemes of Schulze there would be this great
advantage that, the capital and experience of the workers having been
acquired by their own exertions, they would have all the superior
training requisite for the solution of the population question, and all
other questions, which can be obtained only from a long course of social
discipline.
Lassalle would have done well to remember his own statement, that the
only real point of difference between them was, that one believed in
State help, and the other in ‘self help.’ And we may further ask, Do the
two exclude each other?
In fact, the controversy, considered purely on its merits, was barren
enough. Yet it led to profitable results, inasmuch as it directed the
mind of Germany to the questions involved, and led to a more thorough
discussion of them.
Better, however, than any argument which can be urged is the verdict of
history on the merits of the question, as already pronounced during the
period which has elapsed since the date of the controversy. In 1885,
just twenty-one years after the bitter controversy between the two
representatives of State help and self help, the societies established
by Schulze in Germany alone possessed one hundred million thalers of
capital of their own. It will be remembered that this is the amount of
the loan required by Lassalle from the State to bring his productive
associations into operation. If the workmen fail in productive
association, it will not be, as Lassalle maintained, for want of
capital. Productive association with State credit is therefore not the
only way out of the wilderness.
Must we go further and say that Lassalle’s method of State help was not
the right method at all? It is certain that the Government of Germany,
though organised on the principle of universal suffrage, has _not_
granted the credit demanded by Lassalle, and that his agitation in this
matter has failed owing, it might be alleged, to his early death, and to
the fact that since his time German socialism has prematurely moved on
international, and even anti-national, lines, thus alienating from
itself the sympathies of the Emperor and his Chancellor. We need not say
how very improbable it is that the German Government would have
guaranteed its credit, however submissive and conciliatory the attitude
of the Social Democrats might have been. The Social Democrats
themselves, though they gave a place to Lassalle’s scheme on the Gotha
programme of 1875, seem now disposed to attach little or no importance
to it. It does not appear in the Erfurt programme of the party, which
was adopted in 1891. In short, Lassalle’s agitation has in the point
immediately in question been a failure. At the same time, it would be
absolutely incorrect to assert that experience has pronounced against
his scheme, inasmuch as no Government has ever seriously taken it in
hand.
Like many other pioneers, Lassalle has not accomplished what he
intended, yet he has achieved great results. We cannot quite accept the
dictum of Schiller, that the world’s history is the world’s judgment. We
are not prepared to believe that all things that have succeeded were
good, and all things that have failed were evil; or that things are good
or evil only in so far as they succeed or fail. Still, we may well sum
up the controversy between Lassalle and Schulze by stating that in 1885
the societies founded by the latter had in Germany a membership of
1,500,000 with a capital of £15,000,000, and at the election of 1890 the
Social Democracy of Germany, originated by Lassalle, polled 1,427,000
votes. Both have done great things, which are destined to be greater
still. In this, as in so many other instances, the course of history has
not respected the narrow limits prescribed to it by controversialists.
We need not, however, insist further on the details of Lassalle’s
controversy with Schulze-Delitzsch. Much more important is it to recall
the leading aspects of his teaching. What Lassalle contemplated and
contended for was a democracy in which the claims of Might and Right
should be reconciled, a democracy of working men, guided by science, and
through universal suffrage constituting a State which would rise to the
high level of its function as representative and promoter of freedom,
culture, morality, and progress in the fullest and deepest significance
of those great ideas. Above all, this democracy was to be a social
democracy, in which the political idea should be subordinate to the
social; hence the duty of the State at least to initiate the solution of
the social question by granting credit for productive associations. But
this was only to be a beginning; the solution of the social question
must be ardently worked out for generations until labour should be
entirely emancipated.
With such an ideal, contrast the Prussian-German State as it actually
is. The German State must still find its basis in the army and police,
the most intelligent of the working class being in profound discontent.
It is a fact worth considering by our economists and politicians, that
the _élite_ of the working men of probably the best educated and most
thoughtful nation in the world have gone over to the Social Democratic
party. Nor can the German or any other State devote itself heartily to
the solution of the social question, for Europe is like a vast camp, in
which science and finance are strained to the uttermost in order to
devise and provide instruments for the destruction of our fellow-men. Of
this state of things the young Emperor who ascended the throne in 1888
is only the too willing representative; but even if he were inclined, he
would be powerless to prevent it, as its causes are too deeply rooted in
human nature and in the present stage of social development to be
removed by anything less than a profound change in the motives and
conditions of life. The historical antecedents and geographical position
of Germany are such that it must long continue to be a military State;
and most other nations have hindrances of their own. Reformers must
therefore wait long and strive earnestly before they can hope to see
such an ideal as that of Lassalle realised. That the ideal was a noble
one, and that the gratitude of all lovers of progress is due to him for
his energetic and eloquent advocacy of it, notwithstanding certain
unworthy passages in his career, few will deny.
-----
[1] _Bastiat-Schulze_, p. iii., Berlin 1878.
[2] See _Working Men’s Programme_.
[3] See _Open Letter_.
[4] See _Open Letter_, passim.
[5] See _Bastiat-Schulze_, p. 189.
[6] _Bastiat-Schulze_, p. 188.
[7] _Bastiat-Schulze_, p. 18.
[8] _Bastiat-Schulze_, p. 186.
[9] _Ibid._, p. 181.
CHAPTER VI
_RODBERTUS_
To those who identify socialism with the extreme revolutionary spirit,
Rodbertus is naturally an enigma. Everything characteristic of Rodbertus
is an express contradiction of their notion of a socialist. He was a
Prussian lawyer and landowner, a quiet and cultured student, who
disliked revolution and even agitation. It was a marked feature of his
teaching also, that he meant the socialist development to proceed on
national lines and under national control. Yet it is impossible to give
any reasonable account of socialism that will exclude Rodbertus. Clearly
the only right way out of the dilemma for those who are caught in it is
to widen their conception of the subject; and Rodbertus will become
perfectly clear and intelligible.
Karl Johann Rodbertus, by some considered to be the founder of
scientific socialism, was born at Greifswald on 12th August 1805, his
father being a professor at the university there. He studied law at
Göttingen and Berlin, thereafter engaging in various legal occupations;
and, after travelling for some time, he bought the estate of Jagetzow,
in Pomerania, whence his name of Rodbertus-Jagetzow. In 1836 he settled
on this estate, and henceforward devoted his life chiefly to economic
and other learned studies, taking also some interest in local and
provincial affairs.
After the revolution of March 1848 Rodbertus was elected member of the
Prussian National Assembly, in which body he belonged to the Left
Centre; and for fourteen days he filled the post of Minister of Public
Worship and Education. He sat for Berlin in the Second Chamber of 1849,
and moved the adoption of the Frankfort imperial constitution, which was
carried. Then came the failure of the revolutionary movement in Prussia,
as elsewhere in Europe, and Rodbertus retired into private life. When
the system of dividing the Prussian electorate into three classes was
adopted, Rodbertus recommended abstention from voting. His only
subsequent appearance in public life was his candidature for the first
North German Diet, in which he was defeated.
His correspondence with Lassalle was an interesting feature of his life.
At one time Rodbertus had some intention of forming a social party with
the help of the conservative socialist Rudolf Meyer and of Hasenclever,
a prominent follower of Lassalle; but no progress was made in this.
Rodbertus was neither disposed nor qualified to be an agitator, being a
man of a calm and critical temperament, who believed that society could
not be improved by violent changes, but by a long and gradual course of
development. He warned the working men of Germany against connecting
themselves with any political party, enjoining them to be a social party
pure and simple. He died on 8th December 1875.
The general position of Rodbertus was ‘social, monarchical, and
national.’ With his entire soul he held the purely economic part of the
creed of the German Social Democratic party, yet he did not agree with
their methods, and had no liking for the productive associations with
State help of Lassalle. He regarded a socialistic republic as a possible
thing, but he cordially accepted the monarchic institution in his own
country, and hoped that a German emperor might undertake the _rôle_ of a
social emperor. He was also a true patriot, and was proud and hopeful of
the career that lay before the regenerated empire of Germany.
The basis of the economic teaching of Rodbertus is the principle laid
down by Adam Smith and Ricardo, and insisted on by all the later
socialists, that labour is the source and measure of value. In
connection with this he developed the position that rent, profit, and
wages are all parts of a national income produced by the united organic
labour of the workers of the community. Consequently there can be no
talk of the wages of labour being paid out of capital; wages is only
that part of the national income which is received by the workmen, of a
national income which they have themselves entirely produced. The wages
fund theory is thus summarily disposed of.
But the most important result of the theory is his position that the
possession of land and capital enables the landholders and capitalists
to compel the workmen to divide the product of their labour with those
non-working classes, and in such a proportion that the workers only
obtain as much as can support them in life. Thus the Iron Law of Wages
is established. Hence also Rodbertus deduces his theory of commercial
crises and of pauperism, and in the following way: In spite of the
increasing productivity of labour, the workers obtain in general only
sufficient to support their class, and therefore a smaller relative
share of the national income. But the producers form also the large mass
of consumers, and, with the decline of their relative share in the
national income, must decline the relative purchasing power of this
large class of the people. The growing production is not met by a
correspondingly growing consumption; expansion is succeeded by
contraction of production, by a scarcity of employment, and a further
decline in purchasing power on the part of the workers. Thus we have a
commercial crisis bringing with it pauperism as a necessary result. In
the meantime the purchasing power of the non-producing capitalists and
landholders continues relatively to increase; but, as they have already
had enough to buy all the comforts of life, they spend the more in the
purchase of luxuries, the production of which increases.
A fundamental part of the teaching of Rodbertus is his theory of social
development. He recognised three stages in the economic progress of
mankind: (1) the ancient heathen period in which property in human
beings was the rule; (2) the period of private property in land and
capital; (3) the period, still remote, of property as dependent on
service or desert. The goal of the human race is to be one society
organised on a communistic basis; only in that way can the principle
that every man be rewarded according to his work be realised. In this
communistic or socialistic State of the future, land and capital will be
national property, and the entire national production will be under
national control; and means will be taken so to estimate the labour of
each citizen that he shall be rewarded according to its precise amount.
An immense staff of State officials will be required for this function.
As we have already said, Rodbertus believed that this stage of social
development is yet far distant; he thought that five centuries will need
to pass away before the ethical force of the people can be equal to it.
From what we have already said, it will be understood that by his
temperament, culture, and social position Rodbertus was entirely averse
to agitation as a means of hastening the new era; and in the measures
which he recommends for making the transition towards it he showed a
scrupulous regard for the existing interests of the capitalists and
landholders. He proposed that those two classes should be left in full
possession of their present share of the national income, but that the
workers should reap the benefit of the increasing production. To secure
them this increment of production he proposed that the State should fix
a normal working day for the various trades, a normal day’s work, and a
legal wage, the amount of which should be revised periodically, and
raised according to the increase of production, the better workman
receiving a better wage. By measures such as these, carried out by the
State in order to correct the evils of competition, would Rodbertus seek
to make the transition into the socialistic era.
The economic work of Rodbertus is therefore an attempt made in a
temperate and scientific spirit to elucidate the evil tendencies
inherent in the competitive system, especially as exemplified in the
operation of the Iron Law of Wages. The remedy he proposes is a State
management of production and distribution, which shall extend more and
more, till we arrive at a complete and universal socialism—and all
based on the principle that, as labour is the source of value, so to the
labourer should all wealth belong.
It is hardly necessary further to dwell on the theories of Rodbertus.
The general outlines of his teaching are clear enough, and the details
could be properly treated only in a work specially devoted to him. In
some leading features his economic position is the same as that of Marx
and Lassalle. The chief difference lies in the application of their
principles. We have seen that he expects the Prussian or German State to
adopt his theories, but the interest we can have in the very remote
realisation of them in this way naturally cannot be very great. It was
unreasonable to believe that the people of Germany would make no use of
their newly acquired political rights to promote their social claims;
and it is needless to say that a socialistic evolution slowly carried
out under an army of officials is not a very inviting prospect.
On the recent political economy of Germany, especially as represented by
Adolf Wagner, Rodbertus has exercised a great influence. For many he is
the founder of a truly scientific socialism. His criticism of the
leading principles of economics has led them to make important changes
in the statement and treatment of their science.[1]
-----
[1] The following are the most important works of Rodbertus: _Zur
Erkenntniss unserer staatswirthschaftlichen Zustände_ (1842); _Sociale
Briefe an von Kirchmann_ (1850); _Creditnoth des Grundbesitzes_ (2nd
ed., 1876); ‘Der Normal-arbeitstag,’ in _Tüb. Zeitschrift_ (1878);
Letters to A. Wagner, etc., _Tüb. Zeitschrift_ (1878-79); Letters to
Rudolf Meyer (1882). See also Adolf Wagner (_Tüb. Zeitschrift_) (1878);
Kozak’s work on Rodbertus (1882); an excellent monograph by G. Adler
(Leipsic, 1884); and Prof. Gonner’s _Social Philosophy of Rodbertus_
(London, 1899).
CHAPTER VII
_KARL MARX_
The greatest and most influential name in the history of socialism is
unquestionably Karl Marx. He and his like-minded companion Engels are
the acknowledged heads of the ‘scientific and revolutionary’ school of
socialism, which has its representatives in almost every country of the
civilised world, and is generally recognised as the most serious and
formidable form of the new teaching.
Like Ferdinand Lassalle, Karl Marx was of Jewish extraction. It is said
that from the time of his father, back to the sixteenth century, his
ancestors had been rabbis.[1] Marx was born at Treves in 1818, where his
father belonged to the legal profession. Both parents were highly
cultured and raised above the traditions and prejudices of their race.
In 1824, when Marx was six years of age, the family passed over from
Judaism to the profession of the Christian faith.
Brought up under very favourable circumstances, ardent and energetic,
and endowed with the highest natural gifts, the young Marx speedily
assimilated the best learning that. Germany could then provide. At the
universities of Bonn and Berlin he studied law to please his father, but
following his own bent he gave his time much more to history and
philosophy. Hegel was still about the zenith of his influence, and Marx
was a zealous student, and for some time an adherent of the reigning
school. In 1841 Marx finished his studies and gained the degree of
doctor with an essay on the philosophy of Epicurus. This was destined to
close his connection with the German universities. He had intended to
settle at Bonn as teacher of philosophy, but the treatment which his
friend Bruno Bauer as teacher of theology in the same university
experienced at the hands of the Prussian minister Eichhorn, deterred him
from following out his purpose.
In truth, Marx’s revolutionary temperament was little suited to the
routine of the German man of learning, and the political conditions of
Prussia gave no scope for free activity in any department of its
national life. Marx therefore could only enter the ranks of the
opposition, and early in 1842 he joined the staff of the _Rhenish
Gazette_, published at Cologne as an organ of the extreme democracy. He
was for a short time editor of the paper. During his connection with it
he carried on an unsparing warfare against the Prussian reaction, and
left it before its suppression by the Prussian Government, when it
sought by compromise to avoid that fate.
In the same year, 1843, Marx married Jenny von Westphalen, who belonged
to a family of good position in the official circles of the Rhine
country. Her brother was subsequently Prussian minister. It was a most
happy marriage. Through all the trials and privations of a revolutionary
career Marx found in his wife a brave, steadfast, and sympathetic
companion.
Soon after his marriage Marx removed to Paris, where he applied himself
to the study of the questions to which his life and activity were
henceforward to be entirely devoted. All his life he appears to have
worked with extraordinary intensity. At Paris he lived in close
intercourse with the leading French socialists; with Proudhon he often
spent whole nights in the discussion of economic problems. His most
intimate associates, however, were the German exiles. Arnold Ruge and he
edited the _Deutsch-Französische Jahrbücher_. He met also the greatest
of the German exiles, Heine, and is said to have had a share in
suggesting to the poet the writing of the celebrated _Wintermärchen_.
Most important of all those meetings in Paris, however, was that with
Friedrich Engels. Friedrich Engels was the son of a manufacturer at
Barmen, where he was born in 1820. Brought up to his father’s business,
Engels had resided for some time in Manchester. When he met Marx at
Paris in 1844 the two men had already arrived at a complete community of
views, and for nearly forty years continued to be loyal friends and
comrades-in-arms.
Early in 1845, Marx, at the instance of Prussia, was expelled from Paris
by the Guizot Ministry. Marx settled in Brussels, where he resided three
years. He gave up his Prussian citizenship without again becoming
naturalised in any country. It was in 1845 that Engels published his
important work, _The Condition of the Working Class in England_. In
Brussels, in 1847, Marx published his controversial work on Proudhon’s
_Philosophie de la Misère_, entitled _Misère de la Philosophie_.
Proudhon, it must be remembered, was at that time the leading name in
European socialism, and Marx had been on very intimate terms with him.
Marx’s criticism of his friend is nevertheless most merciless. In
defense of the German we can but say that such scathing methods were not
unusual at that time, and that where the cause of truth and of the
proletariat as he understood it was concerned, he scorned all manner of
compromise and consideration for personal feelings. His book on
Proudhon, in spite of its controversial form, is interesting as the
first general statement of his views.
This book on Proudhon scarcely attracted any attention whatever. In the
same year, 1847, he and his friend Engels had a notable opportunity for
an expression of their common opinions which excited wide attention, and
which has had a great and still growing influence in the cause of the
working man.
A society of socialists, a kind of forerunner of the International, had
established itself in London, and had been attracted by the new theories
of Marx and the spirit of strong and uncompromising conviction with
which he advocated them. They entered into relation with Marx and
Engels; the society was reorganised under the name of the Communist
League; and a congress was held, which resulted, in 1847, in the framing
of the _Manifesto of the Communist Party_, which was published in most
of the languages of Western Europe, and is the first proclamation of
that revolutionary socialism armed with all the learning of the
nineteenth century, but expressed with the fire and energy of the
agitator, which in the International and other movements has so startled
the world.
During the revolutionary troubles in 1848 Marx returned to Germany, and
along with his comrades, Engels, Wolff, etc., he supported the most
advanced democracy in the _New Rhenish Gazette_. In 1849 he settled in
London, where he spent his after-life in the elaboration of his economic
views and in the realisation of his revolutionary programme. In 1859 he
published _Zur Kritik der politischen Oekonomie_. This book was for the
most part incorporated in the first volume of his great work on capital,
_Das Kapital_, which appeared in 1867.[2] Much of his later life was
spent in ill health, due to the excessive work by which he undermined a
constitution that had originally been exceptionally healthy and
vigorous. He died in London, March 14, 1883. It was a time of the year
which had been marked by the outbreak of the Commune at Paris, and is
therefore for a twofold reason a notable period in the history of the
proletariat.
Since the death of Marx his great work, _Das Kapital_, has been
completed by the publication of the second and third volumes, which have
been edited by Engels from manuscripts left by his friend. But neither
of these two volumes has the historical interest which may fairly be
claimed for the first. In 1877 Engels published on his own account a
work called _Herrn Eugen Dührings Umwälzung der Wissenschaft_,[3] a
controversial treatise against Dühring (a teacher of philosophy in the
university of Berlin) which has had considerable influence on the
development of the German Social Democracy. Engels died in 1895, after
loyal and consistent service in the cause of the proletariat, which
extended over more than fifty years.
The causes which have variously contributed to the rise of German
socialism are sufficiently clear. With the accession of the romanticist
Frederick William IV. to the throne of Prussia in 1840 German liberalism
received a fresh expansion. At the same time the Hegelian school began
to break up, and the interest in pure philosophy began to wane. It was a
time of disillusionment, of dissatisfaction with idealism, of transition
to realistic and even to materialistic ways of thinking. This found
strongest expression in the Hegelian left, to which, after the ideals of
the old religions and philosophies had proved unsubstantial, there
remained as solid residuum the real fact of man with his positive
interests in this life. The devotion and enthusiasm which had previously
been fixed on ideal and spiritual conceptions were concentrated on
humanity. To adherents of the Hegelian left, who had been delivered from
intellectual routine by the most intrepid spirit of criticism, and who
therefore had little respect for the conventionalisms of a feudal
society, it naturally appeared that the interests of humanity had been
cruelly sacrificed in favour of class privilege and prejudice.
The greatest thinkers of Germany had recognised the noble elements in
the French Revolution. To recognise also the noble and promising
features of French socialism was a natural thing, especially for Germans
who had been in Paris, the great hearth of the new ideas. Here they
found themselves definitely and consciously in presence of the last and
greatest interest of humanity, the suffering and struggling proletariat
of Western Europe, which had so recently made its definite entry in the
history of the world. Thus socialism became a social, political, and
economic creed to Karl Marx and his associates. But they felt that the
theories which preceded them were wanting in scientific basis; and it
was henceforward the twofold aim of the school to give scientific form
to socialism, and to propagate it in Europe by the best and most
effective revolutionary methods.
The fundamental principle of the Marx school and of the whole cognate
socialism is the theory of ‘surplus value’—the doctrine, namely, that,
after the labourer has been paid the wage necessary for the subsistence
of himself and family, the surplus produce of his labour is appropriated
by the capitalist who exploits it. This theory is an application of the
principle that labour is the source of value, which was enunciated by
many of the old writers on economics, such as Locke and Petty, which was
set forth with some vagueness and inconsistency by Adam Smith, and was
more systematically expounded by Ricardo. The socialistic application of
the principle in the doctrine of surplus value had been made both by
Owenites and Chartists. It was to prevent this appropriation of surplus
value by capitalists and middlemen that the Owen school tried the system
of exchange by labour notes in 1832, the value of goods being estimated
in labour time, represented by labour notes.
The principle that labour is the source of value has been accepted in
all its logical consequences by Marx, and by him elaborated with
extraordinary dialectical skill and historical learning into the most
complete presentation of socialism that has ever been offered to the
world. A like application of the principle, but in a less comprehensive
fashion, has been made by Rodbertus; and it is the same theory that
underlies the extravagances and paradoxes of Proudhon. The question
whether the priority in the scientific development of the principle is
due to Marx or Rodbertus cannot be discussed here. But it may be said
that, the theory had been set forth by Rodbertus in his first work in
1842, that the importance of the principle was understood by the Marx
school as early as 1845, and that in a broad and general way it had
indeed become the common property of socialists. The historical
importance and scientific worth of the writings of Rodbertus should not
be overlooked; nor are they likely to be when so much attention has been
given to him by A. Wagner and other distinguished German economists.
But in the great work of Marx the socialist theory is elaborated with a
fulness of learning and a logical power to which Rodbertus has no claim.
With Marx the doctrine of surplus value receives its widest application
and development: it supplies the key to his explanation of the history
and influence of capital, and consequently of the present economic era,
which is dominated by it. It is the basis, in fact, of a vast and
elaborate system of social philosophy. In any case it is an absurdity as
well as an historical error to speak of Marx as having borrowed from
Rodbertus. Marx was an independent thinker of great originality and
force of character, who had made the economic development of modern
Europe the study of a laborious lifetime, and who was in the habit, not
of borrowing, but of strongly asserting the results of his own research
and of impressing them upon other men.
The great work of Marx may be described as an exposition and criticism
of capital. But it is also indirectly an exposition of socialism,
inasmuch as the historical evolution of capital is governed by natural
laws, the inevitable tendency of which is towards socialism. It is the
great aim of Marx to reveal the law of the economic movement of modern
times. Now, the economic movement of modern times is dominated by
capital. Explain, therefore, the natural history of capital, the rise,
consolidation, and decline of its supremacy as an evolutionary process,
and you forecast the nature of that into which it is being
transformed—socialism. Hence the great task of the Marx school is not
to preach a new economic and social gospel, not to provide ready-made
schemes of social regeneration after the fashion of the early
socialists, nor to counteract by alleviating measures the wretchedness
of our present system, but to explain and promote the inevitable process
of social evolution, so that the domination of capital may run its
course and give place to the higher system that is to come.
The characteristic feature of the _régime_ of capital, or, as Marx
usually calls it, the capitalistic method of production, is, that
industrial operations are carried on by individual capitalists employing
free labourers, whose sole dependence is the wage they receive. Those
free labourers perform the function fulfilled in other states of society
by the slave and the serf. In the development of the capitalistic system
is involved the growth of the two classes,—the capitalist class,
enriching itself on the profits of industry, which they control in their
own interest, and the class of workers, nominally free, but without land
or capital, divorced, therefore, from the means of production, and
dependent on their wages—the modern proletariat. The great aim of the
capitalist is the increase of wealth through the accumulation of his
profits. This accumulation is secured by the appropriation of what the
socialists call surplus value. The history of the capitalistic method of
production is the history of the appropriation and accumulation of
surplus value. To understand the capitalistic system is to understand
surplus value. With the analysis of value, therefore, the great work of
Marx begins.
The wealth of the societies in which the capitalistic method of
production prevails appears as an enormous collection of commodities. A
commodity is in the first place an external object adapted to satisfy
human wants; and this usefulness gives it value in use, makes it a use
value. These use values form the material of wealth, whatever its social
form may be. In modern societies, where the business of production is
carried on to meet the demands of the market, for exchange, these use
values appear as exchange values. Exchange value is the proportion in
which use values of different kinds exchange for each other. But the
enormous mass of things that circulate in the world market exchange for
each other in the most different proportion. They must, however, have a
common quality, or they could not be compared. This common quality
cannot be any of the natural properties of the commodities. In the
business of exchange one thing is as good as another, provided you have
it in sufficient quantity.
Leaving out of consideration, therefore, the physical qualities that
give commodities use value, we find in them but one common
characteristic—that they are all products of human labour. They are all
crystallised forms of human labour. It is labour applied to natural
objects that gives them value. What constitutes value is the human
labour embodied in commodities. And the relation of exchange is only a
phase of this value, which is therefore to be considered independently
of it. Further, the labour time spent in producing value is the measure
of value, not this or that individual labour, in which case a lazy or
unskilled man would produce as great a quantity of value as the most
skilful and energetic. We must take as our standard the average labour
force of the community. The labour time which we take as the measure of
value is the time required to produce a commodity under the normal
social conditions of production with the average degree of skill and
intensity of labour. Thus labour is both the source and the measure of
value.
The conditions necessary to the existence and growth of capitalism,
therefore, are as follows:—A class, who have a virtual monopoly of the
means of production; another class of labourers, who are free, but
destitute of the means of production; and a system of production for
exchange in a world market. But it may be asked how these historical
conditions were established? How did the capitalist class originate, and
how were the workers divorced from the instruments of labour, and how
was the world market opened up?
Such a state of things was established only after a long and gradual
process of change, which Marx copiously illustrates from the history of
England, as the classic land of the fully developed capitalism. In the
Middle Ages the craftsman and peasant were the owners of the small means
of production then extant, and they produced for their own needs and for
their feudal superior; only the superfluity went into the general
market. Such production was necessarily small, limited, and technically
imperfect. Towards the close of the Middle Ages a great change set in,
caused by a remarkable combination of circumstances—the downfall of the
feudal system and of the Catholic Church, the discovery of America and
of the sea route to India. Through the breaking-up of the feudal houses
with their numerous retainers, through the transformation of the old
peasant-holdings into extensive sheep-runs, and generally through the
prevalent application of the commercial system to the management of
land, instead of the Catholic and feudal spirit, the peasantry were
driven off the land; a multitude of people totally destitute of property
were thrown loose from their old means of livelihood, and were reduced
to vagabondage or forced into the towns. It was in this way that the
modern proletarians made their tragic entry in history.
On the other hand, there was a parallel development of the capitalist
class, brought about by the slave-trade, by the exploitation of the
American colonies and of both the Indies, and by the robbery, violence,
and corruption which attended the transference of the land from the
Catholic and feudal to the modern _régime_. The opening and extension of
the vast world market, moreover, gave a great stimulus to industry at
home. The old guilds having already been expropriated and dissolved, the
early organisation of industry under the control of an infant capitalism
passed through its first painful and laborious stages, till, with the
great mechanical inventions, with the application of steam as the
motive-power, and the rise of the factory system towards the close of
the eighteenth century, the great industrial revolution was
accomplished, and the capitalistic method of production attained to its
colossal manhood.
Thus the capitalistic system was established. And we must remember that
in all its forms and through all the stages of its history the great aim
of the capitalist is to increase and consolidate his gains through the
appropriation of surplus value. We have now to inquire how this surplus
value is obtained?
The starting-point of the capitalistic system is the circulation of
wares. As we have seen, the capitalistic method of production is
dominated by exchange. If exchange, however, consisted merely in the
giving and receiving of equivalents, there could be no acquisition of
surplus value. In the process of exchange there must appear something
the utilisation of which by the buyer yields a greater value than the
price he pays for it.
The thing desired is found in the labour force of the workman, who,
being destitute of the means of production, must have recourse to the
owner of these, the capitalist. In other words, the workman appears on
the market with the sole commodity of which he has to dispose, and sells
it for a specified time at the price it can bring, which we call his
wage, and which is equivalent to the average means of subsistence
required to support himself and to provide for the future supply of
labour (in his family). But the labour force of the workman, as utilised
by the capitalist in the factory or the mine, produces a net value in
excess of his wage; that is, over and above his entire outlay, including
the wage paid to his workmen, the capitalist finds himself in possession
of a surplus, which can only represent the unpaid labour of his workmen.
This surplus is the surplus value of Karl Marx, the product of unpaid
labour.
This appropriation of surplus labour is a very old phenomenon in human
society. In all the forms of society which depended on slave-labour, and
under the feudal _régime_, the appropriation of the results of other
men’s labour was open, undisguised, and compulsory. Under the
capitalistic system it is disguised under the form of free contract. The
effect is the same. For the workman who is unprovided with the
instruments of labour, whose working power is useless without them, this
compulsion is not less real because it is concealed under the forms of
freedom. He must agree to this free contract or starve.
It is the surplus value thus obtained which the capitalist seeks to
accumulate by all the methods available. These methods are described by
Marx with great detail and elaboration through several hundred pages of
his first volume. His account, supported at every step by long and
copious citations from the best historical authorities and from the
blue-books of the various parliamentary commissions, is a lurid and
ghastly picture of the many abuses of English industrialism. It is the
dark and gloomy reverse of the industrial glories of England. The
fearful prolongation of the hours of labour, the merciless exploitation
of women and of children from the age of infancy, the utter neglect of
sanitary conditions—whatever could lessen the costs of production and
swell the profits of the capitalist, though every law of man and nature
were violated in the process; such are the historical facts which Marx
emphasises and illustrates with an overwhelming force of evidence. They
receive ample confirmation in the history of the English Factory Acts,
imposed on greedy and unscrupulous capitalists after a severe struggle
prolonged for half a century, and required to prevent the moral and
physical ruin of the industrial population.
We must now consider the process of the development of capitalism rather
more closely.[4] Under the old system industry was carried on by the
individual. There could be no doubt as to the ownership of the product,
as he produced it by his own labour, with materials and tools that
belonged to himself. Such was the normal method of production in those
days.
It is very different in the existing system. The most conspicuous result
of the capitalistic system is, that production is a social operation
carried on by men organised and associated in factories; but the product
is appropriated by individual capitalists: it is social production and
capitalistic appropriation. Whereas the property of the preceding era
rested on the individual’s own labour, property under the capitalistic
system is the product of other men’s labour. This is the contradiction
which runs through the entire history of capitalism. Here we have in
germ all the antagonism and confusion of the present time. The
incompatibility of social production and capitalistic appropriation must
more and more declare itself as the supremacy of the system extends over
the world.
The contradiction between social production and capitalistic
appropriation naturally appears in the contrast between the human beings
concerned in it. For the appropriators form the _bourgeoisie_, and the
social workers constitute the proletariat, the two historic classes of
the new era. Another conspicuous and important result is that, while we
have this organisation in the factory, we have outside of it all the
anarchy of competition. We have the capitalistic appropriators of the
product of labour contending for the possession of the market, without
systematic regard to the supply required by that market—each one
filling the market only as dictated by his own interest, and trying to
outdo his rivals by all the methods of adulteration, bribery, and
intrigue; an economic war hurtful to the best interests of society. With
the development of the capitalistic system machinery is more and more
perfected, for to neglect improvement is to succumb in the struggle; the
improved machinery renders labour superfluous, which is accordingly
thrown idle and exposed to starvation; and this is entirely satisfactory
to the capitalist class, whose interest it is to have a reserve army of
labourers disposable for the times when industry is specially active,
but cast out on the streets through the crash that must necessarily
follow.
But as the technique improves the productive power of industry
increases, and continually tends more and more to surpass the available
needs of the market, wide as it is. This is all the more inevitable,
because the consumption of the masses of the population is reduced to
the minimum requisite merely to maintain them in life. It is another
contradiction of the capitalistic system that on the one hand its
inherent laws tend to restrict the market which on the other hand it is
ready by all means fair and foul to extend. The consequence is, that the
market tends to be overstocked even to absolute repletion; goods will
not sell, and a commercial crisis is established, in which we have the
remarkable phenomenon of widespread panic, misery, and starvation
resulting from a superabundance of wealth—a “crise pléthorique,” as
Fourier called it, a crisis due to a plethora of wealth.
These crises occur at periodic intervals, each one severer and more
widespread than the preceding, until they now tend to become chronic and
permanent, and the whole capitalistic world staggers under an atlantean
weight of ill-distributed wealth. Thus the process goes on in obedience
to its own inherent laws. Production is more and more concentrated in
the hands of mammoth capitalists and colossal joint-stock companies,
under which the proletariat are organised and drilled into vast
industrial armies. But as crisis succeeds crisis, until panic,
stagnation, and disorder are universal, it becomes clear that the
_bourgeoisie_ are no longer capable of controlling the industrial world.
In fact, the productive forces rise in chronic rebellion against the
forms imposed on them by capitalism.
The incompatibility between social production and anarchic distribution
decidedly declares itself. A long course of hard experience has trained
the modern democracy in the insight necessary for the appreciation of
the conditions of its own existence. The social character of production
is explicitly recognised. The proletariat seizes the political power,
and through it at last takes complete control over the economic
functions of society. It expropriates the private capitalist, and,
appropriating the means of production, manages them in its own interest,
which is the interest of society as a whole; society passes into the
socialistic stage through a revolution determined by the natural laws of
social evolution, and not by a merely arbitrary exercise of power. It is
a result determined by the inherent laws of social evolution,
independent of the will and purpose of individual men. All that the most
powerful and clear-sighted intellect can do is to learn to divine the
laws of the great movement of society, and to shorten and alleviate the
birth-pangs of the new era. The efforts of reactionaries of every class
to turn the wheel of history backwards are in vain. But an intelligent
appreciation of its tendencies, and a willing co-operation with them,
will make progress easier, smoother, and more rapid.