Socialism and the Social Movement in the 19th Century Part 1

Socialism and the Social Movement in the 19th Century.

by Werner Sombart.

INTRODUCTORY NOTE

The reader of this work will miss something which he has been accustomed to find in books on Socialism. Professor Sombart has not given us synopses of the theories of St. Simon, Proudhon, Marx, Owen, and others. His work marks the coming of a period in which socialism is to be studied, rather than the speculations of socialists. Theories and plans no longer const.i.tute the movement. There are still schools of socialistic thought; but there is something actually taking place in the industrial world that is the important part of the socialistic movement. Reality is the essence of it.

The structure of the world of industry is changing. Great establishments are exterminating small ones, and are forming federations with each other. Machinery is producing nearly every kind of goods, and there is no longer a place in the world for such a middle cla.s.s as was represented by the master workman, with his slowly learned handicraft and his modest shop. These facts construed in a certain way are the material of socialism. If we see in them the dawn of an era of state industry that shall sweep compet.i.tion and compet.i.tors out of the field, we are evolutionary socialists.

We may need a doctrinal basis for our view of the evolution that is going on; and we may find it in the works of Marx and others; but already we have ceased to have an absorbing interest in the contrasts and the resemblances that their several theories present. We have something to study that is more directly important than doctrinal history.

In Professor Sombart's study, Owenism, indeed, has an important place, since the striking element in it is something that the present movement has completely put away, namely, utopianism. No one now thinks, as did Owen, that merely perceiving the beauty of the socialistic ideal is enough to make men fas.h.i.+on society after that pattern. No one thinks that society can be arbitrarily shaped after any pattern. Marxism, in practice, means realism and a reliance on evolution, however little the wilder utterances of Marx himself may suggest that fact. Internationalism is also a trait of this modern movement; but it is not of the kind that is represented by the International Working-Men's a.s.sociation. It is a natural affiliation of men of all nations having common ends to gain.

The relation of a thinker to a practical movement cannot lose its importance. It is this connection that Professor Sombart gives us, and his work is an early representative of the coming type of books on Socialism. It treats of realities, and of thought that connects itself with realities. It treats, indeed, of a purposeful movement to a.s.sist evolution, and to help to put the world into the shape that socialistic theorists have defined. Here lies the importance of the study of theory.

Professor Sombart's work contains little that is directly controversial; but it gives the impression that the purpose of the socialists is based on a fallacy, that it is not, in reality, in harmony with evolution, and that it will not prevail. It may be added that the style of the work is worthy of the thought that it expresses, and that the English translation is worthy of the original. The book will take its place among the more valuable of the works on Socialism that have thus far appeared.

JOHN B. CLARK, Columbia University, New York.

PREFACE

What is here published was originally delivered in the form of lectures, in the Fall of 1896, in Zurich, before miscellaneous but in general appreciative and inspiring audiences. The approval which they received, and the earnestly expressed wish of many hearers that the addresses might appear in print, have finally overcome a not inconsiderable reluctance on my part, felt by all in like position.

The lectures are in many places enlarged; indeed, largely put into new form--changed from extemporaneous utterance into the more formal style proper for the written word. But their character remains, especially the restricted setting into which a great ma.s.s of material had to be compressed. This is done intentionally, since what I would offer to a larger public through this book is a brief, pointed, well-defined view of "Socialism and the Social Movement in the Nineteenth Century."

W.S.

SOCIALISM AND THE SOCIAL MOVEMENT IN THE XIXTH CENTURY

CHAPTER I

WHENCE AND WHITHER

"Da ist's denn wieder, wie die Sterne wollten: Bedingung und Gesetz; und aller Wille Ist nur ein Wollen, weil wir eben sollten, Und vor dem Willen schweigt die Willkur stille."

GOETHE, _Urworte_.

When Karl Marx began a communistic manifesto with the well-known words, "The history of all society thus far is the history of cla.s.s strife," he uttered, in my opinion, one of the greatest truths that fill our century. But he did not speak the whole truth. For it is not fully true that all history of society consists exclusively in struggle between cla.s.ses. If we would put "world history" into a single phrase we shall be obliged, I think, to say that there is an ant.i.thesis around which the whole history of society turns, as around two poles: social and national--using the word national in the widest meaning. Humanity develops itself into communities, and then these communities fight and compete with each other; but always within the community the individual begins to strive for elevation over others, in order, as Kant once expressed it, to make distinction of rank among his fellows, whom he does not like, from whom, however, he cannot escape. So we see on the one side the exertion of the community for wealth, power, recognition; and on the other side the same exertion, by the individual, after power, wealth, honour. These, as it seems to me, are the two matters which in fact fill all history. For history begins as this ant.i.thesis unfolds itself. It is merely a figure of speech, and you must not be shocked by the harsh expression, as I say that human history is a fight either for food division, or for feeding-place, upon our earth. These are both great contradictions which constantly emerge, which invariably control mankind. We stand to-day at the conclusion of an historic period of great national pride, and in the midst of a period of great social contrasts; and the varying views, world-wide in their differences, which obtain day by day in different groups of men, all lead back, as it seems to me, to the alternative, "national or social."

Before I now proceed with my theme, "Socialism and the Social Movement in the Nineteenth Century,"--that is, to one member of this ant.i.thesis, the social,--I would first suggest the question: "What is a _social movement_?" I answer: _By a social movement we understand the aggregate of all those endeavours of a social cla.s.s which are directed to a rational overturning of an existing social order to suit the interests of this cla.s.s._ The essential elements in every social movement are these: First, an existing order in which a certain society lives, and particularly a social order which rests chiefly upon the manner of production and distribution of material goods as the necessary basis of human existence. This specific system of production and distribution is the point of issue for every social movement. Secondly, a social cla.s.s which is discontented with the existing conditions. By a "social cla.s.s" I understand a number of similarly interested persons, especially persons who are similarly interested in economic matters--the distinctive point; that is, of men who are interested in a specific system of production and distribution. We must, in understanding any social cla.s.s, go back to this economic system; and we should not allow ourselves to be blinded or confused by the inbred notions of certain cla.s.ses. These prepossessions, which frequently control, are only bulwarks of cla.s.ses differing economically. And, thirdly, an aim which this cla.s.s, discontented with the existing order of things, holds up to reach; an ideal, which presents compactly all that for which the society will agitate, and which finds its expression in the postulates, demands, programmes of this cla.s.s. In general, where you can speak of a social movement you find a point of issue, the existing social order; a supporter of the movement, the social cla.s.s; an aim, the ideal of the new society.

In what follows I shall attempt to give some points of view for an understanding of a specific--the modern--social movement. But what do we mean by the phrase "to _understand_ a social movement"? This: to comprehend the social movement in its essential historic limitations, in its causal connection with historic facts out of which, of necessity, that is produced which we describe as a social movement.

That is, to comprehend why specific social cla.s.ses are formed, why they present these particular points of opposition, why especially a pus.h.i.+ng, aggressive social cla.s.s has, and must have, that particular ideal for which it reaches. We mean, above all, to see that the movement springs not out of the whim, the choice, the malevolence of individuals; that it is not made, but becomes.

And now to the modern social movement. How is it to be characterised?

If we would hold fast to those elements which const.i.tute every social movement, we must describe the modern social movement on two sides: according to its aim, and according to the cla.s.s that supports the movement. The modern social movement is, from the standpoint of its aim, a socialistic agitation, because, as will be shown, it is uniformly directed to the establishment of communal owners.h.i.+p, at least of the means of production; that is, to a socialistic, communal order of society in place of the existing method of private owners.h.i.+p.

It is characterised, on the other side, in accordance with the adherents of the movement, by the fact that it is a proletarian agitation, or, as we customarily say, it is a working-men's movement.

The cla.s.s which supports it, upon which it rests, which gives to it the initiative, is the proletariat, a cla.s.s of free wage-workers.

And now we ask the question: Is it possible to distinguish those circ.u.mstances which would make such a movement evidently a necessary historic development? I said that the social movement has, as its supporters, the modern proletariat, a cla.s.s of free, lifelong wage-workers. The first condition of its existence is the rise of this cla.s.s itself. Every social cla.s.s is the result, the expression, of some specific form of production; the proletariat, of that form of production which we are accustomed to call capitalistic. The history of the rise of the proletariat is also the history of capitalism. This latter cannot exist, it cannot develop, without producing the proletariat. It is not now my purpose to give to you a history of capitalism. Only this much may be presented for the understanding of its nature: the capitalistic system of production involves the co-operation of two socially separated cla.s.ses in the manufacture of material goods. One cla.s.s is that which is in possession of the matter and means of production, as machines, tools, establishments, raw material, etc.--the capitalistic cla.s.s; the other cla.s.s is that of the personal factors of production, the possessors only of workman's craft--the free wage-workers. If we realise that all production rests upon the union of the material and the personal factors of production, then the capitalistic system of production distinguishes itself from others in that both the factors of production are represented through two socially separated cla.s.ses which must necessarily come together by free consent, the "free wage compact," so that the processes of production may take place. The method of production thus formed has entered into history as a necessity. It arose in that moment when demand had become so strong that the earlier methods of production could not longer satisfy the enlarging conditions, in the time when new and large markets were opened. It appeared originally solely with the historic task of implanting the mercantile spirit of manufacture for the maintaining of these new markets. The mercantile talent forces itself on as leader of production and draws great ma.s.ses of mere hand-workers into its service. It then becomes yet more of a necessity as the development of the technique of production complicates the whole operation so greatly that the combination of many kinds of work in one product is unavoidable; especially since the introduction of steam for the production and transportation of goods.

The supporters of the capitalistic method of production are, as a cla.s.s, the _bourgeoisie_, the middle cla.s.s. How gladly would I speak of the great historic mission which this cla.s.s has fulfilled! But again I must content myself with this mere reference, that we see this historic mission in the wonderful development which this cla.s.s has given to the material forces of production. Under the compulsion of compet.i.tion, lashed by the pa.s.sion of acc.u.mulation which enters with it into modern history, this cla.s.s has wrought into reality for us those fairy tales of the Thousand and One Nights, those wonders in which daily we rejoice, as through the streets or the industrial expositions of our great cities we stroll, as we talk with the antipodes, as we sail in floating palaces over the ocean, or bask in the glory of our luxurious parlours. But our point is this: the existence of this capitalistic system of production is the necessary condition for that cla.s.s which is the supporter of the modern socialistic movement--the proletariat. I have already said that the proletariat follows the capitalistic form of production as its shadow.

This scheme of production cannot exist otherwise, cannot develop itself otherwise, than under the condition that, subject to the command of individuals, troops of possessionless workers are herded in great undertakings. It has as a necessary presupposition the rending of all society into two cla.s.ses: the owners of the means of production, and the personal factors in production. Thus the existence of capitalism is the necessary preliminary condition of the proletariat, and so of the modern social movement.

But how stands it with the proletariat? What are the conditions under which the working-cla.s.s lives? And how has it come to pa.s.s that out of these conditions those particular tendencies and demands have arisen which, as we shall find, have come out of this proletariat? Usually, when one is asked concerning the characteristics of the modern proletariat, the first answer is--the great misery in which the ma.s.ses are sunk. That may pa.s.s with some qualification; only it must not be forgotten that misery is not specifically confined to the modern proletariat. Thus, how miserable is the condition of the peasants in Russia, of the Irish "rack-rent" tenants! There must be a specific kind of misery which characterises the proletariat. I refer, here, particularly to those unhealthy work-places, mines, manufactories with their noise and dust and heat, that have arisen with the modern method of production; I think of the conditions produced by these methods of production which tend to draw into the work certain categories of workers,--as women and children; I think further of how the concentration of population in industrial centres and in the great cities has increased the misery of external life for the individual.

At all events, we may consider the intensification of misery as a primary cause for the growth and insistence of new thoughts and new feelings. But that is not the most important point, when we ask after the essential conditions of existence of the proletariat. It is much more characteristic that in the moment when great ma.s.ses sink into misery, upon the other side, s.h.i.+ning like a fairy's creation, the millionaire arises. It is the contrast between the comfortable villa and elegant equipage of the rich, the magnificent stores, the luxurious restaurants which the workman pa.s.ses as he goes on his way to his manufactory or workshop in the dreary part of the city; it is the contrast in condition which develops hate in the ma.s.ses. And that, again, is a peculiarity of the modern system, that it develops this hate and permits hate to become envy. It seems to me that this happens princ.i.p.ally for the reason that those who display this grandeur are no longer the churches or the princes; but that they are those very persons on whom the ma.s.ses feel themselves dependent, in whose direct economic control they see themselves, in whom they recognise their so-called "exploiters." This definite modern contrast is that which princ.i.p.ally excites the intensity of this feeling of hate in the ma.s.ses. Yet one thing further. It is not merely the miserable condition, the contrast with the well-to-do; but another terrible whip is swung over the heads of the proletariat--I mean the uncertainty in their lives. Also in this we have to do with a peculiarity of modern social life, if we rightly understand it. Uncertainty of existence is indeed elsewhere: the j.a.panese trembles at the thought of the earthquake that may at any moment overwhelm him and his possessions; the Kurd is afraid of the sand-storm in summer, of the snow-storm in winter, which blight the feeding-place for his flocks; a flood or drought in Russia may rob the peasant of his harvest and expose him to starvation. But what const.i.tutes the specific uncertainty of the proletariat, which expresses itself in the loss of wage and work, is this, that this uncertainty is understood as a result not of the natural causes of which I have spoken, but of the specific form of organisation of economic life--that is the chief point. "Against nature no man can a.s.sert a right; but in the const.i.tution of society lack becomes immediately a form of injustice done to one or another cla.s.s"--(Hegel). Further, this uncertainty as to matters of nature leads to superst.i.tion or bigotry; but this social uncertainty, if I may so express it, develops a sharpening and refinement of judgment.

Man seeks after the causes which lead to this uncertainty. It works simply an increase of that feeling of resistance which grows up in the ma.s.ses; it permits hate and envy to rise threateningly. Here, then, is the ground on which the revolutionary pa.s.sions, hate, envy, insubordination, grow in the modern proletariat: peculiar forms of misery, the contrast of this wretchedness with the glitter of the bread-masters, the uncertainty of existence, supposed to arise out of the forms of organisation of economic life.

In order now to be able to understand how these growths have pressed forward into the peculiar manifestations which characterise the modern social movement, we must realise that the ma.s.ses which we have learned to know in the position thus described have been developed as if by magic, have not slowly grown into this condition. It is as if earlier history had been completely effaced for millions of men. For, as the presupposition of capitalism is combination in large operations, there is involved in this also the acc.u.mulation of ma.s.ses of men in cities and centres of industry. This ma.s.sing, however, means nothing other than this, that completely incoherent, amorphous crowds of men out of the most widely separated regions of the land are thrown together at one point, and that upon them the demand is made "Live!" This involves a complete break with the past, a tearing apart of all ties of home, village, family, custom. It means as well the overthrow of all the earlier ideals of these homeless, possessionless, and coherentless ma.s.ses. This is a matter which is often underestimated. We forget that it is an entirely new life which the hordes of the modern proletariat have to begin. But what kind of a life is it? In its characteristics I find as many points of explanation for the positive construction of the proletarian world of ideas as for the destruction of all that has heretofore been dear and precious to man. I mean, the socialistic ideals of communal life and work must of necessity spring out of the industrial centres and the resorts of the working-men in the great cities. In the tenement-houses, the huge manufactories, the public houses for meetings and for pleasures, the individual proletarian, as if forsaken by G.o.d and man, finds himself with his companions in misery again together, as members of a new and gigantic organism. Here are new societies forming, and these new communities bear the communistic stamp, because of modern methods of work. And they develop, grow, establish themselves in the ma.s.s of men, in proportion as the charm of separate existence fades from the individual; the more dreary the attic room in the suburb of the city, the more attractive is the new social centre in which the outcast finds himself again treated as a man. The individual disappears, the companion emerges. A uniform cla.s.s consciousness matures itself, also the habit of communal work and pleasure. So much for the psychology of the proletariat.

In order now to gain a full understanding of the modern social movement, let us look at its general time environment. Also here merely a remark or two must suffice. Perhaps this phrase will sufficiently describe the modern period: there is in it conspicuously an exuberance of life, as I think in no earlier period. A stream of vigorous life flows through modern society as at no earlier time; and for this reason a quickness of contact between all the individual members of a society is made possible now as never heretofore. This has been accomplished by the modern means of transportation which capitalism has created for us. The possibility in these days of informing oneself in a few hours concerning the occurrences throughout a great country by means of telegraph, telephone, newspaper, and the possibility of throwing great ma.s.ses of men from one place to another by modern means of transportation, have produced a condition of solidarity throughout great groups of men, a sense of omnipresence, which was unknown in all earlier times. Particularly is this true in the large cities of these days. The ease of movement of ma.s.ses has grown enormously. And in like manner has that grown which we are accustomed to call education--knowledge, and with knowledge demands.

With this vigour of life, however, is most closely united that which I would call the nervosity of modern times, an unsteadiness, haste, insecurity of existence. Because of the distinctive character of economic relations, this trace of unrest and haste has forced itself into all branches not only of economic but as well of social life. The age of free compet.i.tion has stamped itself upon all spheres of life.

Every man strives with others, no one feels himself sure, no one is contented with his condition. The beauty and calm of rest are gone.

One thing more. I will call it "revolutionism," and I mean by that term the fact that never has there been another time, like ours, of such entire change in all the conditions of life. All is in flux--economics, science, art, morals, religion. All ideas on these matters are in such a process of change that we are impelled to the delusion that there is nothing now certain. And this is perhaps one of the most important considerations for the explanation of the real meaning of modern social agitation. It explains in two ways. In it we see the reason for that destructive criticism of all that exists, which allows nothing as good, which throws away all earlier faith as old iron in order to enter with new material upon the market. Also, it explains the fanatical belief in the feasibility of the desired future state. Since so much has already changed, since such wonders, for which no one has dared to hope, have been realised before our very eyes, why not more? Why not all that man wishes? Thus the revolutionism of the present becomes fertile soil for the Utopia of the future. Edison and Siemens are the spiritual fathers of Bellamy and Bebel.

These seem to me the essential conditions under which a social movement has developed itself in this later time: the peculiar existence of the proletariat; the specific misery, contrast, uncertainty, springing from the modern economic system; a reorganisation of all forms of life, through the tearing apart of earlier relations and the upbuilding of entirely new social forms upon a communistic basis, and of new consolidations in the great cities and operations; finally, the peculiar spirit of the time in which the social movement exhibits itself, intensity of life, nervosity, revolutionism.

Now let us consider this social movement itself, in theory and practice.

CHAPTER II

CONCERNING UTOPIAN SOCIALISM

"Rarely do we reach truth except through extremes--we must have foolishness ... even to exhaustion, before we arrive at the beautiful goal of calm wisdom."

SCHILLER, _Philosophical Letters_, Preamble.

It would be strange if such a mighty revolution in economic and social matters as I have sketched for you should not have found its reflection in the minds of thinking men. It would be wonderful, I think, if with this overturning of social inst.i.tutions a revolution of social thought, science, and faith should not follow. We find in fact that parallel with this revolution in life fundamental changes have taken place in the sphere of social thought. By the side of the old social literature a new set of writings arises. The former belongs to the end of the previous and the beginning of the present century; it is that which we are accustomed to call the cla.s.sic political economy; it is that which, after a development of about one hundred and fifty to two hundred years, found the highest theoretical expression of the capitalistic economic system through the great political economists Adam Smith and David Ricardo. By the side of this literature, devoted to the capitalistic view of economics, now grows a new school of writings which has this general characteristic, that it is anti-capitalistic; that is, it places itself in conscious opposition to the capitalistic school of economics and considers the advocacy of this opposition as its peculiar task.

In accordance with the undeveloped condition of such economic thought it is, of course, a medley of explanations and claims as to what is and what should be, wherein the new literature expresses its opposition. All undeveloped literature begins in this tumultuous way, just as all unschooled minds at first slowly learn to distinguish between what is and what should be. And indeed in the immaturity of this new literature the practical element predominates greatly, as may readily be understood; there is a desire to justify theoretically the agitation, the new postulates, the new ideals.