{"collection":"philosophy-ethics","full_text_available":true,"graph_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/api/page/gutenberg_23574/graph","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/page/gutenberg_23574","id":"gutenberg_23574","license":"Public Domain (US)","rights_basis":"gutenberg_metadata_copyright_false","source":"gutenberg","source_url":"https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/23574","summary":null,"tags":["Category: History - Modern (1750+)","Category: Philosophy & Ethics","Category: Politics","Socialism"],"text":"E-text prepared by Fritz Ohrenschall, Martin Pettit, and the Project\nGutenberg Online Distributed Proofreading Team (https://www.pgdp.net)\n\n\n\nNote: Project Gutenberg also has an HTML version of this file\n      which includes images of the pages of the original book.\n      See 23574-h.htm or 23574-h.zip:\n      (https://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/2/3/5/7/23574/23574-h/23574-h.htm)\n      or\n      (https://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/2/3/5/7/23574/23574-h.zip)\n\n\n\n\n\nSOCIALISM: POSITIVE AND NEGATIVE\n\nby\n\nROBERT RIVES LA MONTE\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n     \"I will make a man more precious than fine gold;\n     even a man than the golden wedge of Ophir.\"\n                            --_Isaiah xiii, 12._\n\n\nChicago\nCharles H. Kerr & Company\n1907\n\nCopyright 1907\nby Charles H. Kerr & Company\n\n\n[Illustration: logo]\n\nPress of\nJohn F. Higgins\nChicago\n\n\n\n\nTO\n\nM. E. M. AND L. H. M.\n\n\n\n\nPREFACE\n\n\nOf the papers in this little volume two have appeared in print before:\n\"Science and Socialism\" in the International Socialist Review for\nSeptember, 1900, and \"Marxism and Ethics\" in Wilshire's Magazine for\nNovember, 1905. My thanks are due to the publishers of those periodicals\nfor their kind permission to re-print those articles here. The other\npapers appear here for the first time.\n\nThere is an obvious inconsistency between the treatment of Materialism\nin \"Science and Socialism\" and its treatment in \"The Nihilism of\nSocialism.\" I would point out that seven years elapsed between the\ncomposition of the former and that of the latter essay. Whether the\ninconsistency be a sign of mental growth or deterioration my readers\nmust judge for themselves. I will merely say here that the man or woman,\nwhose views remain absolutely fixed and stereotyped for seven years, is\ncheating the undertaker. What I conceive the true significance of this\nparticular change in opinions to be is set forth in the essay on \"The\nBiogenetic Law.\"\n\nSome Socialists will deprecate what may seem to them the unwise\nfrankness of the paper on \"The Nihilism of Socialism.\" To them I can\nonly say that to me Socialism has always been essentially a\nrevolutionary movement. Revolutionists, who attempt to maintain a\ndistinction between their exoteric and their esoteric teachings, only\nsucceed in making themselves ridiculous. But, even were the maintenance\nof such a distinction practicable, it would, in my judgment, be highly\ninexpedient. As a mere matter of policy, ever since I first entered the\nSocialist Movement, I have been a firm believer in the tactics admirably\nsummed up in Danton's \"_De l'audace! Puis de l'audace! Et toujours de\nl'audace!_\"\n\nShould any reader find himself repelled by \"The Nihilism of Socialism,\"\nlet me beg that he will not put the book aside until he has read the\nessay on \"The Biogenetic Law.\"\n\nI do not send forth this little book with any ambitious hope that it\nwill be widely read, or even that it will convert any one to Socialism.\nMy hope is far more modest. It is that this book may be of some real\nservice, as a labor-saving device, to the thinking men and women who\nhave felt the lure of Socialism, and are trying to discover just what is\nmeant by the oft-used words 'Marxian Socialism,' Should it prove of\nmaterial aid to even _one_ such man or woman, I would feel that I had\nbeen repaid a hundred-fold for my labor in writing it.\n\n                                               ROBERT RIVES LA MONTE.\nFeb. 7, 1907.\n\n\n\n\nTABLE OF CONTENTS\n\n\n                                                    PAGE\n\nSCIENCE AND SOCIALISM                                 15\n\n     I. THE MATERIALISTIC CONCEPTION OF HISTORY       25\n\n    II. THE LAW OF SURPLUS-VALUE                      34\n\n   III. THE CLASS STRUGGLE                            46\n\nMARXISM AND ETHICS                                    57\n\nINSTEAD OF A FOOTNOTE                                 75\n\nTHE NIHILISM OF SOCIALISM                             81\n\nTHE BIOGENETIC LAW                                   131\n\nKISMET                                               143\n\n\n\n\nSCIENCE AND SOCIALISM[1]\n\n(International Socialist Review, September, 1900.)\n\n\nUntil the middle of this (the nineteenth) century the favorite theory\nwith those who attempted to explain the phenomena of History was the\nGreat-Man-Theory. This theory was that once in a while through infinite\nmercy a great man was sent to the earth who yanked humanity up a notch\nor two higher, and then we went along in a humdrum way on that level, or\neven sank back till another great man was vouchsafed to us. Possibly the\nfinest flower of this school of thought is Carlyle's Heroes and Hero\nWorship. Unscientific as this theory was, it had its beneficent effects,\nfor those heroes or great men served as ideals, and the human mind\nrequires an unattainable ideal. No man can be or do the best he is\ncapable of unless he is ever reaching out toward an ideal that lies\nbeyond his grasp. Tennyson put this truth in the mouth of the ancient\nsage who tells the youthful and ambitious Gareth who is eager to enter\ninto the service of King Arthur of the Table Round:\n\n\n                   \"-----------the King\n     Will bind thee by such vows as is a shame\n     A man should not be bound by, yet the which\n     No man can keep.\"\n\n\nThis function of furnishing an ideal was performed in former times by\nthese great men and more especially by those great men whom legend, myth\nand superstition converted into gods. But with the decay of the old\nfaiths the only possible fruitful ideal left is the ideal upheld by\nSocialism, the ideal of the Co-operative Commonwealth in which the\neconomic conditions will give birth to the highest, purest, most\naltruistic ethics the world has yet seen. It is true the co-operative\ncommonwealth is far more than a Utopian ideal, it is a scientific\nprediction, but at this point I wish to emphasize its function as an\nideal.\n\nBut it is obvious that this Great Man theory gave no scientific clue to\nhistory. If the Great Man was a supernatural phenomenon, a gift from\nOlympus, then of course History had no scientific basis, but was\ndependent upon the arbitrary caprices of the Gods, and Homer's Iliad was\na specimen of accurate descriptive sociology. If on the other hand the\ngreat man was a natural phenomenon, the theory stopped short half way\ntoward its goal, for it gave us no explanation of the genesis of the\nGreat Man nor of the reasons for the superhuman influence that it\nattributed to him.\n\nMallock, one of the most servile literary apologists of capitalism, has\nrecently in a book called \"Aristocracy and Evolution\" attempted to\nrevive and revise this theory and give it a scientific form. He still\nattributes all progress to Great Men, but with the brutal frankness of\nmodern bourgeois Capitalism, gives us a new definition of Great Men.\nAccording to Mallock, the great man is the man who makes money. This has\nlong been the working theory of bourgeois society, but Mallock is the\nfirst of them who has had the cynicism or the stupidity to confess it.\nBut mark you, by this confession he admits the truth of the fundamental\npremise of modern scientific socialism, our Socialism, viz., that the\neconomic factor is the dominant or determining factor in the life of\nsociety. Thus you see the ablest champion of bourgeois capitalism,\nadmits, albeit unconsciously, the truth of the Marxian materialistic\nconception of history. This book, however, is chiefly remarkable for its\nimpudent and shameless misrepresentations of Marx and Marxism, but these\nvery lies show that intelligent apologists of capitalism know that their\nonly dangerous foe is Marxian socialism.\n\nBut just as according to the vulgar superstition the tail of a snake\nthat has been killed wiggles till sundown, so this book of Mallock's is\nmerely a false show of life made by a theory that received its deathblow\nlong since. It is the wiggling of the tail of the snake that Herbert\nSpencer killed thirty years ago with his little book \"The Study of\nSociology.\" The environment philosophy in one form or another has come\nto occupy the entire field of human thought. We now look for the\nexplanation of every phenomenon in the conditions that surrounded its\nbirth and development. The best application of this environment\nphilosophy to intellectual and literary phenomena that has ever been\nmade is Taine's History of English Literature.\n\nBut while Spencer's Study of Sociology is the most signal and brilliant\nrefutation of the Great Man theory, no one man really killed that\ntheory. The general spread and acceptance of Darwinism has produced an\nintellectual atmosphere in which such a theory can no more live than a\nfish can live out of water.\n\nBy Darwinism we mean, as you know, the transmutation of species by\nvariation and natural selection--selection accomplished mainly, if not\nsolely, by the struggle for existence. Now this doctrine of organic\ndevelopment and change or metamorphic evolution, which was, with its\noriginators, Wallace and Darwin, a purely biological doctrine, was\ntransported to the field of sociology by Spencer and applied with great\npower to all human institutions, legal, moral, economic, religious, etc.\nSpencer has taught the world that all social institutions are fluid and\nnot fixed. As Karl Marx said in the preface to the first edition of\nCapital: \"The present society is no solid crystal, but an organization\ncapable of change, and is constantly changing,\" and again in the preface\nto the second edition, \"Every historically developed social form is in\nfluid movement.\" This is the theory of Evolution in its broadest sense,\nand it has struck a death-blow to the conception of Permanence so dear\nto the hearts of the bourgeoisie who love to sing to their Great God,\nPrivate Property, \"As it was in the beginning, is now and ever shall be,\nworld without end. Amen.\" \"_Saecula saeculorum._\" \"For the Ages of\nAges.\"\n\nBefore natural science had thus revolutionized the intellectual\natmosphere, great men proclaiming the doctrines of modern socialism\nmight have been rained down from Heaven, but there would have been no\nsocialist movement. In fact many of its ideas had found utterance\ncenturies before, but the economic conditions, and consequently the\nintellectual conditions were not ripe, and these ideas were still-born,\nor died in infancy.\n\nThe general acceptance of the idea that all things change, that\nproperty, marriage, religion, etc., are in process of evolution and are\ndestined to take on new forms prepared the way for Socialism. A man who\nhas read Wallace and Darwin is ready to read Marx and Engels.\n\nNow the story of the birth of Darwinism is itself a proof of the fallacy\nof the Great Man theory, and a signal confirmation of the view that new\nideas, theories and discoveries emanate from the material conditions.\nThe role of the great man is still an important one. We need the men who\nare capable of abstract thought, capable of perceiving the essential\nrelations and significance of the facts, and of drawing correct\ninductions from them. Such men are rare, but there are always enough of\nthem to perform these functions. And the Great Man, born out of due\ntime, before the material and economic conditions are ripe for him, can\neffect nothing. When the conditions are ripe, the new idea always occurs\nto more than one man; that is, the same conditions and facts force the\nsame idea upon different minds. It is true there is always some one man\nwho gives this idea its best expression or best marshals the evidence of\nthe facts in its support, and the idea usually becomes inseparably\nlinked with his name. In this way does our race express its gratitude to\nits great men and perpetuate their memory.\n\nDarwinism or the theory of Natural Selection was in this way\nindependently discovered by Alfred Russell Wallace and Charles Darwin,\nand the popular judgment has not erred in giving the chief credit to\nCharles Darwin.\n\nWallace's paper \"On the Law which has Regulated the Introduction of New\nSpecies,\" written by Wallace on one of the far-away islands of the Malay\nArchipelago, where he was studying the Geographical Distribution of\nSpecies, appeared in the \"Annals of Natural History\" in 1855. Its\nresultant conclusion was \"that every species has come into existence\ncoincident both in space and time with a preexisting closely allied\nspecies.\" Mr. Darwin tells us that Mr. Wallace wrote him that the cause\nto which he attributed this coincidence was no other than \"generation\nwith modification,\" or in other words that the \"closely allied\nante-type\" was the parent stock from which the new form had been derived\nby variation.\n\nMr. Wallace's second paper, which in my judgment is the clearest and\nbest condensed statement of the Doctrine of the Struggle for Existence\nand the principle of Natural Selection ever written, was written by Mr.\nWallace at Ternate in the Malay Archipelago, in February, 1858, and sent\nto Mr. Darwin. It was called \"On the Tendency of Varieties to Depart\nIndefinitely from the Original Type.\" Mr. Wallace requested Mr. Darwin\nto show it to Sir Chas. Lyell, the father of Modern Geology, and\naccordingly Dr. Hooker, the great botanist, brought it to Sir Chas.\nLyell. They were both so struck with the complete agreement of the\nconclusions of Mr. Darwin and Mr. Wallace that they thought it would be\nunfair to publish one without the other, so this paper and a chapter\nfrom Darwin's unpublished manuscript of the \"Origin of Species\" were\nread before the Linnaean Society on the same evening and published in\ntheir Proceedings for 1858, and thus appeared in the same year, 1859, as\nMarx's Critique of Political Economy. This theory of Natural Selection\nis, you know, in brief, that more animals of every kind are born than\ncan possibly survive, than can possibly get a living. This gives rise to\na Battle for Life. In this battle those are the victors who are the best\nable to secure food for themselves and their offspring and are best able\nby fight or flight to protect themselves from their enemies. This is\ncalled the Law of the Survival of the Fittest, but remember, the Fittest\nare not always the best or most highly developed forms, but simply those\nforms best suited to the then existing environment. These two extremely\ninteresting papers of Wallace are printed as the two first chapters of\nhis book \"Natural Selection and Tropical Nature,\" published by\nMacMillan, a book so fascinating I would beg all my hearers and readers\nwho have not read it to do so.\n\nThis law of double or multiple discovery holds good of all great\ndiscoveries and inventions, and is notably true of the first of the\nthree great thoughts that we ordinarily associate with the name of Karl\nMarx. These three are:\n\n1. The Materialistic Conception of History.\n\n2. The Law of Surplus Value.\n\n3. The Class Struggle--the third being a necessary consequence of the\nfirst two.\n\nNow the Materialistic Conception of History was independently discovered\nby Engels just as Darwinism was by Wallace, as you will see by reading\nEngels' preface to the Communist Manifesto. But just as Wallace gave\nDarwin all the credit, so Engels did to Marx.\n\nFOOTNOTE:\n\n[1] This essay was originally prepared for and delivered as a Lecture\nbefore the Young Mens' Socialist Literary Society, an organization of\nJewish Socialists on the lower East Side of New York city, in the early\npart of the winter of 1899-1900.\n\n\n\n\nI\n\nTHE MATERIALISTIC CONCEPTION OF HISTORY\n\n\nWhat do we mean by the Doctrine of the Materialistic Conception of\nHistory, or of \"Economic Determinism,\" as Ferri calls it? We must make\nsure we understand, for there is cant in Socialism, just as there is in\nreligion, and there is good reason to fear many of us go on using these\ngood mouth-filling phrases, \"Materialistic Conception of History,\"\n\"Class-Conscious Proletariat,\" \"Class Struggle,\" and \"Revolutionary\nSocialism,\" with no more accurate idea of their meaning than our pious\nfriends have of the theological phrases they keep repeating like so many\npoll-parrots.\n\nAt bottom, when we talk intelligently of the Materialistic Conception of\nHistory, we simply mean, what every man by his daily conduct proves to\nbe true, that the bread and butter question is the most important\nquestion in life. All the rest of the life of the individual is\naffected, yes dominated the way he earns his bread and butter. As this\nis true of individuals, so also it is true of societies, and this gives\nus the only key by which we can understand the history of the past, and,\nwithin limits, predict the course of future development.\n\nThat is all there is of it. That is easy to understand, and every man of\ncommon sense is bound to admit that that much is true.\n\nThe word \"materialistic\" suggests philosophy and metaphysics and brings\nto our minds the old disputes about monism and dualism, and the dispute\nbetween religious people who believe in the existence of spirit and\nscientists who adopt modern materialistic monism. But no matter what\nposition a man may hold on these philosophical and theological questions\nhe can with perfect consistency recognize the fact that the economic\nfactor is the dominant, determining factor in every day human life, and\nthe man who admits this simple truth believes in the Marxian\nMaterialistic Conception of History. The political, legal, ethical and\nall human institutions have their roots in the economic soil, and any\nreform that does not go clear to the roots and affect the economic\nstructure of society must necessarily be abortive. Any thing that does\ngo to the roots and does modify the economic structure, the bread and\nbutter side of life, will inevitably modify every other branch and\ndepartment of human life, political, ethical, legal, religious, etc.\nThis makes the social question an economic question, and all our thought\nand effort should be concentrated on the economic question.[2]\n\nI am aware of the fact that in the Preface of his \"Socialism, Utopian\nand Scientific,\" Engels apparently identifies the Materialistic\nConception of History with Materialistic Monism in Philosophy, but this\nconnection or identification is not a necessary logical consequence of\nany statement of the Materialistic Conception of History I have been\nable to find by Engels, Marx, Deville, Ferri, Loria, or any Marxian of\nauthority and to thus identify it, is detrimental to the cause of\nSocialism, since many people who would not hesitate to admit the\npredominance of the economic factor, instantly revolt at the idea of\nMaterialism.\n\nLet us take Engels' statement of this doctrine in the preface to the\nManifesto. It is as follows:\n\n\"In every historical epoch, the prevailing mode of economic production\nand exchange, and the social organization necessarily following from it,\nform the basis upon which is built up, and from which alone can be\nexplained the political and intellectual history of that epoch.\"\n\nDoes not that agree exactly with the doctrine as I have stated it? Or,\ntake this statement of it by Comrade Vail, of Jersey City:\n\n\"The laws, customs, education, public opinion and morals are controlled\nand shaped by economic conditions, or, in other words, by the dominant\nruling class which the economic system of any given period forces to\nthe front. The ruling ideas of each age have been the ideas of its\nruling class, whether that class was the patricians of ancient Rome, the\nfeudal barons of the middle ages, or the capitalists of modern times.\nThe economic structure of society largely controls and shapes all social\ninstitutions, and also religious and philosophical ideas.\"\n\nOr, take this, by Marx himself: \"The mode of production obtaining in\nmaterial life determines, generally speaking, the social, political and\nintellectual processes of life.\"\n\nDoes not that again agree exactly with the doctrine as I have stated it?\n\nThe doctrine is stated in nearly the same language by Loria and Ferri,\nthough Ferri calls it Economic Determinism, which seems to me a much\nbetter and more exact name. Ferri points out that we must not forget the\nintellectual factor and the various other factors, which though they are\nthemselves determined by the economic factor, in their turn become\ncauses acting concurrently with the economic factor. Loria deals with\nthis whole subject most exhaustively and interestingly in his recently\ntranslated book \"The Economic Foundations of Society.\" Curiously enough\nin this long book he never once gives Marx the credit of having\ndiscovered this theory, but constantly talks as though he--Loria--had\nrevealed it to a waiting world. The method of his book is the reverse of\nscientific, as he first states his theory and conclusions and then\nstarts to scour the universe for facts to support them, instead of first\ncollecting the facts and letting them impose the theory upon his mind.\nAnd his book is by no means free from inconsistencies and\ncontradictions. But while you cannot place yourselves unreservedly and\nconfidingly in his hands as you can in those of Karl Marx, still his\nbook has much value. He shows most interestingly how all the connective\ninstitutions, as he calls religious and legal and political\ninstitutions, have been moulded in the interest of the economically\ndominant class, and how useful they have been in either persuading or\nforcing the so-called \"lower classes\" to submit to the economic\nconditions that were absolutely against their interests. But the system\nof Wage Slavery is such a beautifully automatic system, itself\nsubjugating the workers and leaving them no choice, that I cannot see\nthat the capitalists have any further need of any of these connective\ninstitutions save the State. At all events, these institutions are fast\nlosing their power over the minds of men. But the most valuable part of\nhis book is the immense mass of evidence he has collected showing how\npolitical sovereignty follows economic sovereignty or rather, revenue,\nand how all past history has been made up of a series of contests\nbetween various kinds of revenue, particularly between rent from landed\nproperty and profits from industrial or manufacturing capital, but as\nthis is nothing more than the Class Struggle between the landed\naristocracy and the bourgeoisie, a struggle sketched by master hands in\nthe Communist Manifesto of Marx and Engels, we can give Loria no credit\nfor originality, but merely praise his industry in collecting evidence.\n\nGabriel Deville, who has probably done more than any one else to\npopularize the ideas of Marx in France, has pointed out a very nice\ndistinction here. Man, like all living beings, is the product of his\nenvironment. But while animals are affected only by the natural\nenvironment, man's brain, itself a product of the natural environment,\nbecomes a cause, a creator, and makes for man an economic environment,\nso that man is acted on by two environments, the natural environment\nwhich has made man and the economic environment which man has made. Now\nin the early stages of human development, it is the natural environment,\nthe fertility of the soil, climatic conditions, abundance of game, fish,\netc., which is all-important, but with the progress of civilization, the\nnatural environment loses in relative importance, and the economic\nenvironment (machinery, factories, improved appliances, etc.) grows in\nimportance until in our day the economic environment has become well\nnigh all-important. Hence the inadequacy of the Henry George theory\nwhich places all its stress on one element of the natural environment,\nland, and wholly neglects the dominant economic environment.\n\nBut while this economic environment, the dominant factor in human life,\nis the child of the brain of man, man in its creation has been forced to\nwork within strict limitations. He had to make it out of the materials\nfurnished him in the first place by the natural environment and later by\nthe natural environment and the inherited economic environment, so that\nin the last analysis the material and economic factors are supreme.\n\nWe Marxians are often accused of neglecting the intellectual factor and,\nas Deville says, a whole syndicate of factors; but we do not neglect\nthem. We recognize their existence and their importance, but we do\nrefuse to waste our revolutionary energy on derivative phenomena when we\nare able to see and recognize the decisive, dominant factor, the\neconomic factor. As Deville says, we do not neglect the cart because we\ninsist upon putting it behind the horse instead of in front of or\nalongside of him, as our critics would have us do. Now, if the economic\nfactor is the basic factor, it behooves us to understand the present\neconomic system--Marx's Law of Surplus-Value is the key to this system.\n\nFOOTNOTE:\n\n[2] If this be true the question naturally arises: Why do the\nsocialists, instead of using economic methods to solve an economic\nquestion, organize themselves into a political party? To answer this\nquestion, we must first see what the State is and what relation it holds\nto the economic conditions. Gabriel Deville defines the State thus: \"The\nState is the public power of coercion created and maintained in human\nsocieties by their division into classes, a power which, being clothed\nwith force, makes laws and levies taxes.\" As long as the economically\ndominant class retain full possession of this public power of coercion\nthey are able to use it as a weapon to defeat every attempt to alter the\neconomic structure of society. Hence every attempt to destroy economic\nprivilege and establish Industrial Democracy inevitably takes the form\nof a political class struggle between the economically privileged class\nand the economically exploited class.\n\n\n\n\nII\n\nTHE LAW OF SURPLUS-VALUE\n\n\nThe second great idea that we associate with the name of Karl Marx is\nthe Law of Surplus-Value. Curiously enough this one technical theory is\nthe only discovery that bourgeois writers and economists give Marx\ncredit for. If you look up Marx in any ordinary encyclopedia or\nreference book you will find they make his fame depend on this theory\nalone, and to make matters worse they usually misstate and misrepresent\nthis theory, while they invariably fail to mention his two other equally\ngreat, if not greater discoveries, the Materialistic Conception of\nHistory and the Class Struggle. I think the reason they give special\nprominence to this law of Surplus-Value is that, as it is a purely\ntechnical theory in economics, it is easier to obscure it with a cloud\nof sophistry and persuade their willing dupes that they have refuted it.\nAnd then they raise the cry that the foundation of Marxian Socialism\nhas been destroyed and that the whole structure is about to tumble down\non the heads of its crazy defenders, the Socialists. It is much to be\nregretted that many so-called Socialists are found foolish enough to\nplay into the hands of the Capitalists by joining in the silly cry that\nsome pigmy in political economy has overthrown the Marxian theory of\nValue. I suppose these so-called Socialists are actuated by a mad desire\nto be up to date, to keep up with the intellectual band-wagon.\nRevolutions in the various sciences have been going on so rapidly, they\nfancy that a theory that was formulated forty years ago must be a\nback-number, and so they hasten to declare their allegiance to the last\nnew cloud of sophistry, purporting to be a theory of value, that has\nbeen evolved by the feeble minds of the anarchists of Italy or the\ncapitalist economists of Austria. The Fabians of London are the most\nstriking example of these socialists whose heads have been turned in\nthis way by the rapid progress of science. But the followers of\nBernstein in Europe and this country are running into the same danger\nand in their eagerness to grasp the very newest and latest doctrine will\nfall easy victims of the first windy and pretentious fakir who comes\nalong. Ask any one of these fellows who tells you that the Marxian\ntheory of Value has been exploded, to state the new and correct theory\nof Value that has taken its place and you will find that he cannot state\na theory that you or I or any other man can understand. He will either\nadmit he is floored, or else he will emit a dense fog of words. I\nchallenge any one of them to state a theory of value that he himself can\nunderstand, let alone make any one else understand.\n\nNow the Marxian theory of Value can be clearly stated so that you and I\ncan understand it. But let us begin with surplus-value. This theory of\nsurplus-value is simply the scientific formulation of the fact that\nworkingmen had been conscious of in a vague way long before Karl Marx's\nday, the fact that the workingman don't get a fair deal, that he don't\nget all he earns. This fact had been formulated as long ago as 1821 by\nthe unknown author of a letter to Lord John Russell on \"The Source and\nRemedy of the National Difficulties.\" In this letter the very phrases\n\"surplus produce\" and \"surplus labor\" are used. You will find that Marx\nrefers to this letter in a note on page 369 (Humboldt edition, 644 Kerr\nedition) of the American edition of Capital. The Russian writer,\nSlepzoff, quotes several passages from this letter in an article in the\nDecember, 1899, number of _La Revue Socialiste_, and it is amazing to\nsee how near to Marx's conclusions this unknown writer had come eighty\nyears ago, but the conditions were not ripe and his letter would to-day\nbe forgotten if Marx had not embalmed it in a footnote. I confess I was\nsurprised to learn that this was not a purely original discovery of\nMarx's, but the fact that it is not is one more signal confirmation of\nthe theory I have given in this lecture of the double or multiple\ndiscovery of great ideas.\n\nBut let us resume the discussion of Surplus Value and see just what it\nreally is.\n\nNo matter where you, my workingman hearer or reader may work, the person\nor corporation or trust for whom or which you work gets back more out of\nyour labor, than he or it pays you in wages. If this is not so, your\nemployer is either running a charitable institution or he is in business\nfor his health. You may have employers of that kind here on the East\nSide of New York, but I have never met any of them elsewhere. It is\nimpossible to conceive of a man going on day after day, week after week,\nyear after year, paying you wages, unless he receives more for the\nproduct of your labor than he pays you in wages. Now, this difference\nbetween what you get and what he gets is what we call surplus-value.\n\nThis surplus-value is the key to the whole present economic organization\nof society. The end and object of bourgeois society is the formation and\naccumulation of surplus-value, or in other words, the systematic robbery\nof the producing class. Now when we say robbery, we do not mean to\naccuse employers of conscious dishonesty. They are the creatures of a\nsystem just as the workers are, but it is a system which makes their\ninterests diametrically opposed to the interests of their employees. The\nonly way the capitalists can increase their relative share of the\nproduct of their employees' labor is by decreasing the relative share of\nthe latter.\n\nNow, if out of the total product of his labor the workingman only\nreceives a part, then it is true to say that he works part of the day\nfor himself and part of the day gratuitously for the capitalist. Let us\nsay, for purposes of illustration, that he works three hours for himself\nand seven hours for his employer for nothing. This three hours we call\nhis necessary labor time, or his paid labor; and the seven hours we\ncall his surplus labor time or his unpaid labor. The product of his\nthree hours' labor is the equivalent of his wages or as we call it, the\nvalue of his Labor-Power. The product of the other seven hours of his\nlabor, his surplus or unpaid labor, is surplus product or surplus-value.\nStarting from the fact that every workingman knows to be true, that he\ndon't get all he feels he ought to get, we have thus, I think, made the\ndefinition of surplus-value clear to every one of you, but we have been\ntalking of surplus-value and value of labor power and we have not yet\ndefined Value.\n\nWhen we speak of the value of an object we mean the amount of human\nlabor that is embodied or accumulated in it, that has been spent in\nfitting it to satisfy human needs. And we measure the amount of this\nhuman labor by its duration, by labor-time. You, if you are a skilled,\nhighly-paid worker, receiving say four dollars a day, may say that it is\nabsurd to say that an hour of your labor produces no more value than an\nhour of Tom's or Dick's or Pete's, who get only eighty cents a day\napiece. You are quite right. Your hour does produce more value. The\nlabor-time that determines value is the labor-time of the average,\nuntrained worker. Again, you may waste your time, spending half of it\nlooking out of the window or carrying on a flirtation. This wasted labor\ndoes not count in measuring value. The only labor that counts is the\nlabor that is socially necessary under normal conditions for the\nproduction of the given commodity. Again, labor spent to produce a\nuseless article does not produce value. To produce value the labor must\nserve to satisfy human wants. Now, I think this is quite clear so far.\nWe know what surplus-value is. We know what value is and how it is\nmeasured. Let us now see what is meant by the Value of Labor-Power.\n\nTo begin with, what is Labor-Power? When a workingman goes upon the\nmarket to sell something for money with which to buy bread and butter\nand other necessaries of life, what has he to offer for sale? He cannot\noffer a finished commodity, such as a watch, a shoe, or a book, because\nhe owns nothing. He has neither the necessary machinery, the necessary\nraw material, nor even the necessary place in which to work to make\nthese things. These all belong to another class who by owning them, in\nfact, own him. He cannot offer labor for sale, because his labor does\nnot yet exist. He cannot sell a thing that has no existence. When his\nlabor comes into real objective existence, it is incorporated with\nmaterials that are the property of the class that rules him, and no\nlonger belongs to him. He cannot sell what he don't possess. There is\nonly one thing he can sell, namely, his mental and physical or muscular\npower to do things, to make things. He can sell this for a definite time\nto an employer, just exactly as a livery stable keeper sells a horse's\npower to trot to his customers for so much per hour. Now this power of\nhis to do things is what we call his labor-power; that is, his capacity\nto perform work. Now, its value is determined precisely like the value\nof every other commodity, _i. e._, by the labor-time socially necessary\nfor its production. Now the labor-time socially necessary for the\nproduction of labor-power is the labor-time socially necessary to\nproduce the food, clothing and shelter or lodging that are necessary to\nenable the laborer to come on the labor market day after day able\nphysically to work, and also to enable him to beget and raise children\nwho will take his place as wage-slaves when he shall have been buried\nby the County or some Sick and Death Benefit Fund.\n\nIn the example we used above we assumed that the laborer worked three\nhours a day to produce a value equal to the value of his labor-power.\nThe price of this value, the value produced by his paid labor, we call\n\"Wages.\" This price is often reduced by the competition of \"scabs\" and\nother victims of capitalist exploitation, below the real value of\nlabor-power, but we have not time to go into that here, so we will\nassume that the laborer gets in wages the full value of his labor-power.\n\nWell, then, if he produces in three or four hours a value equal to the\nvalue of his labor-power or wages, why doesn't he stop work then, and\ntake his coat and hat and go home and devote the rest of the day to\nstudy, reading, games, recreation and amusement? He don't because he\ncan't. He has to agree (voluntarily, of course) to any conditions that\nthe class who by owning his tools own him choose to impose upon him, and\nthe lash of the competition of the unemployed, Capital's Reserve Army,\nas Marx called it, is ever ready to fall upon his naked back.\n\nWhy is he so helpless? Because he and his class have been robbed of the\nland and the tools and all the means of sustenance and production, and\nhave nothing left them but that empty bauble, legal liberty, liberty to\naccept wages so small that they barely enable them to live like beasts,\nor liberty to starve to death and be buried in unmarked graves by the\npublic authorities.\n\nThe wage system necessarily implies this surplus labor or unpaid labor.\nSo long as there are wages, workingmen, you will never get the full\nproduct of your labor. Let no reformer beguile you into a struggle which\nsimply aims to secure a modification of the wage system! Nothing short\nof the annihilation of the wage system will give you justice and give\nyou the full product of your labor.\n\nBut while wages necessarily imply surplus-labor, the reverse is not\ntrue. You can have surplus-labor without wages. Surplus-labor is not an\ninvention of modern capitalists. Since Mankind emerged from the state of\nPrimitive Communism typified by the Garden of Eden in the Hebraic myth,\nthere have been three great systems of economic organization: 1.\nSlavery; 2. Serfdom; 3. The Wage System. It is interesting to note the\nvarying appearances of surplus or unpaid labor under these three\nsystems.\n\nUnder the first, Slavery, all labor appears as unpaid labor. This is\nonly a false appearance, however. During a part of the day the slave\nonly reproduces the value of his maintenance or \"keep.\" During that part\nof the day he works for himself just as truly as the modern wage slave\nworks for himself during a part of his day. But the property relation\nconceals the paid labor.\n\nUnder the second system, Serfdom, or the Feudal System,--the paid labor\nand the unpaid labor are absolutely separate and distinct, so that not\neven the most gifted orthodox political economist can confuse them.\n\nUnder the third system, Wage Slavery, the unpaid labor apparently falls\nto Zero. There is none. You voluntarily enter into a bargain, agreeing\nthat your day's work is worth so much, and you receive the full price\nagreed upon. But again this is only a false appearance. As we saw by our\nanalysis, a part of the wage-slave's day is devoted to paid labor and a\npart to unpaid. Here wages or the money relation conceals the unpaid\nlabor and disguises under the mask of a voluntary bargain the struggle\nof the working class to diminish or abolish unpaid labor, and the\nclass-conscious, pitiless struggle of the capitalist class to increase\nthe unpaid labor and reduce the paid labor to the minimum, _i. e._, to\nor below the level of bare subsistence. In other words the Wage System\nconceals the Class Struggle.\n\n\n\n\nIII\n\nTHE CLASS STRUGGLE\n\n\nThe third of the great ideas that will always be associated with the\nname of Karl Marx is that of the Class Struggle. The Class Struggle is\nlogically such a necessary consequence of both the Materialistic\nConception of History and the Law of Surplus-Value, that as we have\ndiscussed them at some length, but little need be said of the Class\nStruggle itself. In discussing the Materialistic Conception of History\nwe showed with sufficient fullness and clearness that, in the language\nof the Communist Manifesto, \"The history of all hitherto existing\nsociety is the history of Class Struggles.\" Hence it is clear the\ndoctrine of class struggles is a key to past history. But it is more\nthan this. It is a compass by which to steer in the present struggle for\nthe emancipation of the proletariat, who cannot, fortunately, emancipate\nthemselves without emancipating and ennobling all mankind.\n\nThe Law of Surplus-Value has shown us that there is a deep-seated,\nineradicable conflict between the direct class interest of the\nproletariat which coincides with the true interests of the human race,\nand the direct, conscious guiding interest of the class who own the\nmeans of production and distribution. There is here a direct clash\nbetween two hostile interests. This fact has been skilfully hidden from\nthe eyes of the workers in the past, but the modern socialist movement,\naided by the growing brutality of the capitalist class, is making it\nimpossible to fool them in this way much longer. In other words, the\nworkingmen are becoming Class-Conscious, _i. e._, conscious of the fact\nthat they, as a class, have interests which are in direct conflict with\nthe selfish interests of the capitalist class. With the growth of this\nclass-consciousness this conflict of interests must inevitably become a\npolitical class struggle. The capitalists, the economically privileged\nclass, struggle to retain possession of the State that they may continue\nto use it as a weapon to keep the working class subjugated, servile and\ndependent. The proletariat, the working-class, struggle to obtain\npossession of the State, that they may use it to destroy every vestige\nof economic privilege, to abolish private property in the means of\nproduction and distribution, and thus put an end to the division of\nsociety into classes, and usher in the society of the future, the\nCo-operative Commonwealth. As the State is in its very nature a class\ninstrument, as its existence is dependent upon the existence of distinct\nclasses, the State in the hands of the victorious proletariat will\ncommit suicide, by tearing down its own foundation.\n\nUntil a man perceives and is keenly conscious of this class conflict, a\nconflict which admits of no truce or compromise, and ranges himself on\nthe side of the workers to remain there until the battle is fought and\nthe victory won, until the proletariat shall have conquered the public\npowers, taken possession of that class instrument, the State (for so\nlong as the State exists it will be a class instrument) and made it in\nthe hands of the working class a tool to abolish private ownership in\nthe tools and the land, in the means of production and distribution, and\nto abolish all classes by absorbing them all in the Brotherhood of Man;\nuntil a man has thus shown himself clearly conscious of the Class\nStruggle, with its necessary implications, his heart may be in the right\nplace, but laboring men can not trust him as a leader. The fact that\nthe hearts of many popular reformers, political candidates and so-called\n\"friends of labor,\" who ignore the class struggle, are on the right\nside, but gives them added power to mislead and betray workingmen.\nWorkingmen, I beg you to follow no leader who has not a clear enough\nhead to see that there is a class struggle, and a large enough heart to\nplace himself on your side of that struggle. But remember that you are\nnot fighting the battle of a class alone. You are fighting for the\nfuture welfare of the whole human race. But while this is true, it is\nalso true that your class must bear the brunt of this battle, for yours\nis the only class that, in the language of the Manifesto, \"has nothing\nbut its chains to lose, and a World to gain!\" The rich have much to\nlose, and this very real and tangible risk of loss not unnaturally\nblinds the eyes of most of them to the more remote, though infinitely\ngreater compensations that Socialism has to offer them. The Middle\nClass, even down to those who are just a round above the proletarians on\nthe social ladder, love to ape the very rich and the capitalist\nmagnates. It tickles their silly vanity to fancy that their interests\nare capitalistic interests, and their mental horizon is too hopelessly\nlimited for them to perceive that the proletariat whom it pleases them\nto despise as the great army of the \"unwashed\" are in truth fighting\ntheir battles for them, and receiving instead of gratitude, contempt,\ngibes and sneers. Socialism does occasionally receive a recruit from the\nvery highest stratum of society, but I tell you it is easier for a camel\nto pass through the eye of a needle than it is for a member of the\nMiddle Class to become a scientific socialist.\n\nI have said the Class Struggle is a compass to steer by in the present\nstruggle for the emancipation of the working class. If we steer by this\ncompass, we will resolutely reject all overtures from political parties\nrepresenting the interests of other classes, even when such parties in\ntheir platform endorse some of the immediate demands of the socialists;\nwe will \"fear the Greeks bringing gifts;\" we will not be seduced for a\nmoment by the idea of fusion with any so-called Socialist party which is\nnot avowedly based on the Class Struggle; especially as individuals will\nwe avoid giving our votes or our support to any Middle Class party which\nwe may at times fancy to be \"moving in the right direction.\" The history\nof the class conflicts of the past shows that whenever the proletarians\nhave joined forces with the Middle Class or any section of it, the\nproletarians have had to bear the heat and burden of the day and when\nthe victory has been won their allies have robbed them of its fruits.\n\nYou, yourselves, then, Workingmen, must fight this battle! To win, it is\ntrue, you will need the help of members of the other classes. But this\nhelp the economic evolution is constantly bringing you. It is a law of\nthe economic evolution that with the progress of industrialism the ratio\nof the returns of capital to the capital invested constantly diminishes,\n(though the aggregate volume of those returns increases). You see this\nin the constant lowering of the rate of interest. Now, as their incomes\ndecrease, the small capitalists and the middle class, who form the vast\nmajority of the possessing class, become unable to continue to support\nthe members of the liberal professions, the priests, preachers, lawyers,\neditors, lecturers, etc., whose chief function heretofore has been to\nfool the working class into supporting or at least submitting to the\npresent system. Now, when the income of these unproductive laborers, an\nincome drawn from the class hostile to the proletariat, shall sensibly\ndecrease or, worse still, cease, these educated members of the liberal\nprofessions will desert the army of Capital and bring a much-needed\nreinforcement to the Army of Labor.\n\nSome of the more far-seeing upholders of the present system are keenly\nconscious of this danger. And this danger (even though most of the\nexpansionists may not realize it), is one of the most potent causes of\nthe Imperialism, Militarism, and Jingoism which are at present\ndisgracing the civilized world. England in Africa, and America in the\nPhilippines are pursuing their present criminal policies, not solely to\nopen new markets for English and American goods, but also to secure new\nfields for the investment of English and American capital, and thus to\nstop the continuous dropping of the rate of interest and profits, for if\nthis cannot be stopped, the intellectual proletariat will join the\nsweating proletariat, and the Co-operative Commonwealth will be\nestablished and then the poor capitalists will have to work for their\nlivings like other people.\n\nThis was clearly pointed out by a capitalist writer in an essay in a\nrecent number of the Atlantic Monthly, who warned the capitalist\nopponents of McKinley, Destiny & Co.'s policy of expansion that they\nwere attempting to close the only safety-valve which under present\nconditions could, not avert, but postpone the Social Revolution.[3]\n\nBut, friends, nothing can postpone it long, for the industrial crises\nand financial panics are recurring at shorter and shorter intervals, and\nthe process of recovery from them is slower and slower, and every panic\nand crisis forces thousands of educated, intelligent members of the\nmiddle class off their narrow and precarious foothold down into the\nranks of the proletariat, where the hard logic of the facts will convert\nthem to class-conscious Socialism.\n\nWorkingmen, I congratulate you upon the approaching victory of the\nworkers and the advent of the Co-operative Commonwealth, for I tell you,\nin the language of an English comrade:\n\n\n     \"Failure on failure may seem to defeat us; ultimate failure is\n     impossible.\n\n     Seeing what is to be done then, seeing what the reward is,\n\n     Seeing what the terms are,--are you willing to join us? Will you\n     lend us the aid of your voice, your money, your sympathy?\n\n     May we take you by the hand and call you 'Comrade'?\"\n\n\nFOOTNOTE:\n\n[3] The expansion policy also acts as a safety-valve by promoting the\nemigration of the discontented and by providing employment abroad for\nthe educated proletarians who would, no doubt, become \"dangerous and\nincendiary Socialist agitators\" in their native lands.\n\n\n\n\nMARXISM AND ETHICS\n\n(Wilshire's Magazine, November, 1905).\n\n\n     What are \"wrong,\" \"right,\" \"vice,\" \"virtue,\" \"bad\" and \"good\"?\n     Mere whips to scourge the backs that naked bear\n     The burden of the world--bent backs that dare\n     Not rise erect, defy the tyrant, \"Should,\"\n     And freely, boldly do the things they would.\n     In living's joy they rarely have a share;\n     They look beyond the grave, and hope that there\n     They'll be repaid, poor fools, for being good.\n\n     To serve thy master, that is virtue, Slave;\n     To do thy will, enjoy sweet life, is vice.\n     Poor duty-ridden serf, rebel, forget\n     Thy master-taught morality; be brave\n     Enough to make this earth a Paradise\n     Whereon the Sun of Joy shall never set!\n\n\nThanks to modern science--the child of the machine process--the\nuniversality of the law of cause and effect is now assumed on all hands.\nIn Labriola's strong words, \"Nothing happens by chance.\" The Marxist\nbelieves this in all its fulness. To him systems of religion, codes of\nethics and schools of art are, in the last analysis, just as much\nproducts of material causes as are boots or sausages. There are some\nintellectual Socialists whose mode of life has shielded them from the\ndiscipline of the Machine Process--the inexorable inculcator of\ncausation--who attempt to place religion and ethics and other\nideological phenomena in a separate category not to be accounted for by\nthe materialistic conception of history. These may turn to Marx and\nweary their auditors by their iteration of \"Lord! Lord!\" but verily they\nknow not the mind of the Master.\n\nWith Marx matter always comes first, thought second. The dialectic\nmaterialism of the Socialist is an all-inclusive philosophy, accounting\nfor _all_ phenomena--as fully for those called spiritual as for the most\ngrossly material.\n\nThe man who narrows this dialectic materialism down to economic\ndeterminism and then defines the latter as meaning that the economic\nfactor has been the \"dominant\" factor--among many independent\nfactors--in producing the civilization of to-day, may be a sincere\nSocialist, but he is no Marxist.\n\nThe work of the theoretical Marxist will not be done till the origin and\ndevelopment of all religions, philosophies, and systems of ethics have\nbeen explained and accounted for by reference to material and economic\ncauses. To understand history the primary requisite is to understand the\nprocesses by which the material means of life have been produced and\ndistributed.\n\n\"The ruling ideas of every age have ever been the ideas of its ruling\nclass.\" This applies of ideas of right and wrong--of what is commonly\nknown as morality--as fully as to ideas of any other kind.\n\nConduct that has tended to perpetuate the power of the economically\ndominant class--since the increase of wealth has divided society into\nclasses--has ever been accounted moral conduct; conduct that has tended\nto weaken or subvert the power of the ruling class has always been\nbranded as immoral. There you have the key to all the varying codes of\nethics the world has seen. For it must never be forgotten that ideas of\nright and wrong are not absolute, but relative; not fixed, but fluid,\nchanging with the changes in our modes of producing food, clothes and\nshelter. Morality varies not only with time, but with social altitude.\nWhat was accounted a virtue in a bold baron of the feudal days was a\ncrime in that same baron's serf. The pipe-line hand who regulates his\ndaily life by the same moral ideas which have made John D. Rockefeller a\nshining example of piety will find himself behind prison bars.\n\nEthics simply register the decrees by which the ruling class stamps with\napproval or brands with censure human conduct solely with reference to\nthe effect of that conduct upon the welfare of their class. This does\nnot mean that any ruling class has ever had the wit to devise _ab\ninitio_ a code of ethics perfectly adapted to further their interests.\nFar from it. The process has seldom, if ever, been a conscious one. By a\nprocess akin to natural selection in the organic world, the ruling class\nlearns by experience what conduct is helpful and what hurtful to it, and\nblesses in the one case and damns in the other. And as the ruling class\nhas always controlled all the avenues by which ideas reach the so-called\nlower classes, they have heretofore been able to impose upon the\nsubject classes just those morals which were best adapted to prolong\ntheir subjection. Even to-day in America the majority of the working\nclass get their ideas--like their clothes--ready-made.\n\nBut there is an ever-growing portion of the working class whom the\never-increasing severity of the discipline of the machine process is\nteaching more and more to think solely in terms of material cause and\neffect. To them, just as much as to the scholar who has learned by study\nthe relativity of ethics, current morality has ceased to appeal. It is\nidle to talk of the will of God, or of abstract, absolute ideas of right\nand wrong to the sociological scholar and the proletarian of the factory\nalike.\n\nGeorge Bernard Shaw, in the preface to \"Plays, Pleasant and Unpleasant,\"\nsays: \"I have no respect for popular morality.\" A few weeks since, a\nworkingman, who had been listening to a stereotyped sentimental harangue\nemitted by one of our amiable Utopian comrades, showed me the palms of\nhis hands, which were thickly studded with callouses, and asked me,\n\"What the hell has a fellow with a pair of mits like those to do with\nmorality? What I want is the goods.\" Shaw meant just what he wrote; yet\nthe critics will continue to treat his utterance as one of Bernard\nShaw's \"delightfully witty paradoxes.\" My friend meant just what he\nsaid; yet Salvation Armyists and other good Christians will continue to\npreach to him and his kind a religion and a morality which have become\nmeaningless to them.\n\nOrganized government, with its power to make laws and levy taxes--in\nother words, the State--only came into existence with the division of\nsociety into classes. The State is, in its very essence, a class\ninstrument--an agency in the hands of the ruling class to keep the\nmasses in subjection. Hence the name, \"State,\" cannot fitly be applied\nto the social organization of a society in which there are no classes,\nwhether that society be the primitive communist group of savagery or the\nco-operative commonwealth of the future.\n\nThe word \"capital,\" cannot be applied to the machinery and means of\nproduction in any and every society. They only become capital when they\nare used as means to exploit (rob) a subject class of workers, and when\nthey shall cease to be so used they will cease to be capital. The word\n\"wages,\" necessarily implies the extraction of surplus-value (profits)\nfrom the workers by a parasitic class; hence, that share of the social\nproduct which the workers of the future will devote to individual\nconsumption cannot be correctly spoken of as \"wages.\"\n\nIn the same way, morality is, in its very essence, a class\ninstitution--a set of rules of conduct enforced or inculcated for the\nbenefit of a class. Hence, to speak of the morality of the future, when\none refers to the classless society to which Socialists look forward, is\nthe height or the depth of absurdity. In the free fellowship of the\nfuture there will be no morality. This is not saying that there will be\nno criteria by which conduct will be praised or deplored; it is simply\nsaying that with the abolition of classes, morality, like the State,\ncapital and wages, being a product of class-divisions, will cease to\nexist.\n\nWhile the revolutionary proletariat have no respect for current\nmorality, it is none the less true that they have in process of growth a\nmorality of their own--a morality that has already emerged from the\nembryonic stage. The proletariat are to be the active agents in bringing\nto pass the social revolution which is to put a period to Capitalism and\nusher in the new order. During this transition period and until the\nchange is fully accomplished, they will be a distinct class with special\nclass interests of their own. As fast as they become class-conscious\nthey will recognize and praise as moral all conduct that tends to hasten\nthe social revolution--the triumph of their class, and they will condemn\nas unhesitatingly as immoral all conduct that tends to prolong the\ndominance of the capitalist class. Already we can note manifestations of\nthis new proletarian morality in that sense of class solidarity\nexhibited by the workers in the many acts of kindness and assistance of\nthe employed to the unemployed, and more especially in the detestation\nin which the scab is held.\n\nThe revolutionary workingman, be he avowed Socialist or not, who\nrepudiates the current or capitalist morality, does not abandon himself\nto unbridled license, but is straightway bound by the obligations of the\nadolescent proletarian morality which is enforced with ever greater\nvigor by the public opinion of his class as his class grows in\nclass-consciousness.\n\nDoes the new morality condemn what the old branded as \"crimes against\nproperty?\" It must be confessed that the revolutionary worker has\nabsolutely no respect for natural rights--including the right of\nproperty--as such. Hence, as the act of an individual in appropriating\nthe goods of another is not likely either to help or to injure his\nclass, he neither approves or condemns it on moral grounds; but knowing,\nas he does, that his class enemies, the capitalists, own not only \"the\ngoods,\" but also the courts and the police, he condemns theft by a\nworkingman as suicidal folly.\n\nThe Marxist absolutely denies the freedom of the will.[4] Every human\naction is inevitable. \"Nothing happens by chance.\" Every thing is\nbecause it cannot but be. How then can we consistently praise or blame\nany conduct? If one cares to make hair-splitting distinctions, it may be\nreplied that we cannot, but none the less we can rejoice at some actions\nand deplore others. And the love of praise, with its obverse, the fear\nof blame, has ever been one of the strongest motives to human conduct.\nIt is not necessarily the applause of the thoughtless multitude that one\nseeks; but in writing this paper, which I know will be misunderstood or\ncondemned by the majority of those who read it, undoubtedly one of my\nmotives is to win the approbation of the discerning few for whose good\nopinion I deeply care.\n\nThe passengers whose train has come to a standstill on a steep up-grade\nowing to the inefficiency of the engine, will not fail to greet with a\nhearty cheer the approach of a more powerful locomotive. In the same\nway, Socialist workingmen, though they know that no human act deserves\neither praise or blame, though they know, in the words of the wise old\nFrenchman, that \"_comprendre tout, c'est pardonner tout_,\" or, better\nyet, that to understand all is to understand that there is nothing to\npardon, will not be chary of their cheers to him who is able to advance\ntheir cause, nor of their curses upon him who betrays it. And in so\ndoing they will not be inconsistent, but will be acting in strict\naccordance with that law of cause and effect which is the very fundament\nof all proletarian reasoning; for those cheers and curses will be\npotent factors in causing such conduct as will speed the social\nrevolution.\n\nWhile we have no respect for current morality, we must not fall into the\nerror of supposing that there are no criteria by which to judge conduct,\nthat there are, so to say, no valid distinctions between the acts of a\nhero and those of a blackguard. By referring to the ethic inspiring the\nactor we can always pronounce some conduct to be fine and other acts\nbase. It is this power of a fine or noble action to thrill the human\nheart that makes the triumphs of dramatic art possible. The dramatists,\nlike Shakespeare, whose characters accept the current moral code, appeal\nto a wide audience--to nearly all. But those dramatists, such as Ibsen,\nShaw, Maeterlinck, and above all, Sudermann, whose heroes and heroines\nattempt to put into practice the ideals of to-morrow in the environment\nof to-day, are misunderstood and disliked by the majority, and\nunderstood and appreciated only by the few who, like themselves, have\nrejected the current code and adopted the criteria of to-morrow. But\nthose of us who call Sudermann the first of living dramatists, do so on\naccount of the extreme nobility of his heroines' conduct judged by the\ncriteria of the future.\n\nWhile there will be no morality in Socialist society; while in the\nperfect solidarity of a classless society there can be no conflict of\nindividual with social interests; there will nevertheless be certain\nactions exceptionally fitted to increase the welfare and augment the\nhappiness of the community, and the men and women who perform these acts\nwill undoubtedly be rewarded by the plaudits and the love of their\ncomrades. Indeed, we with our debased standards are incapable of\nconceiving how dear to them this reward will be. It is because I believe\nthat this love of one's fellows under Socialism will be a joy far\nexceeding in intensity any pleasure known to us, that I look for\ndramatic art to reach under Socialism a perfection and influence to-day\ninconceivable.\n\nThe most striking phenomenon in the field of ethics to-day is the rapid\ngrowth of the new proletarian morality; and one of the principal\nfunctions of the Socialist agitator and propagandist is to facilitate\nand further this growth. He is the teacher of a new morality and, if one\naccepted Matthew Arnold's definition of religion as \"morality touched\nwith emotion,\" he might be called the preacher of a new religion. Let\nwho will call this sentimentalism, it is none the less hard fact. For,\nafter all, this new proletarian ethic is nothing else than\nclass-consciousness under a new name. And what Socialist will deny that\nthe chief function of the militant Socialist is to develop\nclass-consciousness in the workers? The one hope of the world to-day is\nin the victory of the proletariat--aye, it is more than a hope, it is a\ncertainty; but this victory can only be won by a proletariat permeated\nwith the sense of solidarity; and the workingman imbued with this sense\nof proletarian solidarity will be a living incarnation of the new\nmorality.\n\nAnd what is this class-consciousness which it is our business to preach\nin season and out of season? There is probably no term in the whole\ntechnical vocabulary of Socialism which grates so unpleasantly on the\near of the _petit bourgeois_ who \"is coming our way\" as this one of\n\"class-consciousness.\" To say class-consciousness is not to say class\nhatred; though class-consciousness ofttimes develops into class hatred\nand does not thereby become the less effective. The Socialist recognizes\nin the words of Edmund Burke that \"Man acts not from metaphysical\nconsiderations, but from motives relative to his interests,\" and hence,\nhe regards it as his first duty to show his fellow-workers that their\neconomic interests are in direct conflict with those of the\nmaster-class. He does not create this conflict by pointing it out; he\nmerely shows the working class \"where they are at.\"\n\nBut besides pointing out this conflict of material interests, the\nSocialist propagandist shows the workers that it is their high destiny\nto accomplish a revolution far more glorious and pregnant with blessings\nfor humanity than any of those recorded in the history of the past. This\nconsciousness of the great part that he and his class are called to play\non the world's stage is the most uplifting and ennobling influence that\ncan enter the life of a workingman. There can be no doubt that the\nsentiment expressed by the words, _noblesse oblige_, has had an\ninfluence on the lives of the more worthy of the aristocrats. Similar in\nits nature is the influence here under consideration, and that this\ninfluence is not less potent is well known to every one acquainted with\nthe men and women who form what is known as the Socialist Movement. The\nnon-Socialist, who wishes to see the effect of this influence, has but\nto read even in the files of the capitalist press the accounts of the\nhigh and noble bearing of the martyrs of the Paris Commune who faced\ndeath with calm and cheerful courage, though they were buoyed up by no\nhope of a hereafter.\n\nWhile we continue devoting our whole energies to arousing in our\nfellow-workers a keen and clear consciousness of the hideous\nclass-struggle now waging in all its brutal bitterness, let us keep our\ncourage high and our hope bright by keeping our eyes ever fixed upon the\nglorious future, upon the \"wonderful days a-coming when all shall be\nbetter than well!\"\n\nFOOTNOTE:\n\n[4] It will be seen that the text treats the long-debated question of\nthe \"freedom of the will\" as _res adjudicata_. It may be that some\nreaders will want to know where to turn for fuller discussions of this\nfamous question. As a full bibliography of the literature on this\nsubject would more than fill this volume, I must content myself with\ntelling them that a very helpful discussion of it may be found in\nHuxley's Life of Hume, and a clear and succinct statement of the\nconclusions of the modern school of psychology in Ferri's \"The Positive\nSchool of Criminology.\" Both of these are to be had in cheap form.\n\n\n\n\nINSTEAD OF A FOOTNOTE[5]\n\n\nA photograph of a Fifth Avenue mansion, taken from the partition wall in\nthe back-yard, might be a perfectly accurate picture and yet give a very\ninadequate idea of the house as a whole. This article on \"Marxism and\nEthics\" is, in a sense, just such a picture. In writing it, space\nlimitations compelled me to confine myself wholly to impressing upon the\nreader the relative and transitory character of moral codes. But in the\npopular concept of morality there are elements that are relatively\npermanent. Darwin in his \"Descent of Man\" showed that the gregarious and\nsocial traits that make associated life possible antedate, not only the\ndivision of society into classes, but even antedate humanity itself,\nsince they plainly appear in the so-called lower animals.\n\nSo that my contention that morality only came into being with the\ndivision of society into classes and will pass away when class divisions\nare abolished, becomes a question of definition. If we include in our\ndefinition of morality the almost universal and relatively permanent\ngregarious traits of men and beasts, then morality has existed longer\nthan humanity itself, and will continue to exist under Socialism. But it\ncannot be denied that moral codes were not formulated until after\nclass-divisions had arisen. Every moral code of which we have any\nknowledge has been moulded by the cultural discipline of a society based\non class-divisions. In every one of them there is implied the relation\nof status, of a superior, natural or supernatural, with the right or\npower to formulate \"commandments,\" and of an inferior class whose lot it\nis to obey. We find this implication of status in even the noblest\nexpressions of current ethical aspirations. Wordsworth's immortal Ode to\nDuty begins, \"Stern Daughter of the Voice of God!\"\n\nSince then morality as a word through the force of immemorial habit\nunavoidably suggests to the mind the relation of status, it appears to\nme that its use to describe truly social conduct in a society of equals\ncan lead to nothing but confusion. What we really need is the right\nword to apply to the highest conduct in a classless society; and, I am\ninclined to think that a generation to whom the idea of status will have\nbecome wholly alien will find the word \"social\" entirely adequate for\nthis purpose, though I frankly confess it is not adequate for us\n\n\n     \"In the days of the years we dwell in, that wear our lives away.\"\n\n\nMy statement that the Revolutionary worker abstains from crimes against\nproperty from expediency rather than from principle must not be\nconstrued into an allegation that fear of personal punishment is the\nonly ground for abstaining from such crimes. If it were not for the\nstupidity and malice of our opponents I would feel that I was insulting\nmy readers by making this explanation; but for their benefit be it said\nthat in a society based economically upon the institution of private\nproperty social life is impossible without respect (respect here refers\nto acts, not to mental attitude) for private property. Crimes against\nproperty are distinctly unsocial. But respect for the rights of property\nis rapidly disintegrating both among trust magnates and proletarians.\nThe Natural Rights Philosophy[6] still has much vitality in the middle\nclasses, but as a broad statement it will hold good that the millionaire\nor the proletarian who shows respect for private property (the private\nproperty of others, be it understood) does so chiefly on grounds of\nexpediency.\n\nThe socialist materialist is well content to leave this whole question\nof ethics to adjust itself, since he knows that equality of condition,\nthe economic basis of Socialism, will necessarily evolve a mode of\nliving, and standards of conduct in perfect harmony with their economic\nenvironment.\n\nFOOTNOTES:\n\n[5] It may be as well to state that this was written before the writer\nhad read Karl Kautsky's illuminating work, \"Ethics and the Materialist\nConception of History.\"\n\n[6] For a fuller discussion of the relation of current conceptions of\nproperty-rights to the Natural Rights Philosophy see Veblen's \"The\nTheory of Business Enterprise,\" Chapters II and VIII, and La Monte's\npaper \"Veblen, The Revolutionist,\" International Socialist Review, Vol.\nV. pp. 726-739.\n\n\n\n\nTHE NIHILISM OF SOCIALISM.\n\n\n     \"In their negative proposals the socialists and anarchists are\n     fairly agreed. It is in the metaphysical postulates of their\n     protest and in their constructive aims that they part company. Of\n     the two, the socialists are more widely out of touch with the\n     established order. They are also more hopelessly negative and\n     destructive in their ideals, as seen from the standpoint of the\n     established order.\" THORSTEIN VEBLEN in \"The Theory of Business\n     Enterprise.\" Page 338.\n\n\nTo label a truth a truism is too often regarded as equivalent to placing\nit in the category of the negligible. It is precisely the salient\nobviousness, which makes a truth a truism, that places it in the direst\nperil of oblivion in the stress of modern life. Such a truth was well\nstated by Enrico Ferri, the Italian criminologist, in a recent lecture\nbefore the students of the University of Naples:\n\n\"Without an ideal, neither an individual nor a collectivity can live,\nwithout it humanity is dead or dying. For it is the fire of an ideal\nwhich renders the life of each one of us possible, useful and fertile.\nAnd only by its help can each one of us, in the longer or shorter course\nof his or her existence, leave behind traces for the benefit of\nfellow-beings.\"\n\nPlatitude though this may be, our greatest poets have not hesitated to\nuse their highest powers to impress it upon us. Robert Browning put this\ntruth into the mouth of Andrea del Sarto in one of the strongest lines\nin all English verse,\n\n\n     \"Ah, but a man's reach should exceed his grasp.\"\n\n\nMr. George S. Street, in a very interesting paper in Putnam's Monthly\nfor November (1906), points out that the most significant contrast\nbetween our time and Early Victorian days is a decrease in idealism.\n\"The most characteristic note,\" he tells us, \"in the mental attitude of\nthe forties and fifties in England, and that in which they contrast most\nsharply with our own times, was confidence.... In party politics this\nconfidence was almost without limit. There was a section of Conservatism\nwhich really believed in things as they were, and thought it undesirable\nto attempt any change for the better.... It was simply--I speak of a\nsection, not the party as a whole--the articulate emotion of privileged\nand contented people and their parasites, and its denomination as\n'stupid' was an accurate description, though hardly the brilliant\nepigram for which, in our poverty of political wit, it has been taken.\nOn the other hand, there was a confident Liberalism which inspired a\nwhole party. Some wished to go faster, some slower, but all believed\nsincerely in a broad scheme of domestic policy. They were to reform this\nand that at home; they were to assist, or at least applaud, the\nreforming of this and that abroad. So believing and intending, they\nnaturally conceived themselves made very little indeed lower than the\nangels.\n\n\"The contrast with our own day hardly needs pointing. You might now\nsearch long and in vain for a Conservative in public life who would not\nadmit that reforms are desirable or even urgent, though few might be\nprepared with precise statements about particulars.... But their (the\nLiberals') confidence in reform, in their ability to improve the body\npolitic by certain definite measures, is gone. The old Liberal spirit\nanimating a whole party is dead. It may seem an odd remark to make just\nafter the late election, but the evidence is abundant, and the\nexplanation simple. Domestic reform on a large scale and on\nindividualist lines has reached its limit; but to many Liberals, to many\neminent and authoritative Liberals, reform on socialist lines is\nabhorrent.... Consequently there is a large party called Liberal, which,\nthrough the faults of its opponents and the accidents of time, is\nsuccessful and has the high spirits of success, but is no more now than\nit has been for twenty years a party of homogeneous confidence in\ndomestic reform, while on the world outside the British islands it looks\nwith passivity, perhaps timidity, certainly with no intention of\nassisting oppressed peoples.\"\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\n\"Theoretical Socialism of a logical and thoughtful kind, not entangled\nwith Radicalism, has made much progress of late years, more especially,\nso far as my own experience goes, in the educated and professional\nclasses; but in practice it bides its time, with confidence perhaps, but\nwith a consciousness that the time will be long coming. That is a\ndifferent spirit from the buoyant expectancy of the old Liberalism.\"\n\nGranted the necessity of idealism to individual and social health, Mr.\nStreet's views do not conduce to optimism. Here we have a competent\nobserver telling us that the only note of idealism he finds in\ncontemporary intellectual life is a growing, but half-hearted, belief in\nSocialism, which is more noticeable \"in the educated and professional\nclasses.\"\n\nThere is another note of idealism in the life of to-day which Mr. Street\nignores. This is the tendency toward the apotheosis of the individual in\nantithesis to society. This is a sign of health, in so far as it is a\nrevolt against the stifling pressure of outworn conventionality, and it\nhas found worthy expression in the philosophy of Herbert Spencer and the\npoetry of Browning and Walt Whitman.\n\nBut this form of idealism cannot be said to differentiate our time from\nthe Early Victorian era, for it found its classic expression back in the\nmiddle of the last century in Max Stirner's _Der Einzige und sein\nEigentum_, a book which has been forgotten amid the growing\nconsciousness of the organic solidarity of society. But Mr. Street is\npossibly justified in ignoring this tendency, for as a school of thought\nit has committed suicide in the person of Nietzsche's Overman attempting\nto construct out of materials drawn from his inner consciousness a pair\nof stilts on which to tower above \"the herd.\"\n\nWhat is the lure of Socialism that is appealing, according to Mr.\nStreet, to more and more of our \"educated and professional\" people? For,\nin spite of what Professor Veblen truly says of the \"negative and\ndestructive\" (in the quotation at the head of this paper) character of\nsocialist ideals, Socialism must hold up some positive ideals to attract\nsuch growing numbers of the educated classes. To convince oneself of the\nactuality of this appeal it is only necessary to run over the writers'\nnames in the tables of contents in our popular magazines. The proportion\nof socialists is surprisingly large and is constantly growing. There can\nbe no doubt that the percentage of Socialists among writers of\ndistinction is larger than the percentage of socialists in the\npopulation at large.\n\nSocialism does present certain very definite positive ideals. The first\nof these is \"Comfort for All\" (to use a chapter-heading from Prince\nKropotkin's too little known book, \"_La Conquete du Pain_\"). The second\nis Leisure for All, or, in Paul Lafargue's witty phrase, \"The Right to\nbe Lazy.\" The third is the fullest possible physical and intellectual\ndevelopment of every individual, considered not as an isolated,\nself-centred entity, but as a member of an interdependent society; or,\nin the words of Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels in the Communist\nManifesto, the socialist ideal is \"an association in which the free\ndevelopment of each is the condition for the free development of all.\"\n\nIt may be noted that all that is vivifying in the ideal of individualism\nis included in this third positive ideal of Socialism, so that, it is\nnow seen, Mr. Street was fully justified in making no separate mention\nof the ideal of individualism. There can be no doubt that it is the\nimmensely richer literary and artistic life promised by this third ideal\nof Socialism that accounts for the phenomenon noted by Mr. Street.\n\nThe beauties of the positive ideals of the socialist Utopias have been\nsufficiently lauded by scores of writers from Sir Thomas More to Bellamy\nand Mr. H. G. Wells. What it is desired to emphasize here is the\n\"negative and destructive\" (from the standpoint of the established\norder) aspects of socialist ideals; for it is the Nihilism of Socialism\nthat explains why Mr. Street's \"educated and professional\" socialists\nhave more patience than confidence in awaiting the realization of their\nideal. The Nihilism of Socialism turns aside many, who have felt the\nlure of the socialist ideal, into what Professor Veblen calls, \"some\nexcursion into pragmatic romance,\"[7] such as Social Settlements,\nProhibition, Clean Politics, Single Tax, Arts and Crafts, Neighborhood\nGuilds, Institutional Church, Christian Science, New Thought, Hearstism,\nor \"some such cultural thimble-rig.\" Yet more, there are many of the\n\"educated and professional classes\" who call themselves socialists,\nbecause they cherish the charming delusion that it is possible to\nseparate the positive from the negative ideals of Socialism, and to work\n(in a dilettante fashion) for the former while blithely anathematizing\nthe latter.\n\nIt is the purpose of this paper to show that Socialism is not a scheme\nfor the betterment of humanity to be accomplished by a sufficiently\nzealous and intelligent propaganda, but that it is, on the contrary, a\nconsistent, (though to many repellent) monistic philosophy of the\ncosmos; that it is from its Alpha to its Omega so closely and\ninextricably interlocked that its component parts cannot be\ndisassociated, save by an act of intellectual suicide; that, in a word,\nthe Nihilism[8] of Socialism is of the very essence of Socialism.\n\nBut, here, a most important distinction should be noted. Socialism,\nviewed as a political propaganda, is purely positive in its demands. In\nfact, all its demands may be reduced to two--Collectivism and Democracy.\nThat the people shall own the means of production, and the producers\nshall control their products--that is the sum and substance of all\nSocialist platforms. Socialist parties do not attack Religion, the\nFamily, or the State. But socialist philosophy proves conclusively that\nthe realization of the positive political and economic ideals of\nSocialism involves the atrophy of Religion, the metamorphosis of the\nFamily, and the suicide of the State.\n\nThe Nihilism of Socialism springs from the Materialist Conception of\nHistory, and this is precisely the portion of the socialist doctrine\nthat is usually ignored or half-understood by the enthusiastic young\nintellectuals who are in growing numbers joining the Socialist movement\non both sides of the Atlantic. While the Communist Manifesto, written\nby Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels in 1847, is throughout founded on this\nconception, the first clearly formulated statement of the conception\nitself is to be found in the Preface to the \"Contribution to the\nCritique of Political Economy,\" published by Karl Marx in 1859, the same\nyear in which Darwin and Wallace made public their independent and\nalmost simultaneous discoveries of the theory of Natural Selection. This\nfirst statement runs thus:\n\n\n     \"In the social production which men carry on they enter into\n     definite relations that are indispensable and independent of their\n     will; these relations of production correspond to a definite stage\n     of development of their material powers of production. The sum\n     total of these relations of production constitutes the economic\n     structure of society--the real foundation, on which rise legal and\n     political superstructures and to which correspond definite forms of\n     social consciousness. The mode of production in material life\n     determines the general character of the social, political, and\n     spiritual processes of life. It is not the consciousness of men\n     that determines their existence, but, on the contrary, their social\n     existence determines their consciousness. At a certain stage of\n     their development, the material forces of production in society\n     come in conflict with the existing relations of production,\n     or--what is but a legal expression for the same thing--with the\n     property relations within which they had been at work before. From\n     forms of development of the forces of production these relations\n     turn into their fetters. Then comes the period of social\n     revolution. With the change of the economic foundation the entire\n     immense superstructure is more or less rapidly transformed.\"[9]\n\n\nThis statement contains a whole Revolution in embryo. Viewed from the\nstandpoint of the established order, it is the very Quintessence of\nNihilism. In a word, it teaches the material origin of Ideas. In the\nlast analysis, every idea can be traced back to the economic and\ntelluric environments. In the words of Joseph Dietzgen, \"philosophy\nrevealed to them (Marx and Engels) the basic principle that, in the last\nresort, the world is not governed by Ideas, but, on the contrary, the\nIdeas by the material world.\" This doctrine involves a new epistemology,\nthe distinguishing mark of which is its denial of the immaculate\nconception of thought. The human mind, according to Marx and Dietzgen,\ncan only bring forth thought after it has been impregnated by the\nobjects of sense perception.[10]\n\nHere we have a thorough-going system of materialist monism. \"Ours is\nthe organic conception of history,\" says Labriola. \"The totality of the\nunity of social life is the subject matter present to our minds. It is\neconomics itself which dissolves in the course of one process, to\nreappear in as many morphological stages, in each of which it serves as\na substructure for all the rest. Finally, it is not our method to extend\nthe so-called economic factor isolated in an abstract fashion over all\nthe rest, as our adversaries imagine, but it is, before everything else,\nto form an historic conception of economics, and to explain the other\nchanges by means of its changes.\"[11]\n\nIn another place he says: \"Ideas do not fall from heaven, and nothing\ncomes to us in a dream.... The change in ideas, even to the creation of\nnew methods of conception, has reflected little by little the experience\nof a new life. This, in the revolutions of the last two centuries, was\nlittle by little despoiled of the mythical, religious and mystical\nenvelopes in proportion as it acquired the practical and precise\nconsciousness of its immediate and direct conditions. Human thought,\nalso, which sums up this life and theorizes upon it, has little by\nlittle been plundered of its theological and metaphysical hypotheses to\ntake refuge finally in this prosaic assertion: in the interpretation of\nhistory we must limit ourselves to the objective co-ordination of the\ndetermining conditions and of the determined effects.\" He reiterates:\n\"Ideas do not fall from heaven; and, what is more, like the other\nproducts of human activity, they are formed in given circumstances, in\nthe precise fulness of time, through the action of definite needs,\nthanks to the repeated attempts at their satisfaction, and by the\ndiscovery of such and such other means of proof which are, as it were,\nthe instruments of their production and their elaboration. Even ideas\ninvolve a basis of social conditions; they have their technique; thought\nalso is a form of work. To rob the one and the other, ideas and thought,\nof the conditions and environment of their birth and their development,\nis to disfigure their nature and their meaning.\"[12]\n\nThis socialist materialism does not refuse the inspiration of ideals.\n\"By granting that society is dominated by material interests,\" Dietzgen\nexplains, \"we do not deny the power of the ideals of the heart, mind,\nscience, and art. For we have no more to deal with the absolute\nantithesis between idealism and materialism, but with their higher\nsynthesis which has been found in the knowledge that the ideal depends\non the material, that divine justice and liberty depend on the\nproduction and distribution of earthly goods.\"[13]\n\nReligions, schools of ethics, philosophy, metaphysics, art, political\nand juridical institutions are all to be explained in the last analysis\nby the economic and telluric environments, present and past. This\nruthless materialism crushes belief in God, in the Soul, in immortality.\nIt leaves no room for any shred of dualism in thought. It is true that\nthe German Social Democracy included in the famous Erfurt Programme\n(adopted in 1891--the first clearly Marxian socialist platform ever\npromulgated) a demand for a \"Declaration that religion is a private\nmatter. Abolition of all expenditure from public funds upon\necclesiastical and religious objects. Ecclesiastical and religious\nbodies are to be regarded as private associations, which order their\naffairs independently.\" It will be seen that this is nothing more than a\ndemand that the State withdraw its sanction of religion as France has\nrecently done in the Clemenceau law. But Ferri does nothing but draw the\nnecessary conclusions from socialist premises when he writes: \"God, as\nLaplace has said, is an hypothesis of which exact science has no need;\nhe is, according to Herzen, at the most an X, which represents not the\n_unknowable_--as Spencer and Dubois Raymond contend--but all that which\nhumanity does not yet know. Therefore, it is a variable X which\ndecreases in direct ratio to the progress of the discoveries of science.\n\n\"It is for this reason that science and religion are in inverse ratio to\neach other; the one diminishes and grows weaker in the same proportion\nthat the other increases and grows stronger in its struggle against the\nunknown.\"[14]\n\nJoseph Dietzgen has thus stated what may be called the law of the\natrophy of religion: \"The more the idea of God recedes into the past the\nmore palpable it is; in olden times man knew everything about his God;\nthe more modern the form of religion has become, the more confused and\nhazy are our religious ideas. The truth is that the historic\ndevelopment of religion tends to its gradual dissolution.\"[15]\n\nThe characteristic attitude of the socialist materialist toward\nChristianity appears very clearly in the following excerpt from\nProfessor Ferri's \"Socialism and Modern Science\":\n\n\"It is true that Marxian Socialism, since the Congress held at Erfurt\n(1891), has rightly declared that religious beliefs are private\naffairs[16] and that, therefore, the Socialist party combats religious\nintolerance under all its forms.... But this breadth of superiority of\nview is, at bottom, only a consequence of the confidence in final\nvictory.\n\n\"It is because Socialism knows and foresees that religious beliefs,\nwhether one regards them, with Sergi, as pathological phenomena of human\npsychology, or as useless phenomena of moral incrustation, are destined\nto perish by atrophy with the extension of even elementary scientific\nculture. This is why Socialism does not feel the necessity of waging a\nspecial warfare against these religious beliefs which are destined to\ndisappear. It has assumed this attitude, although it knows that the\nabsence or the impairment of the belief in God is one of the most\npowerful factors for its extension, because the priests of all religions\nhave been, throughout all the phases of history, the most potent allies\nof the ruling classes in keeping the masses pliant and submissive under\nthe yoke by means of the enchantment of religion, just as the tamer\nkeeps wild beasts submissive by the terrors of the cracks of his whip\"\n(page 63).\n\nIt is also well to remember that a prevalent animistic habit of thought\nin viewing the events of life, whether it take the form of a belief in\nluck, as in gamblers and sporting men, or the form of a belief in\nsupernatural interposition in mundane affairs, as in the case of the\ndevotees of the anthropomorphic cults, or merely the tendency to give a\nteleological interpretation to evolution, to attribute a meliorative\ntrend to the cosmic process, as in Tennyson's \"through the ages one\nincreasing purpose runs,\" tends, by retarding the prompt perception of\nrelations of material cause and effect, to lower the industrial\nefficiency of the community.[17]\n\nThe socialist materialist can look forward with unruffled serenity to\nthe passing of religion, since his very definition of religion as \"a\npopular striving after the illusory happiness that corresponds with a\nsocial condition which needs such an illusion,\"[18] implies that it\ncannot pass away till it has ceased to be needful to human happiness.\n\n\nFrom the point of view of this Socialist materialism, the monogamous\nfamily, the present economic unit of society, ceases to be a divine\ninstitution, and becomes the historical product of certain definite\neconomic conditions. It is the form of the family peculiar to a society\nbased on private property in the means of production, and the production\nof commodities for sale. It is not crystallized and permanent, but, like\nall other institutions, fluid and subject to change. With the change in\nits economic basis, the code of sexual morality and the monogamous\nfamily are sure to be modified; but, in the judgment of such socialists\nas Friedrich Engels and August Bebel, we shall probably remain\nmonogamous, but monogamy will cease to be compulsorily permanent.[19]\n\n\"What we may anticipate,\" says Engels, \"about the adjustment of sexual\nrelations after the impending downfall of capitalist production is\nmainly of a negative nature and mostly confined to elements that will\ndisappear. But what will be added? That will be decided after a new\ngeneration has come to maturity: a race of men who never in their lives\nhave had any occasion for buying with money or other economic means of\npower the surrender of a woman; a race of women who have never had any\noccasion for surrendering to any man for any other reason but love, or\nfor refusing to surrender to their lover from fear of economic\nconsequences. Once such people are in the world, they will not give a\nmoment's thought to what we to-day believe should be their course. They\nwill follow their own practice and fashion their own public\nopinion--only this and nothing more.\"[20]\n\nChanged economic conditions are already reflected in the disintegration\nof the traditional bourgeois belief in the permanency of the existing\nforms of the family and the home. A portentous sign of the times for the\nconservatives is the appearance of Mrs. Elsie Clews Parsons' book on\n\"The Family,\" the most scholarly work on the subject by a bourgeois\nwriter that has yet appeared. Like all bourgeois writers Mrs. Parsons\nhas been very chary of using materials furnished by Socialist scholars.\nVery striking is the absence from her very extensive bibliographical\nnotes of the names of Marx, Engels, Bebel and Ferri. But she was\ncompelled to avail herself freely of the wealth of materials provided by\nthe scholarly and industrious researches of Morgan, Kautsky, and Cunow.\n\nIn her now famous Fifteenth Lecture on \"Ethical Considerations,\" she\nsuggests various modes of ameliorating the condition of Woman, and\nimproving conjugal and family relations; but she is again and again\ndriven to admit that the economic independence of women is a condition\nprecedent to her \"reforms.\" Most of her suggestions are tinged with the\nutopian fancifulness characteristic of the bourgeois theorist. Two\nexcerpts will illustrate these points sufficiently:\n\n\"Again reciprocity of conjugal rights and duties is desirable for\nparenthood. If marriage have a proprietary character, neither the owner\nnor the owned is entirely fit to develop free personalities in his or\nher children. Moreover the idea of marital ownership more or less\ninvolves that of parental ownership, and the latter, as we have seen, is\nincompatible with a high type of parenthood. The custom of proprietary\nmarriage inevitably leads, for example, to restrictions upon female\neducation. Now just in so far as a woman's education is limited is she\nhandicapped as an educator of her children. It is unfortunate that in\nthe _emancipation of woman_ agitation of the past half-century the\nreformers failed to emphasize the social as adequately as the\nindividualistic need of change. If women are to be fit wives and mothers\nthey must have all, perhaps more, of the opportunities for personal\ndevelopment that men have. All the activities hitherto reserved to men\nmust at least be open to them, and many of these activities, certain\nfunctions of citizenship[21] for example, must be expected of them.\nMoreover, whatever the lines may be along which the fitness of women to\nlabor will be experimentally determined, the underlying position must be\nestablished that for the sake of individual and race character she is to\nbe a producer as well as a consumer of social values.[22] As soon as\nthis ethical necessity is generally recognized the conditions of modern\nindustry will become much better adapted to the needs of women workers\nthan they are now, the hygiene of workshop, factory, and office will\nimprove, and child bearing and rearing will no longer seem incompatible\nwith productive activity\" (pages 345-347).\n\nHere follows the paragraph upon which the Reverend Doctor Morgan Dix and\nother clerical defenders of the economic conditions that cause marital\nand non-marital prostitution pounced with such avidity:\n\n\"We have therefore, given late marriage and the passing of\nprostitution,[23] two alternatives, the requiring of absolute chastity\nof both sexes until marriage or the toleration of freedom of sexual\nintercourse on the part of the unmarried of both sexes before marriage,\n_i. e._, before the birth of offspring. In this event condemnation of\nsex license would have a different emphasis from that at present. Sexual\nintercourse would not be of itself disparaged or condemned, it would be\ndisapproved of only if indulged in at the expense of health or of\nemotional or intellectual activities in oneself or in others. As a\nmatter of fact, truly monogamous relations seem to be those most\nconducive to emotional or intellectual development and to health, so\nthat, quite apart from the question of prostitution, promiscuity is not\ndesirable or even tolerable. It would therefore, seem well from this\npoint of view, to encourage early trial marriage,[24] the relation to be\nentered into with a view to permanency, but with the privilege of\nbreaking it if proved unsuccessful and in the _absence of offspring_\nwithout suffering any great degree of public condemnation.\n\n\"The conditions to be considered in any attempt to answer the question\nthat thus arises are exceedingly complex. Much depends upon the outcome\nof present experiments in _economic independence for women, a matter\nwhich is in turn dependent upon the outcome of the general labor\n'question.'_ Much depends upon revelations of physiological science. If\nthe future brings about the full economic independence of women, if\nphysiologists will undertake to guarantee society certain immunities\nfrom the sexual excess of the individual,[25] if, and these are the most\nimportant conditions of all, increases in biological, psychological and\nsocial knowledge make parenthood a more enlightened and purposive\nfunction than is even dreamed of at present and if _pari passu_ with\nthis increase of knowledge a higher standard of parental duty and a\ngreater capacity for parental devotion develop, then the need of sexual\nrestraint as we understand it _may_ disappear and different relations\nbetween the sexes before marriage and to a certain extent within\nmarriage may be expected.\"\n\nThe Socialist materialist leaves idle speculations of this nature to the\nbourgeois Utopians; he knows that a revolution in economic conditions\nmust precede any material changes in sexual relations, and that when\nsuch changes take place they will take place in response to the stimuli\nof the transformed economic environment, and not in accordance with any\npreconceived notions of Mrs. Parsons or others.\n\nThose, who are horrified at such proposed modifications of marriage as\nMr. George Meredith's marriages for a fixed, limited period, and Mrs.\nParsons' \"trial marriages,\" will do well to ponder this posthumous\naphorism of the clearsighted Norse genius, Ibsen, recently published in\nBerlin:\n\n\"To talk of 'men born free' is a mere phrase. There are none such.\nMarriages, the relations of man and woman, have ruined the whole race\nand set on all the brand of slavery.\"[26]\n\nIn the same case is what we may call the stage-setting of the\nmonogamous family, the home. The home ceases to be regarded as the\nsacred and eternal Palladium of society. It, too, is destined to change,\nif not to disappear. \"With the transformation of the means of production\ninto collective property,\" Engels writes, \"the private household changes\nto a social industry. The care and education of children becomes a\npublic matter.\"[27]\n\nThis does not deny the splendid role that the Home has played in the\nhistory of the last three centuries. Many an English and American home\nto-day still merits even such an offensively pretentious epithet as\n\"Palladium.\" What morals our people have known and practised they have\nlearned and been drilled in in the homes. That these morals should have\nbeen warped by a class-bias was inevitable. A home, itself the product\nof a society divided into classes, could not teach anything but a\nclass-morality. A purely social morality (if morality be the proper name\nfor the highest conduct in a classless society) is even yet impossible.\n\nBut, much as we owe to the home, (I pity the reader who can recall his\nor her early home life with dry eyes), the Nihilism of Socialism tells\nus the day of the home is drawing to its close. So it may be as well for\nus to consider for a moment the bad side of the home as we know it\nto-day. It may be that when we have done so, we shall be able to\nanticipate its passing with greater equanimity.\n\nAt this late day--when seventeen years have rolled by since Ibsen's \"The\nDoll's House\" was first introduced to an English-speaking audience at\nthe Novelty Theatre in London--it is surely not necessary to dwell upon\nthe dwarfing and stifling effects upon women of even \"happy\" homes. In\nthe brilliant preface to \"Plays: Pleasant and Unpleasant,\" Bernard Shaw,\nreferring to middle-class home life, speaks of \"the normal English way\nbeing to sit in separate families in separate rooms in separate houses,\neach person silently occupied with a book, a paper, or a game of halma,\ncut off equally from the blessings of society and solitude.\" \"The\nresult,\" he continues, \"is that you may make the acquaintance of a\nthousand streets of middle-class English families without coming on a\ntrace of any consciousness of citizenship, or any artistic cultivation\nof the senses.\"\n\nIn the following paragraph he adds:\n\n\"In proportion as this horrible domestic institution is broken up by the\nactive social circulation of the upper classes in their own orbit, or\nits stagnant isolation made impossible by the overcrowding of the\nworking classes, manners improve enormously. In the middle classes\nthemselves the revolt of a single clever daughter (nobody has yet done\njustice to the modern clever Englishwoman's loathing of the very word\n'home'), and her insistence on qualifying herself for an independent\nworking life, humanizes her whole family in an astonishingly short time;\nand the formation of a habit of going to the suburban theatre once a\nweek, or to the Monday Popular Concerts, or both, very perceptibly\nameliorates its manners. But none of these breaches in the Englishman's\ncastle-house can be made without a cannonade of books and pianoforte\nmusic. The books and music cannot be kept out, because they alone can\nmake the hideous boredom of the hearth bearable. If its victims may not\nlive real lives, they may at least read about imaginary ones, and\nperhaps learn from them to doubt whether a class that not only submits\nto home life, but actually values itself on it, is really a class worth\nbelonging to. For the sake of the unhappy prisoners of the home, then,\nlet my plays be printed as well as acted.\"\n\nA concrete picture may give us a better idea of what Shaw means when he\ncalls women \"the unhappy prisoners of the home.\" In that magnificent\nscene in the third act of \"Candida,\" after Morell has called on Candida\nto choose between him and the poet, Marchbanks, Candida gives us a vivid\nglimpse of what her home life had been, in this speech, addressed to\nMarchbanks, and, in reading it, remember that Morell was \"a good\nhusband\" and that Candida loved him.\n\n\n     \"--You know how strong he (Morell) is--how clever he is--how happy!\n     Ask James's mother and his three sisters what it cost to save James\n     the trouble of doing anything but be strong and clever and happy.\n     Ask me what it costs to be James's mother and three sisters and\n     wife and mother to his children all in one. Ask Prossy and Maria\n     how troublesome the house is even when we have no visitors to help\n     us slice the onions. Ask the tradesmen who want to worry James and\n     spoil his beautiful sermons who it is that puts them off. When\n     there is money to give, he gives it: when there is money to refuse,\n     I refuse it. I build a castle of comfort and indulgence and love\n     for him, and stand sentinel always to keep little vulgar cares out.\n     I make him master here, though he does not know it, and could not\n     tell you a moment ago how it came to be so.\"\n\n\nThis should make it easy for us to understand why so many women are\nready to sympathize with William Morris in the sentiments he expressed\nin the following paragraph in \"Signs of Change:\"\n\n\"As to what extent it may be necessary or desirable for people under\nsocial order to live in common, we may differ pretty much according to\nour tendencies toward social life. For my part I can't see why we should\nthink it a hardship to eat with the people we work with; I am sure that\nas to many things, such as valuable books, pictures, and splendor of\nsurroundings, we shall find it better to club our means together; and I\nmust say that often when I have been sickened by the stupidity of the\nmean, idiotic rabbit warrens that rich men build for themselves in\nBayswater and elsewhere, I console myself with visions of the noble\ncommunal hall of the future, unsparing of materials, generous in worthy\nornament, alive with the noblest thoughts of our time, and the past,\nembodied in the best art which a free and manly people could produce;\nsuch an abode of man as no private enterprise could come anywhere near\nfor beauty and fitness, because only collective thought and collective\nlife could cherish the aspirations which would give birth to its beauty,\nor have the skill and leisure to carry them out. I for my part should\nthink it much the reverse of a hardship if I had to read my books and\nmeet my friends in such a place; nor do I think I am better off to live\nin a vulgar stuccoed house crowded with upholstery that I despise, in\nall respects degrading to the mind and enervating to the body to live\nin, simply because I call it my own, or my house.\"\n\n\nFrom the viewpoint of this historical materialism, the State loses its\nattribute of permanence and becomes the product of definite economic\nconditions--in a word, it is the child of economic inequality. \"The\nState,\" in the words of Engels, \"is the result of the desire to keep\ndown class conflicts. But, having arisen amid these conflicts, it is as\na rule the State of the most powerful economic class that by force of\nits economic supremacy becomes also the ruling political class, and thus\nacquires new means of subduing and exploiting the oppressed masses. The\nantique State was, therefore, the State of the slave owners for the\npurpose of holding the slaves in check. The feudal State was the organ\nof the nobility for the oppression of the serfs and dependent farmers.\nThe modern representative State is the tool of the capitalist exploiters\nof wage labor.\"[28]\n\n\"The State, then,\" Engels says on another page of the same work, \"did\nnot exist from all eternity. There have been societies without it, that\nhad no idea of any State or public power.[29] At a certain stage of\neconomic development, which was of necessity accompanied by a division\nof society into classes, the State became the inevitable result of this\ndivision. We are now rapidly approaching a stage of evolution in\nproduction, in which the existence of classes has not only ceased to be\na necessity, but becomes a positive fetter on production. Hence, these\nclasses must fall as inevitably as they once arose. The State must\nirrevocably fall with them. The society that is to reorganize production\non the basis of a free and equal association of the producers, will\ntransfer the machinery of the State where it will then belong--into the\nMuseum of Antiquities by the side of the spinning wheel and the bronze\nax.\"[30]\n\nIn another work, he says: \"The first act by virtue of which the State\nreally constitutes itself the representative of the whole of\nsociety--the taking possession of the means of production in the name of\nSociety--this is, at the same time, its last independent act as a State.\nState interference in social relations becomes, in one domain after\nanother, superfluous, and then dies out of itself; the government of\npersons is replaced by the administration of things, and by the conduct\nof processes of production. The State is not abolished. _It dies\nout._\"[31]\n\nIt is thus seen that, according to the teaching of historical\nmaterialism, the State is destined, when it becomes the State of the\nworking-class, to remove its own foundation--economic inequality--and\nthus, to commit suicide.\n\nMany of those, who have witnessed with mingled consternation and\namusement the strenuous efforts of Mr. Roosevelt and the frantic zeal of\nMr. Hearst to enlarge the scope of governmental action to cover every\nconceivable field of human activity from spelling to beef-canning, will\nhail with delight Engels' tidings that the State is to \"die out.\"\n\n\nThe thesis, that the realization of the socialist ideal involves the\natrophy of Religion, the metamorphosis of the Family, and the suicide of\nthe State, would now appear to be sufficiently demonstrated.\n\nOne cannot help wondering what proportion of the \"educated and\nprofessional\" persons, who, Mr. Street testifies, are in growing numbers\nyielding to the lure of Socialism, really desire these results. Many of\nthem, no doubt, are trying on a new field the old experiment of serving\nGod and Mammon, of putting new wine into old bottles. Ibsen's Nora,\nthough she had far less learning than is usual in the \"educated and\nprofessional classes\" of England and America, was, in this matter, far\nwiser than are they. When the falsehood and slavery of life in \"The\nDoll's House\" became unbearable to her, she knew that she must choose\nbetween the Old and the New; and that, if she chose the new life of\nrevolt and freedom, she must leave behind her all the badges of her\ndoll's life. Had she taken with her the trinkets and gauds that the\nmaster of the Doll's House had given her, she would not have escaped\nfrom the doll's life when she turned her back on the Doll's House. Her\nwoman's instinct did not fail her, and, when, with a woman's courage she\nchose the New and left the Old, she told Torvald, \"Whatever belongs to\nme I shall take with me. I will have nothing from you either now or\nlater on.\"\n\nMany of the young people of education, who have of late come into the\nsocialist movement, have left--temporarily, at least--the Doll's House\nof conservatism; but they have brought with them many of the habits of\nthought, many of the conventions of their old doll's life. Some of them,\ndoubtless, realizing that the Materialist Conception of History involves\nthe Nihilism of Socialism, and thus calls on them to abandon their\nreligious, metaphysical, and dualistic habits of thought, to cast aside\ntheir conventional class morality, to cease vaporing about that\nimpossible monstrosity, \"the Socialist State,\" attempt to cut the\nGordian knot by denying the Materialist Conception of History, while\nclinging to their socialist ideal. They thus repeat in inverted form the\ncurious feat in intellectual acrobatics performed by Professor Seligman,\nwho believes in historical materialism, but rejects Socialism. \"There\nis nothing in common,\" he asserts, \"between the economic interpretation\nof history and the doctrine of socialism, except the accidental fact\nthat the originator of both theories happened to be the same man.\" And a\nfew pages further on he reiterates: \"Socialism and 'historical\nmaterialism' are entirely independent-conceptions.\"[32]\n\nTo the educated socialists, who deny or mutilate the doctrine of\nhistorical materialism, the materialist socialist might well reply by\nasserting that these educated socialists are socialists only because of\nthe artistic, intellectual, ethical, and spiritual changes they expect\nthe economic revolution of socialism to produce. The fact that they,\nlovers of \"the things of the spirit,\" are socialists proves that they\nbelieve, albeit unconsciously, in economic determinism.\n\nBut, although this personal argument might Well be deemed sufficient, it\ncan readily be proven affirmatively that the whole theory of Modern\nSocialism rests upon the foundation of historical materialism. This\nclearly appears in the' admirable summary of the teachings of Marx that\nGabriel Deville gives in the Preface to his epitome of Marx's \"Capital.\"\n\n\n     \"History, Marx has shown, is nothing but the history of class\n     conflicts. The division of society into classes, which made its\n     appearance with the social life of man, rests on economic\n     relations--maintained by force--which enable some to succeed in\n     shifting on to the shoulders of others the natural necessity of\n     labor.\n\n     \"Material interests have always been the inciting motives of the\n     incessant struggles of the privileged classes, either with, each\n     other, or against the inferior classes at whose expense they live.\n     Man is dominated by the material conditions of life, and these\n     conditions, and therefore the mode of production, have determined\n     and will determine human customs, ethics, and institutions--social,\n     economic, political, juridical, etc.\n\n     \"As soon as one part of society has monopolized the means of\n     production, the other part, upon whom the burden of labor falls, is\n     obliged to add to the labor-time necessary for its own support, a\n     certain surplus-labor-time, for which it receives no\n     equivalent,--time that is devoted to supporting and enriching the\n     possessors of the means of production. As an extractor of unpaid\n     labor, which, by means of the increasing surplus-value whose source\n     it is, accumulates every day, more and more, in the hands of the\n     proprietary class the instruments of its dominion, the capitalist\n     regime surpasses in power all the antecedent regimes founded on\n     compulsory labor.\n\n     \"But to-day, the economic conditions begotten by this regime,\n     trammelled in their natural evolution by this very regime,\n     inexorably tend to break the capitalist mould which can no longer\n     contain them, and these destroying principles are the elements of\n     the new society.\n\n     \"The historic mission of the class at present exploited, the\n     proletariat, which is being organized and disciplined by the very\n     mechanism of capitalist production, is to complete the work of\n     destruction begun by the development of social antagonisms. It\n     must, first of all, definitively wrest from its class adversaries\n     the political power--the command of the force devoted by them to\n     preserving intact their economic monopolies and privileges.\n\n     \"Once in control of the political power, it will be able, by\n     proceeding to the socialization of the means of production through\n     the expropriation of the usurpers of the fruits of others' toil, to\n     suppress the present contradiction between collective production\n     and private capitalist appropriation, and to realize the\n     universalization of labor, and the abolition of classes.\"[33]\n\n\nIf the \"educated and professional\" socialists cannot break the chain of\nthis logic, they find themselves, as Nora did, face to face with the\nnecessity of making a choice. Behind them is the old doll's house life\nwith its manifold conventions--once useful, but through economic\nevolution outgrown and thus become false and deadly--a life, easy\nenough mayhap, but wholly devoid of idealism; before them is the new\nlife of freedom, of revolt against outworn beliefs and conventions--a\nlife of great difficulty, mayhap, but a life cheered by a noble\nideal--an ideal in whose realization the socialist materialists believe\nas fully, as passionately as the ancient Hebrews believed in the\nfulfilment of the Messianic prophecies.\n\nTheirs is a hard case. Without ideals they cannot, in any worthy sense,\nlive. The only possible ideal, that even the keen eyes of so shrewd an\nobserver as Mr. Street can perceive, is the ideal of Socialism. But they\ncannot accept this ideal without abandoning much, I do not say that is\ndear to them, but much that by habit and tradition has become part and\nparcel of their intellectual being.\n\nIf they decide to go forward into the New, the old world of dolls'\nhouses must become a strange land to them. In the difficulties and\ntrials of the new life, they cannot send back for aid to the old world,\nwhich will have become a world of strangers to them. Nora's woman's\ninstinct did not fail her here; when Torvald asked if he could send help\nto her in case of need, her unhesitating reply was, \"No, I say. I take\nnothing from strangers.\"\n\nFar better is the case of the workingman attracted by the socialist\nideal. The Nihilism of Socialism has no deterrent terrors for him, for,\nas Karl Marx said long ago, \"he has nothing to lose but his chains, and\na whole world to gain.\" He has long since lost all interest in religion;\nthe factory by enlisting his wife and children as workers has already\ndestroyed his home; and to him the State means nothing but the club of\nthe policeman, the injunction of the judge, and the rifle of the\nmilitiaman.\n\nBut for the man of the \"educated and professional classes\" leaving the\ndoll's house is indeed a difficult task. For its performance three\nthings are requisite: a free and open mind, courage, and a vivid\nimagination. The Russian genius, Peshkoff (Maxim Gorky), did it, and did\nit with relative ease because he was a workingman _before_ he became an\neducated man. For the same reason, though in a less degree, Jack London\nhas also done it successfully, though here and there he still lapses\ninto the doll's mode of thought. The sex-interest in the latter part of\n\"The Sea Wolf\" is obviously treated from the dolls' point of view; but\nit should be remembered that Mr. London necessarily expected the\nmajority of the purchasers of \"The Sea Wolf\" to be dolls. But, in spite\nof this instance, we may be sure that Jack London brought but little\nwith him when he left the Doll's House; and I am very sure he never\nsends back to have parcels forwarded to him.\n\nWhen Mr. Upton Sinclair left the Doll's House, he evidently stuffed his\nmental pockets with a large assortment of intellectual _lingerie_ and\nmillinery from the doll wardrobes. In telling us what Life means to him\nin a recent magazine, he says that during a certain stress and storm\nperiod of his life he lived in close intimacy with three friends who\n\"loved\" him \"very dearly.\" \"Their names are Jesus, Hamlet and Shelley.\"\nCan any one imagine William Morris writing a sentiment so perfectly\nsatisfying to a doll's sense of beauty? When I read these lines there\nrises before me a picture of the author tastefully robed in an exquisite\ndress--a doll's dress--of dotted swiss.[34]\n\nRecently he has started a Co-operative Home Colony quite in the spirit\nof the bourgeois Utopians who founded Brook Farm more than\nhalf-a-century ago. Colony-founding, historians tell us, was a favorite\namusement of the dolls of that era.\n\nIn the \"Times Magazine\" (for December 1906) he tells us that \"the home\nhas endured for ages, and through all the ages it has stayed about the\nsame.\" This belief, I am informed, is almost universal among dolls.\n\nI find myself the prey of a growing suspicion that Mr. Sinclair from\ntime to time receives express parcels from the \"Doll's House.\"\n\nWilliam Morris was a genius; he had a free and open mind; he had\ncourage; and he had a vivid imagination. When he left the Doll's House,\nhe took nothing with him, and he never afterward took anything \"from\nstrangers.\" It was his poet's imagination that enabled him to write\n\"News from Nowhere,\" the only Utopia in whose communal halls the unwary\nreader does not stumble over dolls' furniture. Morris is the perfect\ntype of the man of culture turned revolutionist.[35]\n\nMr. H. G. Wells has recently written a Utopian romance, \"In the Days of\nthe Comet,\" which, although it possesses in the fullest measure Mr.\nWells' well known charm of style, is in substance at best a very feeble\necho of \"News from Nowhere.\" One of the modes of thought specially\ncharacteristic of eighteenth century French dolls is strongly to the\nfore in Mr. Wells' treatment of war. In the conversations \"after the\nChange\" between Melmount, the famous Cabinet Minister, and the pitiful,\ncowardly, inefficient hero (?), Leadford, they both appear to be\ninexpressibly shocked at the _unreasonableness_ of war. It is true it is\nsomewhat difficult to tell just what Melmount did think or feel, for\nMelmount is in one particular like Boston's distinguished _litterateur_,\nMr. Lawson,--he appears to be constantly on the point of uttering some\ngreat thought, but never utters it. But so far as light is given us\nMelmount after the Change seems to have looked on war much as Carlyle\ndid long before. Every one remembers Carlyle's two groups of\npeasants,[36] living hundreds of miles apart, who never heard of each\nother, and had not the slightest quarrel, the one with the other, but\nwho none-the-less obeyed the orders of their respective kings, and\nmarched until they met, and at the word of command shot each other into\ncorpses. Most of us will agree with Carlyle and Melmount that, viewed\nfrom the peasants' standpoint, this was unreasonable to the point of\nsheer folly.\n\nBut, if I understand Mr. Wells aright, he seems to elevate the reason of\nthe peasant into something very like the \"eternal reason\" of Diderot and\nRousseau. He apparently forgets for the nonce that Engels long ago\npointed out that \"this eternal reason was in reality nothing but the\nidealized understanding of the eighteenth century citizen, just then\nevolving into the bourgeois.\" The difficulty that Mr. Wells will\nencounter in trying to bring human society into harmony with \"eternal\nreason\" is the impossibility of getting different classes of men to\nagree as to what is reasonable. No one outside of dolls' houses any\nlonger believes in \"eternal reason.\" Every man and every class has an\nideal of what is reasonable, but these ideals vary. War is unreasonable\nto the peasant-target; it is also unreasonable to Melmount and Mr. Wells\nso far as they are representatives of the citizens of the classless\nsociety of the future, a society based on social solidarity, on\nworld-wide brotherhood. But to the socialist materialist, war, in a\nworld based on private ownership of the means of production used to\nproduce commodities, with its concomitants, the wage-system,\ncompetition--domestic and international,--and ever-recurring\n\"over-production,\" is so very far from unreasonable that it is\nabsolutely inevitable.[37]\n\nMr. Wells evidently brought something with him when he left the Doll's\nHouse.\n\nWe now begin to realize what a very difficult matter it is to rid the\nmind completely of the effects of what Professor Veblen calls \"the\ninstitutional furniture handed down from the past.\" The man, who yields\nto the lure of Socialism, must sooner or later effect a revolution\nwithin his own mind; if he does not, he will sooner or later return to\nhis Doll's House, or make an excursion into some field of \"pragmatic\nromance\" where he will build himself a new doll's house.\n\nGranted the truth of historical materialism, how will future\ngenerations look on the literature of to-day and yesterday? To a\ngeneration wholly untrained in theological, metaphysical and dualistic\nmodes of thought how much meaning will there be in the poetry of\nTennyson and Browning? For my part, I never read Browning now without\nbeing unpleasantly reminded of the aphorism Nietzsche put into the mouth\nof Zarathustra: \"Alas, it is true I have cast my net in their (poets')\nseas and tried to catch good fish; but I always drew up the head of some\nold God.\"\n\nBut I am glad to believe that the matchless melody and the chiseled\nbeauty of Tennyson's verse will charm the senses of men to whom his\ncurious mixture of pantheism and Broad Church theology, which the middle\nclasses of England and America in the latter decades of the nineteenth\ncentury welcomed as the ultimate massage of philosophy, will not be\nridiculous only because it will be meaningless. But I am unable to think\nof the men of the future deriving any pleasure from our greatest poet,\nBrowning. On the other hand it is not impossible that the fame of\nSwinburne will stand higher in the twenty-first century than it does in\nthis opening decade of the twentieth.\n\nThe men and women of the future will, I am sure, feel themselves akin\nto Shelley. They will probably enjoy Byron too, so far as they\nunderstand him; but men and women, who have never known any relationship\nbetween the sexes but that of independence and equality, will be bored\nand baffled by that great bulk of Byron's verse which shocked his\ncontemporaries.\n\nWhen we turn to the drama, it appears probable that the revolution in\nthe relations of the sexes will convert into mere materials for the\nhistorian even our greatest plays, such as Ibsen's \"The Doll's House,\"\nSudermann's \"The Joy of Living,\" Maeterlinck's \"Monna Vanna,\" and Shaw's\n\"Mrs. Warren's Profession.\"\n\nAre the \"educated and professional\" socialists prepared to accept gladly\nsuch tremendous changes? They are confronted by a momentous question. It\nwas of their class William Morris was thinking when he wrote:\n\n\n     \"I have looked at this claim by the light of history and my own\n     conscience, and it seems to me so looked at to be a most just\n     claim, and that resistance to it means nothing short of a denial of\n     the hope of civilization.\n\n     This, then, is the claim:--\n\n     _It is right and necessary that all men should have work to do\n     which shall be worth doing, and be of itself pleasant to do: and\n     which should be done under such conditions as would make it neither\n     over-wearisome nor over-anxious._\n\n     Turn that claim about as I may, think of it as long as I can, I\n     cannot find that it is an exorbitant claim; yet again I say if\n     Society would or could admit it, the face of the world would be\n     changed; discontent and strife and dishonesty would be ended. To\n     feel that we were doing work useful to others and pleasant to\n     ourselves, and that such work and its due reward _could_ not fail\n     us! What serious harm could happen to us then? And the price to be\n     paid for so making the world happy is Revolution.\"[38]\n\n\nAre they willing to pay the price? Nora paid the price for her freedom\nand paid it in full.\n\n_She took nothing from strangers._\n\nIf they are unwilling to pay the price, what is there left for them save\nthe joyless sensuality and black despair of pessimism?\n\nFOOTNOTES:\n\n[7] \"The Theory of Business Enterprise,\" Veblen, New York, 1904. Pages\n351, 352. See also my article on Veblen the Revolutionist, International\nSocialist Review, June, 1905, vol. V, page 726.\n\n[8] Throughout this article \"nihilism\" is not used in its strict\ntechnical or philosophical sense, but is used simply as a convenient\nterm by which to designate the aggregate of those aspects of Socialism\nwhich, viewed from the standpoint of the existing regime, appear as\nnegative and destructive.\n\n[9] \"A Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy.\" Karl Marx,\nNew York, 1904. Pages 11, 12.\n\n[10] \"See Philosophical Essays,\" Joseph Dietzgen, Chicago, 1906. Pages\n174 and 52.\n\n[11] \"Essays on the Materialistic Conception of History.\" Antonio\nLabriola, Chicago, 1904. Pages 85, 86.\n\n[12] l. c. pages 155-6, 158.\n\n[13] \"Philosophical Essays.\" Dietzgen. Page 86.\n\n[14] \"Socialism and Modern Science.\" Enrico Ferri, New York, 1904. Pages\n60, 61.\n\n[15] \"Philosophical Essays.\" Dietzgen. Page 116.\n\n[16] The reader will observe that Ferri reads into the Erfurt\npronouncement on religion (quoted in full above) a broader spirit of\ntolerance than its words necessarily imply.\n\n[17] See \"The Theory of the Leisure Class.\" Thorstein Veblen, New York,\n1905. Pages 287, 288.\n\n[18] Marx in \"Zur Kritik der Hegelschen Rechts Philosophie.\"\n\n[19] \"The Origin of the Family, Private Property and the State.\" F.\nEngels, Chicago, 1905. Page 99, and \"Woman under Socialism,\" August\nBebel, New York, 1904. Page 127.\n\n[20] Engels, \"Origin of the Family, &c.\" Page 100.\n\n[21] (Mrs. Parsons'.) The enlightened public opinion of to-day finds the\nchief if not the only warrant for universal male suffrage in its being\nan educational means. In this view women need the suffrage at present\neven more than men.\n\n[22] (Mrs. Parsons'.) Dr. Alice Drysdale Vickery gave striking\nexpression to one phase of this subject at a recent discussion of the\nLondon Sociological Society. She urged that _without economic\nindependence_ the individuality of woman could not exercise that natural\nselective power in the choice of a mate which was probably a main factor\nin the spiritual evolution of the race. _The American Journal of\nSociology_, Sept., 1905. Page 279.\n\n[23] (LaMonte's.) No wonder such a startling hypothesis aroused the ire\nof our clerical friends.\n\n[24] (LaMonte's.) It is worthy of note that this suggestion of a serious\nmodification of marriage _under existing economic conditions_ comes\ncharacteristically, not from a Socialist, but from the wife of a\nRepublican member of Congress and the daughter of a distinguished\nfinancier.\n\n[25] (Mrs. Parsons'.) Through the discovery of certain and innocuous\nmethods of preventing conception. The application of this knowledge\nwould have to be encouraged by public opinion in cases where conception\nwould result in a degenerate offspring. Public opinion would also have\nto endorse the segregation of persons tainted with communicable sexual\ndisease.\n\n[26] Berlin cablegram in the New York Sun of Dec. 7, 1906.\n\n[27] \"Origin of the Family, &c.,\" Pages 91, 92. See also Bebel, \"Woman\nunder Socialism,\" Page 122, and elsewhere.\n\n[28] \"Origin of the Family &c.\" Pages 208, 209.\n\n[29] On the existence of organized societies without a co-ercive State,\nsee also, \"Ancient Society.\" Lewis H. Morgan, Chicago, 1907.\n\n[30] \"Origin of the Family &c.\" Pages 211, 212.\n\n[31] \"Socialism: Utopian and Scientific.\" F. Engels, Chicago, 1905.\nPages 76, 77.\n\n[32] \"The Economic Interpretation of History.\" Edwin R. A. Seligman, New\nYork, 1903. Pages 105 and 109.\n\n[33] \"The People's Marx.\" Gabriel Deville, New York, 1900. Pages 18, 19.\n\n[34] Cartoonists are warned that this idea is protected by copyright.\n\n[35] The other day I chanced upon a pamphlet by one Oscar Lovell Triggs\nof Chicago. It bore the title, \"William Morris, Craftsman, Writer and\nSocial Reformer.\" In turning over its pages I was somewhat startled to\nread: \"'Scientific' socialism he never understood or advocated.\" And\nagain further on my eye fell on this gem: \"It is apparent that Morris's\n'Socialism' is poetic and not scientific socialism.\" This pamphlet\nshould have a place of honor in every doll's library.\n\n[36] In \"Sartor Resartus.\"\n\n[37] In fact, Professor Veblen has shown that for the last quarter of a\ncentury the commonest cause of seasons of \"ordinary prosperity\" has been\nwar. See \"The Theory of Business Enterprise.\" Pages 250-1.\n\n[38] From \"Art and Socialism,\" a pamphlet that is now rare.\n\n\n\n\nTHE BIOGENETIC LAW\n\n\nIt is very easy to go too far in drawing analogies between biology and\nsociology. Society--as yet, at least--is not an organism in the sense\nthat a tree or a mammal is. It is quite true that with the perfect\norganization and solidarity to which Socialists look forward the analogy\nwill be more complete than it is to-day, but for the present we must\nalways remember that, as the lawyers would say, \"the cases are not on\nall fours.\" If we bear these reservations in mind laws drawn from\nnatural science are often of the greatest aid in enabling us to\nunderstand the phenomena of psychology and sociology.\n\nOne of the most helpful of these laws of science is the biogenetic law\nwhich is always associated with the great name of Ernest Haeckel, its\nmost distinguished exponent. Doctor William Boelsche, in his book[39] on\nHaeckel, uses, to illustrate this law, the familiar example of the\nfrog. The mother frog lays her eggs in the water. In due course a new\nlittle frog develops from each of these eggs. But the object that\ndevelops from them is altogether different from the adult frog. This\nobject is the familiar fish-like tadpole. It finally loses its tail,\ndevelops legs, and becomes a frog. Doctor Boelsche discusses the matter\nas follows:--\n\n\"There are reasons on every hand for believing that the frogs and\nsalamanders, which now stand higher in classification than the fishes,\nwere developed from the fishes in earlier ages in the course of\nprogressive evolution. Once upon a time they were fishes. If that is so,\nthe curious phenomenon we have been considering really means that each\nyoung frog resembles its fish ancestors. In each case to-day the frog's\negg first produces the earlier or ancestral stage, the fish, it then\ndevelops rapidly into a frog. In other words, the individual development\nrecapitulates an important chapter of the earlier history of the whole\nrace of frogs. Putting this in the form of a law, it runs: each new\nindividual must, in its development, pass rapidly through the form of\nits parents' ancestors before it assumes the parent form itself. If a\nnew individual frog is to be developed and if the ancestors of the\nwhole frog stem were fishes, the first thing to develop from the frog's\negg will be a fish and it will only later assume the form of a frog.\n\n\"That is a simple and pictorial outline of what we mean when we speak of\nthe biogenetic law. We need, of course, much more than the one frog-fish\nbefore we can erect it into a law. But we have only to look around us\nand we find similar phenomena as common as pebbles.\n\n\"Let us bear in mind that evolution proceeded from certain amphibia to\nthe lizards and from these to the birds and mammals. That is a long\njourney, but we have no alternative. If the amphibia (such as the frog\nand the salamander) descend from the fishes, all the higher classes up\nto man himself must also have done so. Hence the law must have\ntransmitted even to ourselves this ancestral form of the gill-breathing\nfish.\n\n\"What a mad idea, many will say, that man should at one time be a\ntadpole like the frog! And yet--there's no help in prayer, as Falstaff\nsaid--even the human germ or embryo passes through a stage at which it\nshows the outlines of gills on the throat just like a fish. It is the\nsame with the dog, the horse, the kangaroo, the duck mole, the bird,\nthe crocodile, the turtle, the lizard. They all have the same structure.\n\n\"Nor is this an isolated fact. From the fish was evolved the amphibian.\nFrom this came the lizard. From the lizard came the bird. The lizard has\nsolid teeth in its mouth. The bird has no teeth in its beak. That is to\nsay, it has none to-day. But it had when it was a lizard. Here, then we\nhave an intermediate stage between the fish and the bird. We must expect\nthat the bird embryo in the egg will show some trace of it. As a matter\nof fact, it does so. When we examine young parrots in the egg we find\nthat they have teeth in their mouth before the bill is formed. When the\nfact was first discovered, the real intermediate form between the lizard\nand the bird was not known. It was afterwards discovered at Solenhofen\nin a fossil impression from the Jurassic period. This was the\narcheopteryx, which had feathers like a real bird and yet had teeth in\nits mouth like the lizard when it lived on earth. The instance is\ninstructive in two ways. In the first place it shows that we were quite\njustified in drawing our conclusions as to the past from the bird's\nembryonic form, even if the true transitional form between the lizard\nand the bird were never discovered at all. In the second place, we see\nin the young bird in the egg the reproduction of two consecutive\nancestral stages: one in the fish gills, the other in the lizard-like\nteeth. Once the law is admitted, there can be nothing strange in this.\nIf one ancestral stage, that of the fish, is reproduced in the young\nanimal belonging to a higher group, why not several?--why not all of\nthem? No doubt, the ancestral series of the higher forms is of enormous\nlength. What an immense number of stages there must have been before the\nfish! And then we have still the amphibian, the lizard, and the bird or\nmammal, up to man.\n\n\"Why should not the law run: the whole ancestral series must be\nreproduced in the development of each individual organism? We are now in\na position to see the whole bearing of Haeckel's idea.\"\n\nIn analogy with this, is it not true that every thinking man and woman\nin the course of his or her development, epitomizes the history of human\nthought? To be more specific, I take it that you, reader, are an\neducated man of middle-class origin, and that you have been a socialist\nfor at least six months, and have, of course, read Engels' \"Socialism:\nUtopian and Scientific.\" Now, is it not a fact that your socialism has\ndeveloped from Utopia toward Science exactly along the lines Engels has\ntraced for the movement at large? So true was this in my case that for a\nlong time I was inclined to push the biogenetic law too far and to\nconclude that every socialist had traveled the same road. I still think\nthe law holds here, but not in the narrow way I first applied it.\n\nIn the course of my work as an agitator (and socialist agitation is the\nbest School of Socialism) I met many sterling socialists who had never\nbeen Utopians as I had. They were born fighters, so to speak, and had\nbeen full of the class spirit, and fighting the capitalists in the\ntrade-union and elsewhere in every way they could think of, long before\nthey had ever heard of the ideal of the Co-operative Commonwealth. And\nthese men are among our best and most uncompromising socialists. Here\nwas a hard problem for me. I believed in my law, but it did not seen to\ncover the cases of these militant socialists. I was long in solving the\nproblem, but I solved it at last.\n\nSocialism has two aspects. As the most vital fact of modern life it is a\nkinetic force. \"Modern Socialism\" in Engels' words \"is, in its essence,\nthe direct product of the recognition on the one hand, of the class\nantagonisms, existing in the society of to-day, between proprietors and\nnon-proprietors, between capitalists and wage-workers; on the other\nhand, of the anarchy existing in production.\" This is Socialism, the\nmost pregnant actuality in the palpitating life all about us. But, as\nEngels pointed out, Socialism also has its ideological side. In this\nsense it may correctly be called a theory, if we bear in mind that it is\nthe virile force of class-feeling, and not the theory, that is going to\neffect the Social Revolution. Now, every individual socialist does in\nhis development conform to the biogenetic law; but the bourgeois\nsocialist is more apt to epitomize the history of Socialist theory,\nwhile the proletarian socialist recapitulates the development of class\nfeeling as a kinetic force from blind and often unavailing hatred of the\nrich to the fruitful class-consciousness of the Marxian Socialist. The\nindividual may combine these two processes in varying proportions; but\nin broad outline the bourgeois may be expected to reproduce fairly\nclosely the history of Socialism, as a theory, while the proletarian\nreproduces the history of Socialism, the great kinetic force.\n\nWhile, from the standpoint of socialist theory, the statement of Doctor\nParkhurst and many others that \"Christ was a Socialist\" is a manifest\nabsurdity, the historian who traces back the history of Socialism, the\nkinetic force, will surely be led by the chain of facts to James and\nJesus and Isaiah. For they were among those who gave most effective\nexpression to the class hatred which is the lineal ancestor of Marxian\nSocialism viewed as a kinetic actuality. In this sense Jesus was one of\nthe founders of Socialism.\n\nHere are a few extracts from these ancient sowers of the seeds of\ndiscontent:\n\n\n     \"The Lord will enter into judgment with the ancients of his people,\n     and the princes thereof: for ye have eaten up the vineyard; the\n     spoil of the poor is in your houses.\n\n     What mean ye that ye beat my people to pieces, and grind the faces\n     of the poor? saith the Lord God of hosts.\"\n\n     \"Wo unto them that join house to house, that lay field to field,\n     till there be no place, that they may be placed alone in the midst\n     of the earth!\" ISAIAH.\n\n     \"Verily I say unto you, That a rich man shall hardly enter the\n     kingdom of heaven.\n\n     And again I say unto you, It is easier for a camel to go through\n     the eye of a needle, than for a rich man to enter into the kingdom\n     of God.\"\n\n     \"Wo unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye devour\n     widows' houses, and for a pretense make long prayer: therefore ye\n     shall receive the greater damnation.\" JESUS.\n\n     \"Go to now, ye rich men, weep and howl for your miseries that shall\n     come upon you.\n\n     Your riches are corrupted, and your garments are moth-eaten.\n\n     Your gold and silver is cankered; and the rust of them shall be a\n     witness against you, and shall eat your flesh as it were fire. Ye\n     have heaped treasure together for the last days.\n\n     Behold, the hire of the labourers who have reaped down your fields,\n     which is of you kept back by fraud, crieth; and the cries of them\n     which have reaped are entered into the ears of the Lord of\n     Sabaoth.\"\n                                                              JAMES.\n\n\nJames would appear to have been somewhat more class-conscious than is\ndeemed decorous by most of our modern Christian Socialists. But Isaiah\nand Jesus and James all give expression to precisely the same fierce\nemotions that I have many a time seen blazing out of the eyes of poor\nhopeless proletarians grouped around the soap-box; and it is the glory\nof Modern Socialism that it has been able to transform this fierce class\nhatred into intelligent class-consciousness which aims by loyalty to the\nProletariat to rescue the rich as well as the poor from the fatal curse\nof economic inequality.\n\nThe bourgeois and the proletarian who come into the Socialist movement\nboth have tadpole tails to lose in the course of their development into\nscientific socialists; but the tails are different. The proletarian has\nto rid himself of his hatred of the rich as individuals. He has to learn\nthat Rockefeller, just as much as he himself, is a product of economic\nconditions. After he once thoroughly learns this there will be no danger\nof his being a Democrat or Anarchist or any other species of dangerous\nreactionary. The bourgeois tail is harder to lose. It consists of\nanimistic, theological and dualistic habits of thought, issuing in\nutopianism and non-materialistic idealism. For, if I may be permitted to\ntoy with the Hegelian dialectic in the manner of Marx, no man can be a\nfruitful idealist until he has become a materialist.\n\nThe reader of this volume will probably find himself able to agree\npretty fully with what I have said in \"Science and Socialism.\" That is\nbecause, when I wrote that, I had not fully gotten rid of my idealistic\ntadpole tail. He will probably have more difficulty in assenting to the\ntheses of \"The Nihilism of Socialism.\" That is because he has not yet\ngotten rid of his tadpole tail. I do not wish to be understood as\nspeaking with contempt or depreciation of the tadpole tails. Without\ntheir aid most of us bourgeois socialist frogs would never have been\nable to get out of our old conservative shells. It was the utopianism of\nour tails, in most cases, that first cracked the shell.\n\nI should be sorry to have any reader interpret the materialism of \"The\nNihilism of Socialism\" into a disposition to deny or depreciate the\ngreat and beneficent influence that Christianity has had in the past. I\nshould be greatly chagrined to be accused of irreverence in discussing\nreligion. Irreverence is ever a sign of a narrow intellectual horizon\nand a limited vision. The scoffer is the product of the limited\nknowledge characteristic of what Engels called \"metaphysical\nmaterialism.\" Unfortunately the mental development of many in the past\nhas been arrested at this Ingersoll-Voltaire stage. But with the growth\nof Modern Socialism the tendency is for the metaphysical materialist to\n_grow_ into socialist or dialectic materialism with its Hegelian\nwatchword, \"Nothing is; every thing is becoming.\"\n\nThe socialist materialist realizes that the obsolescent ideals of\nChristianity and the Family have played leading roles in the great drama\nof human progress. It is impossible for him to speak lightly or\ncontemptuously of the ideals which have sustained and comforted, guided\nand cheered countless hosts of his fellows through the long, dark ages\nof Christian Faith. But he knows that those ages are past and that\npresent day adherence to the old ideals is atavistic and reactionary.\nBut none-the-less his mental attitude toward the old ideals is one of\nreverent sympathy and, I had almost added, gratitude. This state of\nfeeling has found perfect expression in these lines by William Morris:\n\n\n     \"They are gone--the lovely, the mighty, the hope of the ancient\n       Earth:\n     It shall labor and bear the burden as before that day of their\n       birth;\n     It shall groan in its blind abiding for the day that Sigurd hath\n       sped,\n     And the hour that Brynhild hath hastened, and the dawn that waketh\n       the dead;\n     It shall yearn, and be oft-times holpen, and forget their deeds no\n       more,\n     Till the new sun beams on Baldur, and the happy sea-less shore.\"\n                                   (From SIGURD the VOLSUNG.)\n\n\nFOOTNOTE:\n\n[39] Haeckel: His Life and Work. By William Boelsche. George W. Jacobs &\nCompany.\n\n\n\n\nKISMET.\n\n\n     \"Verily I say unto you. That there be some of them that stand here\n     which shall not taste of death, till they have seen the kingdom of\n     God come with power.\" Mark, ix, 1.\n\n\nThe very close analogy between primitive Christianity and Modern\nSocialism has often been pointed out both by materialists, such as\nEnrico Ferri, and by Churchmen, such as the Reverend Doctor Hall.\n\nWe find in both the doctrine of the Advent. The primitive Christian\nbelieved in all simplicity and sincerity that he should not taste death\nuntil the Son of Man had come and established upon earth His kingdom of\njustice, peace and brotherhood. The Marxian Socialist to-day is even\nmore sure that men and women now living will bear a part in the Social\nRevolution which is to usher in the reign of Fellowship on earth. The\nsecret of the propaganda power of both movements is in the sincerity of\nthis conviction.\n\nJust at this point we are often met with two queries, both of which\nbear witness to the persistence of the utopian tadpole tails of the\nquestioners. The first question is: If the early Christians were sincere\nand yet mistaken, may not the Socialists also be mistaken in their\ndoctrine of the inevitability of Socialism? The second question is: If\nSocialism is inevitable--is coming anyhow--why do you Socialists vex\nyour souls agitating for it?\n\nThe doubt of the inevitability of Socialism on analysis is always found\nto be a doubt of the pro-socialist desires and actions of the\nProletariat. No one disputes that the Capitalist system is breaking\ndown. With the great mass of the producers receiving bare subsistence\nwages the impossibility of disposing of the almost miraculously\nstupendous product of modern machines and processes is mathematically\ndemonstrable. The former paradox of the Socialist agitator, that the\nUtopian is the man who believes in the possibility of the continuance of\nthe present system, has become a platitude. Nor can many be found to\ndispute the statement that the centralization of industry in the United\nStates has reached a point where Socialism is economically entirely\npracticable. The doubt of the sceptics is: Will the workers create, in\nthe language of economics, an effective demand for Socialism? Two\neminent Utopians have voiced this doubt in the recent past. Their names\nare George D. Herron and Daniel DeLeon. Both alike forget that the\ndesires, ideals, and motives of the proletariat cannot but be in harmony\nwith their economic environment, and I do not think that either of them\nwould deny that, as we near the downfall of Capitalism, the economic\nenvironment will more and more imperatively drive men to Socialism as\nthe only avenue of escape from chaos and pessimism. On this point, of\nthe motives to action of the individual being formed by economic\nconditions, Marx wrote in \"The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte\":\n\"On the various forms of property, on the conditions of social\nexistence, there rises an entire superstructure of various and\npeculiarly formed sensations, illusions, methods of thought and views of\nlife. The whole class fashions and moulds them from out of their\nmaterial foundations and their corresponding social relations. The\nsingle individual, in whom they converge through tradition and\neducation, is apt to imagine that they constitute the real determining\ncauses and the point of departure of his action.\" (Prof. Seligman's\ntranslation.)\n\nThe man who has thoroughly assimilated the doctrine of historical\nmaterialism cannot for a moment doubt the inevitability of Socialism.\nThe utopianism which evinces itself in this doubt may be depended upon\nto betray itself elsewhere in the views of the doubters. We find that\nthis is signally true in the case of the two illustrious utopian\nsceptics I have mentioned. The Natural Rights platform that Professor\nHerron wrote and the Socialist Party adopted in 1904 is only less\nutopian than Daniel DeLeon's curiously childish conceit that in the\nhighly factitious, \"wheel of fortune\" form of organization of the\nIndustrial Workers of the World[40] we have the precise frame-work of\nthe coming Co-operative Commonwealth.\n\nIt does not seem too much to say that doubt of the inevitability of\nSocialism is in all cases a symptom of failure to apprehend clearly the\nfull implications of the Materialist Conception of History.\n\nThe second question, If Socialism is inevitable, why do Socialists work\nto bring it about?, would appear to have been answered by implication in\nthe course of our discussion of the first question. In brief, we work\nfor it because we know that if we did not it would never come. It is\ninevitable simply because Socialists are inevitable. Our activity as\nSocialist agitators is a necessary result of the development of\ncapitalist industry just as much as the Trust is. Again, we work for\nSocialism because we know we can get it, and we work all the harder if\nwe believe it is coming soon. One of the most active of our wealthy\nsocialists has said: \"If I had to be in 'the hundred year, step at a\ntime, take-what-you-can-get' class, you would find me automobiling my\nlife away down at Newport with Reggie Vanderbilt instead of editing this\nmagazine.... As said, I would rather chase down the pike on my Red\nDragon at 'steen hundred miles an hour, terrifying the farmers, than go\nin for any 'reform game'.\" (Gaylord Wilshire in Wilshire Editorials. New\nYork, 1907. Pages 232, 233.) So we find that in practice the belief in\nthe inevitability and the proximity of Socialism is the most powerful\nstimulus to socialist activity.\n\nWe believe that the doctrine of the inevitability of Socialism is\nscientifically true, that its proclamation is the most effective weapon\nin the arsenal of the Socialist agitator, and that it is the most\npowerful incentive to Socialist activity; so that we mean exactly what\nthe words imply when we address our non-socialist friends in the words\nof William Morris:\n\n\n     _\"Come, join in the only battle wherein no man can fail,\n     Where whoso fadeth and dieth, yet his deed shall still prevail.\"_\n\n\nFOOTNOTE:\n\n[40] I trust that no one will construe this as an attack on the\nIndustrial Workers of the World. It is not my intention to express in\nthis place any opinion as to the merits or demerits of that\norganization. It is only mentioned here because mention of it was\nnecessary to illustrate the most curious case I know of the abnormally\nprolonged retention of the utopian tadpole tail.\n\n\n\n\nADVERTISEMENTS\n\n\n\n\n[Illustration]\n\nBooks on Socialism, Modern Science, etc.\n\nSTANDARD SOCIALIST SERIES.\n\n\nThis series of books, the first volumes of which were issued in 1901,\ncontains some of the most important works by the ablest Socialist\nwriters of Europe and America. The size of page is 63/4 by 41/4 inches,\nmaking a convenient shape either for the pocket or the library shelf.\nThe books are substantially bound in cloth, stamped with a uniform\ndesign, and are mechanically equal to many of the books sold by other\npublishers at a dollar a copy. Our retail price, postage included, is\nFIFTY CENTS.\n\n\n1. +Karl Marx: Biographical Memoirs.+ By Wilhelm Liebknecht, translated by\nErnest Untermann. Cloth, 50 cents.\n\n\n     This personal biography of Marx, by an intimate friend who was\n     himself one of the foremost Socialists of Germany, gives a new\n     insight into the beginnings of Socialism. Moreover, it is a\n     charming book, as interesting as a novel, and will make an\n     admirable introduction to heavier reading on Socialism.\n\n\n2. +Collectivism and Industrial Evolution.+ By Emile Vandervelde, member\nof the Chamber of Deputies, Belgium. Translated by Charles H. Kerr.\nCloth, 50 cents.\n\n\n     The author is a Socialist member of the Belgian Parliament and is\n     one of the ablest writers in the international Socialist movement.\n     This book is, on the whole, the most satisfactory brief summary of\n     the principles of Socialism that has yet been written. One\n     distinctive feature of it is that it takes up the difficult\n     questions of how the machinery of production could be acquired and\n     how wages could be adjusted under a Socialist administration.\n\n\n3. +The American Farmer: An Economic and Historical Study.+ By A. M.\nSimons. Cloth, 50 cents.\n\n\n     \"The American Farmer,\" in spite of its small size, is the largest\n     contribution yet given to the agrarian literature of this country.\n     The author, besides being a student of American social conditions,\n     is thoroughly conversant with practical farming, and there is\n     little doubt that the farmer who reads the work will have to admit\n     that the conclusions are based on a real understanding of the\n     difficulties of his struggle with the soil, with railroads, trusts\n     and foreign competitors.--Chicago Tribune.\n\n\n4. +The Last Days of the Ruskin Co-operative Association.+ By Isaac\nBroome. Cloth, illustrated, 50 cents.\n\n\n     Socialism does not mean withdrawing from the class struggle and\n     trying to set up a paradise on a small scale. If there are those\n     who still think such a scheme practicable, they will find\n     interesting facts in this book.\n\n\n5. +The Origin of the Family, Private Property and the State.+ By\nFrederick Engels. Translated by Ernest Untermann. Cloth, 50 cents.\n\n\n     This is one of the most important of the author's works, and\n     although first published in 1884, was never accessible to English\n     readers until our translation appeared in 1902. It contains\n     practically everything necessary to the general reader in the\n     voluminous work of Morgan, and it furthermore gives many additional\n     facts and a coherent, scientific treatment of the whole subject.\n     The book is of great propaganda value, in that it shows the folly\n     of the popular idea that wealth and poverty always have existed and\n     so may always be expected to continue.\n\n\n6. +The Social Revolution.+ By Karl Kautsky. Translated by A. M. and May\nWood Simons. Cloth, 50 cents.\n\n\n     Kautsky is the editor of the Neue Zeit, and is universally\n     recognized as one of the ablest Socialist writers and thinkers in\n     Europe. This book is in two parts. Part I., Reform and Revolution,\n     explains the essential difference between the Socialist party and\n     all reform parties. Part II., The Day After the Revolution, gives\n     straightforward answers to the questions so often asked about what\n     the Socialists would do if entrusted with the powers of government.\n\n\n7. +Socialism, Utopian and Scientific.+ By Frederick Engels. Translated by\nEdward Aveling, D.Sc., with a Special Introduction by the Author. Cloth,\n50 cents.\n\n\n     This book ranks next to the Communist Manifesto as one of the best\n     short statements in any language of the fundamental principles of\n     Socialism. It is an essential part of every Socialist library,\n     however small.\n\n\n8. +Feuerbach: The Roots of the Socialist Philosophy.+ By Frederick\nEngels. Translated, with Critical Introduction, by Austin Lewis. Cloth,\n50 cents.\n\n\n     This book is a criticism on the works of a forgotten philosopher,\n     but it is still of timely interest, since attempts are still being\n     made to reintroduce dualist notions into the philosophy of\n     Socialism. Austin Lewis contributes an interesting historical\n     introduction.\n\n\n9. +American Pauperism and the Abolition of Poverty.+ By Isador Ladoff,\nwith a supplement, \"Jesus or Mammon,\" by J. Felix. Cloth, 50 cents.\n\n\n     A study of the last United States census, bringing out in bold\n     relief the social contrasts that are purposely left obscure in the\n     official documents. An arsenal of facts for Socialist writers and\n     speakers.\n\n\n10. +Britain for the British (America for the Americans.)+ By Robert\nBlatchford, with American Appendix by A. M. Simons. Cloth, 50 cents.\n\n\n     A popular presentation of Socialism, in the same charming and\n     simple style as the author's \"Merrie England,\" but giving a far\n     more adequate and scientific account of the subject.\n\n\n11. +Manifesto of the Communist Party.+ By Karl Marx and Frederick Engels.\nAuthorized English Translation: Edited and Annotated by Frederick\nEngels. Also included in the same volume, +No Compromise: No Political\nTrading.+ By Wilhelm Liebknecht. Translated by A. M. Simons and Marcus\nHitch. Cloth, 50 cents.\n\n\n     This manifesto, first published in 1848, is still recognized the\n     world over as the clearest statement of the principles of the\n     international Socialist party. It has been translated into the\n     language of every country where capitalism exists, and it is being\n     circulated more rapidly to-day than ever before.\n\n\n12. +The Positive School of Criminology.+ By Enrico Ferri. Translated by\nErnest Untermann. Cloth, 50 cents.\n\n\n     The science of criminology has been revolutionized within one\n     generation by the Socialist students of Italy, of whom Ferri is the\n     most prominent living representative. This book is indispensable to\n     any one desiring reliable information on the modern theory of crime\n     and its treatment.\n\n\n13. +The World's Revolutions.+ By Ernest Untermann. Cloth, 50 cents.\n\n\n     A study of the economic causes of the great revolutions of the\n     world's history in the light of the Socialist principle of\n     historical materialism.\n\n\n14. +The Socialists, Who They Are and What They Seek to Accomplish.+ By\nJohn Spargo. Cloth, 50 cents.\n\n\n     Scientific yet readable and easy; written in a style that the man\n     in the street will understand and the man in the university will\n     admire. Just the book to start a new reader.\n\n\n15. +Social and Philosophical Studies.+ By Paul Lafargue. Translated by\nCharles H. Kerr. In Preparation.\n\n\n     This book will contain two studies entirely new to American\n     readers, \"Causes of Belief in God,\" and \"The Origin of Abstract\n     Ideas.\" It will also contain several studies reprinted from the\n     International Socialist Review. Lafargue's brilliant style makes\n     even the most abstract subjects delightful.\n\n\n\n\nLIBRARY OF SCIENCE FOR THE WORKERS.\n\nModern International Socialism is directly related to modern science. It\nis in a sense the evolution theory applied to the facts of society. It,\ntherefore, follows that for a full understanding of socialism some\ngeneral knowledge of the facts of modern science is necessary.\n\nA new series of books has lately appeared in Germany which give in\nsimple and popular form complete proofs of the evolution theory along\nwith a clear account of the latest applications of this theory in the\nvarious fields of modern science. We have arranged to translate and\npublish some of the best of these, along with such original works in the\nsame line as are available. They are uniform in size with the Standard\nSocialist Series.\n\n\n1. +The Evolution of Man.+ By Wilhelm Boelsche. Translated by Ernest\nUntermann. Cloth, 50 cents.\n\n\n     \"The Evolution of Man\" tells in full detail, in a clear, simple\n     style, illustrated by pictures, just how the descent of man can be\n     traced back through monkeys, marsupials, amphibians, fishes, worms\n     and lower forms of life, down to the animals composed each of a\n     single cell. Moreover, it proves that there is no such fixed line\n     as was formerly thought to exist between the organic and the\n     inorganic, but that the same life-force molds the crystal that\n     molds the cell. It is not only simple; it is up-to-date and gives\n     the latest discoveries in science. It is _the_ book on the subject.\n\n\n2. +Germs of Mind in Plants.+ By R. H. France. Translated by A. M. Simons.\nCloth, illustrated, 50 cents.\n\n\n     A cardinal point in the philosophical systems favored by the ruling\n     classes is that the mind of man is something unique in the\n     universe, governed by laws of its own that have no particular\n     connection with physical laws. Modern science has proved that not\n     only animals, but also plants, receive impressions from the outside\n     world and use the data thus obtained to modify their movements for\n     their own advantage, exactly as human beings do. These facts are\n     told in this book in so charming and entertaining a style that the\n     reader is carried along and does not realize until later the\n     revolutionary significance of the facts.\n\n\n3. +The End of the World.+ By Dr. M. Wilhelm Meyer. Translated by Margaret\nWagner. Cloth, illustrated, 50 cents.\n\n\n     This book answers in the light of the discovery of modern science\n     the questions frequently asked as to the probable end of human life\n     on this planet. Moreover, it goes a step further in making clear\n     the relations of man's life to the universe life. We have already\n     seen that \"mind\" is but another form of \"life.\" Dr. Meyer shows\n     that not only animals and plants but even worlds and suns have\n     their birth, growth, maturity, reproduction, decay and death, and\n     that death is but the preparation for a new cycle of life.\n\n\n4. +Science and Revolution: A Historical Study of the Evolution of the\nTheory of Evolution.+ By Ernest Untermann. Cloth, 50 cents.\n\n\n     A history of the evolution of the theory of evolution, from the\n     earliest scientific writings that have been preserved, those of the\n     Greek philosophers, down to the present time. The author shows how\n     the ruling classes, living on the labor of others, have always\n     supported some form of theology or mysticism, while the working\n     classes have developed the theory of evolution, which is rounded\n     out to its logical completion by the work of Marx, Engels and\n     Dietzgen. The author frankly recognizes that no writer can avoid\n     being influenced by his class environment, and he himself speaks\n     distinctly as a proletarian and a Socialist. \"Science and\n     Revolution\" is an essential link in the chain of evidence proving\n     that conclusions drawn by Socialists from the facts of science.\n\n\n5. +The Triumph of Life.+ By Wilhelm Boelsche. Translated by May Wood\nSimons. Cloth, 50 cents.\n\n\n     The German critics agree that this book is even more interesting\n     than \"The Evolution of Man,\" by the same author. It tells of the\n     struggle of life against its physical environment, and introduces a\n     wealth of scientific detail charming set forth. The German original\n     contains no illustrations, but our edition is fully illustrated\n     with pictures that aid materially in an understanding of the text.\n\n\n6. +Life and Death, a Chapter from the Science of Life.+ By Dr. E.\nTeichmann. Translated by A. M. Simons. Cloth, 50 cents.\n\n\n     A study of how life begins and how it ends. It does not duplicate\n     any other book in this series, but is a special investigation into\n     the laws which govern the reproduction of life. It also deals with\n     the methods by which the life of each separate individual is\n     brought to an end, and shows that in an overwhelming majority of\n     cases throughout the whole animal kingdom death is violent rather\n     than \"natural.\" Even among human beings a really \"natural\" death is\n     rare. The author suggests that with improved conditions of living,\n     most premature deaths may be prevented, and that in that event the\n     fear of death, which causes so much of the misery of the world, may\n     disappear.\n\n\n7. +The Making of the World.+ By Dr. M. Wilhelm Meyer. Translated by\nErnest Untermann. Cloth, 50 cents.\n\n\n     This is a companion volume to \"The End of the World,\" and traces\n     the processes through which new suns and new worlds come into being\n     to take the place of those that have grown old and died. It is an\n     essential link in the chain of evidence proving that the human mind\n     is not something apart from nature but only another manifestation\n     of the one force that pervades all \"matter.\" The book has\n     twenty-four illustrations, for the most part reproductions of\n     telescopic photographs, which make the truth of the statements in\n     the book evident to every reader.\n\n\n\n\nTHE INTERNATIONAL LIBRARY OF SOCIAL SCIENCE.\n\nThis new library, the first volume of which appeared in January, 1906,\ncontains in substantial and artistic cloth binding some of the most\nimportant works on socialism and kindred subjects that have ever been\noffered in the English language. While our price has been fixed at a\ndollar a volume, most of the books in the library are equal to the\nsociological books sold by other publishers at from $1.50 to $2.00.\n\n\n1. +The Changing Order.+ A Study of Democracy. By Oscar Lovell Triggs,\nPh.D. Cloth, $1.00.\n\n\n     Dr. Triggs was a prominent professor in the University of Chicago,\n     but he taught too much truth for Standard Oil, and is no longer a\n     professor in the University of Chicago. This book contains some of\n     the truth that was too revolutionary for Mr. Rockefeller's\n     institution. It traces the inevitable rise of democracy in\n     industry, in other words, of a working class movement that will\n     take industry out of the control of capitalists. It also studies\n     the necessary effect of this rising democracy on literature and\n     art, on work and play, on education and religion.\n\n\nFor description of other books in this library, and a large variety of\nother Socialistic literature, see catalog; mailed free on request.\nAddress\n\n\nCHARLES H. KERR & CO.\n264 East Kinzie Street\nCHICAGO","title":"Socialism: Positive and Negative","tradition":"philosophy-ethics","translated_text":null,"word_count":27682}