Jffcr $4 C. A PRIMER OF SOCIALISM fl THOMAS KIRKUP f . or o* ^RNIA SAN OIEGO A PRIMER OF SOCIALISM THE SAME AUTHOR A HISTORY OF SOCIALISM Fourth Edition, revised and enlarged. Crown Svo, Cloth, price 7$. 6d. net. (Pott free, price 73. lod.) PROGRESS AND THE FISCAL PROBLEM Crown Svo, Cloth, price 35. 6d. net. (Pott fret, price 35. oxl.) SOUTH AFRICA, OLD AND NEW Crown 8vo, Cloth, price 33. 6d. A. AND C. BLACK, SOHO SQUARE, LONDON AN INQUIRY INTO SOCIALISM Third Edition, Crown Svo, Cloth, price 45. 6d. net LONGMANS AND CO., PATERNOSTER BOW, LONDON AUBTRALABIA CAJIADA . . AGENTS THE MACMILLAN COMPANY 64 & 66 FIFTH AVKNUH. NEW YORK THE OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS. MELBOURNE THE MACMILLAN COMPANY OF CANADA, LTD. 97 RICHMOND STREET WEST, TORONTO MACMILLAN & COMPANY. LTD. MACMILLAN BUILDING. BOMBAY jo9 Bow BAZAAR STREET, CALCUTTA A PRIMER OF SOCIALISM BY THOMAS KIRKUP AUTHOR OF "A HISTORY OF SOCIALISM," "PROGRESS AND THIS FISCAL PROBLEM," ETC. SECOND EDITION, REVISED LONDON ADAM AND CHARLES BLACK 1910 CONTENTS CHAT. PACE 1. INTRODUCTION 1 2. OLD ECONOMIC CHANGES .... 3. BISK OF THE PRESENT SYSTEM 4. THE ORIGIN OF SOCIALISM 5. EARLY SOCIALISM 6. SOCIALISM OF 1848 . ( . . . ... .). 7. GERMAN SOCIALISM . 8. KARL MARX 9. THE INTERNATIONAL. . . . . . . 10. GERMAN SOCIAL DEMOCRACY ^ . . . 11. PROGRESS OF SOCIALISM . . . . . . 12. PRESENT POSITION . . , . . ', 13. THE PREVALENT SOCIALISM 14 THE ESSENCE OF SOCIALISM First Edition, published October 1908 A PRIMER OF SOCIALISM CHAPTEK I INTBODUCTION NOT long ago Socialism was a theory of a few ad- venturous thinkers. Now it has millions of earnest and ardent adherents in the most advanced countries of the world. With many fluctuations in its apparent growth, it has been making vast progress during recent years. It is still spreading and exciting attention in all quarters. A most surprising feature of a remarkable move- ment is the too obvious fact that, while all men are talking about it, so few understand it. Might we not reasonably expect that a subject which has raised so much hope and enthusiasm among the most advanced of the working classes of the world should receive very careful examination? Such a movement may be misguided ; but it is hardly a tit theme for passion and prejudice, for epigram, paradox, or pedantry. It is a matter for the most serious study. 2 A PRIMER OF SOCIALISM The purpose of this little book is to give a clear and impartial account of Socialism. It is intended to supply, in brief and simple form, the information on the subject which I have given in the article ' Socialism ' contributed to the ninth edition of the Encyclopaedia Britannica (1887), in my Inquiry into Socialism, and in my History of Socialism, which is an expansion of the article in the Encyclopaedia. A book like the present must mainly be historical and expository. I have tried to present the subject in its true perspective as a great historical movement, leaving the reader to form his own conclusions or to pursue his inquiries as he may see fit. But we must remember that, if we are fully to profit by the study of a great movement, fair and sympathetic interpretation is far more important than a mere record of facts and theories. Those readers who desire to know my criticism and interpretation of Socialism are referred to the two books I have mentioned. In the concluding portion of this book I have, however, thought it only right to give a very brief critical summary. I have assumed that even the reader of a primer might expect some guidance from a writer who has made the subject the chief study of his life. While there is so little agreement as to the nature and efficacy of the remedy which Socialism proposes, most men will admit that the present social system is INTRODUCTION 8 imperfect and should be improved. On every hand we see the too painful contrast of squalid poverty and misery and of irresponsible wealth and luxury. We see the children uncared for, men in the prime of life anxious and depressed for want of employ- ment, men and women enfeebled and broken down before their time by overwork. Life for the rural workers is hard, impoverished, and monotonous. Our large towns are for the most part mean and dreary wildernesses, in which the conditions of life do not promote health or hope, human kindness, or the building up of character and civic virtue. The causes of such an unhappy condition of things are wide and complex, deep-rooted in our history and in human nature. There can be no doubt that they are to a large degree economic. To some of the earliest inquirers the modern social problem was simply a question how machinery could be made serviceable to man. The question remains sub- stantially the same How can the vast industrial mechanism, which has been brought to such per- fection by generations of inventors and workers, be best used for the promotion of human well-being, in its deepest and widest sense ? It is this question, which is essentially industrial or economic, that Socialism has undertaken to solve. The chief aim of Socialism is to produce a great economic change. 2 A PRIMER OF SOCIALISM The purpose of this little book is to give a clear and impartial account of Socialism. It is intended to supply, in brief and simple form, the information on the subject which I have given in the article ' Socialism ' contributed to the ninth edition of the Encyclopaedia Britannica (1887), in my Inquiry into Socialism, and in my History of Socialism, which is an expansion of the article in the Encyclopedia. A book like the present must mainly be historical and expository. I have tried to present the subject in its true perspective as a great historical movement, leaving the reader to form his own conclusions or to pursue his inquiries as he may see fit. But we must remember that, if we are fully to profit by the study of a great movement, fair and sympathetic interpretation is far more important than a mere record of facts and theories. Those readers who desire to know my criticism and interpretation of Socialism are referred to the two books I have mentioned. In the concluding portion of this book I have, however, thought it only right to give a very brief critical summary. I have assumed that even the reader of a primer might expect some guidance from a writer who has made the subject the chief study of his life. While there is so little agreement as to the nature and efficacy of the remedy which Socialism proposes, most men will admit that the present social system is INTRODUCTION 8 imperfect and should be improved. On every hand we see the too painful contrast of squalid poverty and misery and of irresponsible wealth and luxury. We see the children uncared for, men in the prime of life anxious and depressed for want of employ- ment, men and women enfeebled and broken down before their time by overwork. Life for the rural workers is hard, impoverished, and monotonous. Our large towns are for the most part mean and dreary wildernesses, in which the conditions of life do not promote health or hope, human kindness, or the building up of character and civic virtue. The causes of such an unhappy condition of things are wide and complex, deep-rooted in our history and in human nature. There can be no doubt that they are to a large degree economic. To some of the earliest inquirers the modern social problem was simply a question how machinery could be made serviceable to man. The question remains sub- stantially the same How can the vast industrial mechanism, which has been brought to such per- fection by generations of inventors and workers, be best used for the promotion of human well-being, in its deepest and widest sense? It is this question, which is essentially industrial or economic, that Socialism has undertaken to solve. The chief aim of Socialism is to produce a great economic change. CHAPTER II OLD ECONOMIC CHANGES WE have seen that the essence of Socialism is an economic change. We shall be better able to see our subject in its proper perspective if we take a brief review of some of the great economic changes that have occurred in past times. The economic needs of mankind may be summed up under three heads food, clothing, and shelter. The science of economics is simply the compre- hensive study of these three human interests. In very early times we must regard mankind as living together in bands of kinsmen. Each clan or tribe had its own domain, in which it gained a living by the chase, by fishing, by gathering wild fruits or digging up roots. What clothing they had consisted of the skins of wild animals. Their shelter was a cave or a rude hut. The land was the common property of the tribe. By the domesticating of animals like the dog, the 4 OLD ECONOMIC CHANGES 6 cow, and the horse a great advance was made, and mankind entered the pastoral stage. Some of the nations that have taken a most active part in history have belonged to the pastoral stage. The Arabs and kindred races have offered the most interesting examples of people in this condition. Far greater, however, was the change to the agricultural stage. The pastoral stage is generally nomadic, but is not inconsistent with a rude tilling of the soil. Agri- culture sooner or later means a sedentary life. Early agriculture is usually associated with a settled life in village communities. That is to say, men settled down in a suitable place where they found a good water-supply and good arable land surrounded by pasture-land and forest. Mutual defence, social intercourse, the supply of their economic needs in the shape of food, clothing, housing and fuel within a convenient area these were the essential points that had to be considered in forming such a community. Land still for a long time continued to be common property, but there was a tendency towards the formation and growth of private rights. In such a condition of society it was found that certain places had special advantages for defence and intercourse, especially trade. They were therefore fitted to be the centres of a whole region, and popula- tion gathered on a wider scale than the ordinary 6 A PRIMER OF SOCIALISM village community. At these favoured points the settlements grew and were consolidated into the cities which are so famous in history. We now know that a comparatively advanced civilisation had grown up in the valleys of the Euphrates and the Nile five thousand years before the Christian era. In this old civilisation private property, farming, industry, trade, and even banking developed as time went on. But the most serious and important feature was the rise of slavery. Even pastoral life has its unpleasant incidents, which the strong man or lord would rather have no concern with. He therefore consigns the baser part of the care of cattle and horses to his dependents. In the early stages of society most of the hard work falls to the women. The vanquished men in early warfare were slain and even eaten. But it was in time found better to spare them and to employ them in all sorts of hard, mean, and unpleasant labour. This policy became particularly advantageous after mankind had passed into the agricultural stage. The strong man, the warrior and lord naturally had no liking for the hard work connected with agricul- ture. He desired slaves to till his land and do all manner of menial service. Or a band of warriors would find it better still to fall upon the territory of a people who had already entered the agricultural stage and had attained to a considerable degree of OLD ECONOMIC CHANGES 7 wealth ; they would defeat them in battle, and by one and the same act of conquest acquire lands, wealth, and slaves. Such an event was the more frequent because all the ancient seats of civilisation lay near to moun- tains and deserts, and were exposed to attack from the fierce and hardy races that inhabited them. Babylon and Nineveh in the valley of the Euphrates and Tigris, Memphis and Thebes in the valley of the Nile, were cities that grew to be the seats of great empires. Their civilisation rested on slavery and other forms of forced labour. But the ruling classes of these states were themselves continually menaced with overthrow and subjection. The ancient Persians were a conspicuous example of a hardy race from the highlands of Asia who reduced to subjection all the old civilised states in Western Asia and in the valley of the Nile. Among the ancient Greeks the Spar- tans in a similar way made conquest of the lands they possessed. Throughout their history the Spartans were simply a military force encamped in the midst of subject people. The most striking instance, however, is to be found in the Turks, a warrior race, originally from Central Asia, who overran all the old seats of civilisation as far as Hungary, and have for centuries subjected them to a system of exploiting economics. All the ancient states had servile labour mainly 10 A PRIMER OF SOCIALISM village community continued to be the basis and real unit of the life of the people. In his wars with the Danes, King Alfred found it best to leave half of his able-bodied men at home to till the soil, while he led the other half to battle. This arrangement pointed to the need of a special class of warriors. Long before the Norman Conquest a special fighting and ruling class had been growing up round the king. This class naturally drew their subsistence from the cultivators who formed the village communities. The Normans landed in 1066, overthrew the English at the battle of Hastings, and displaced the native ruling class. William the Conqueror set up a strong central government, established internal order, and made the country safe against invasion. He divided the lands of England among his followers. The village community was transformed into the manor. The feudal system, by which land was held on condition of performing military service, was thus established. CHAPTER in RISE OF THE PRESENT SYSTEM THE mariner's compass, which came into use during the twelfth century, enabled sailors to venture out into the wide ocean. The development of gun- powder and of firearms gave the people of Europe a vast superiority over other races. The invention of printing and the revival of learning led to greater activity and freedom of thought. In 1492 Columbus discovered America. Vasco da Gama reached India in 1498, by sailing round the Cape of Good Hope. With these two events began modern colonisation and a system of trade which gradually affected the whole world. Stronger governments, which were better able to enforce order, were established in the leading countries of Western Europe towards the end of the fifteenth century. In 1517 the Eeformation had its rise in Germany. The mediaeval order of society, which rested on feudalism and the Catholic Church, began to make way for a new state of things. 11 18 A PRIMER OF SOCIALISM These movements had a general and widespread influence. It will be better now that we turn our attention chiefly to what happened in England. At the beginning of the fourteenth century money-rents had in England been taking the place of the dues in labour and in kind which had been rendered to the lord by the tillers of the soil. Serfdom practically died out during the fourteenth century. The old feudal nobility perished during the Wars of the Roses from 1455 to 1485. Under the stern rule of the Tudors, nobles depen- dent on the Court took the place of the old feudal lords. The power of the feudal lord was determined by the number and efficiency of the fighting men he could bring into the field. For the Court noble the important matter was the income he could draw from his lands. Owing to the rise in the price of wool, sheep-farm- ing, which requires far less labour than tillage, came into vogue. The old tillers of the soil were by force and fraud driven from their holdings. Then came the separation from Home and the abolition of the monasteries. Like the castles of the feudal lords, the religious houses had been busy centres of local life, giving employment and subsist- ence to great numbers of people. The result of the downfall of feudalism, of the abolition of the mon- asteries, and of the commercial use of land, was a 13 vast increase of vagabondage. Laws of various kinds were passed to end it, but with little effect. An old order of society had passed away. A large proportion of the people had lost that interest in the soil which they formerly possessed. An eminent authority, Thorold Eogers, estimates that by the middle of the seventeenth century half the people of England were dependent on weekly wages. Beyond the seas events of the utmost importance in their relation to our history occurred during the seventeenth century. Virginia, the first English colony in America, was founded in 1607. The founda- tion of our New England colonies was laid by the Pilgrim Fathers in 1620. The first English factory or trading settlement in India was established at Surat in 1612. But the importance of these events was not apparent till the eighteenth century. For a century and a half we were merely traders in India. The foundation of our Empire there was laid by Clive at the battle of Plassey in 1757. In 1759 the conquest of Quebec by Wolfe made Britain supreme in North America. Thus we had established a great empire, and we had also opened up a large trade, which were secured by our command of the seas. We lost our old American colonies in the War of Independence in 1776-83 ; but we made up for the loss by colonising Australia, by further conquests in India, and by the acquisition of Cape Colony. 14 A PRIMER OF SOCIALISM It will be seen that the development of our Empire abroad, of our command of the seas, and of our trade, has been a gradual and consistent process. All three were parts of the same process of expan- sion; and all three were based on a corresponding expansion at home. It meant in particular that a world-market had now been opened up for British goods. The old methods of manufacturing had become too slow and altogether inadequate for the needs of a new time. A powerful stimulus was accordingly given to invention. The methods of spinning first underwent a complete change. Machinery for spin- ning superseded the old spinning-wheel. The steam- engine, which had been at first most useful in pump- ing water out of the tin mines in Cornwall, was now used to move the new machinery. It was next applied to the newly invented power-loom, to ship- ping, and to railways. The development of the electric telegraph followed ; and an industrial re- volution, which transformed manufacturing, mining, inland communication, and shipping, was accom- plished. It will be obvious that such a time of expansion offered special opportunities both at home and abroad to enterprising men, whose chief motive was the desire of gain. For the success of their enterprises labour was necessary. They forced the natives of RISE OF THE PRESENT SYSTEM 15 the various countries to work for them ; and when native labour failed them, they brought negro slaves from Africa. We have already seen how at home on the down- fall of the mediaeval society, great numbers of people were driven from their holdings. They were forced into vagrancy, beggary, and crime; and those who survived became dependent on wage labour. When the machine industry arose, the small producers, such as the hand-loom weavers, were not able to compete with it. The small distributor or shopkeeper also found it hard to compete against the large system of distribution or big stores. All these influences tended to the vast increase of people who were divorced from land and capital and dependent on wages. Thus the capitalist had a large supply of labour, which he organised in factories and other great establishments. The following is a summary of what we have to say here regarding the present system : (1) The influence of capital. In former times the mass of the people lived directly from the land. They had little capital In the country districts the capital consisted of rude buildings and farm implements, of seed corn for sowing, and of horses, cattle, and sheep, which would now be regarded as extremely poor. In the towns, which were at first small and few in number, capital began to accumu- late, But till the middle of the eighteenth century 1 A PRIMER OF SOCIALISM it was comparatively insignificant even in towns. As the Industrial Revolution proceeded, capital grew in factories, warehouses, railways, shipping, docks, banks, etc., till the possessors of it became the supreme power in the country. (2) We have seen how a working class, without capital and dependent on wages, multiplied, as capital grew and afforded opportunity for labour. (3) The rise of the factory system. (4) The growth of the world-market. (5) Production for exchange in a world-market. In former times men produced for their own needs and for a local market. This was true alike of the farmer, the smith, the carpenter, the tanner, the shoemaker, the weaver. All this was changed by the Industrial Revolution. (6) The invention and incessant improvement of machinery moved by steam and electric power. (7) Enormous production of cheap goods, supplied by machinery to meet the demands of a continually widening market. (8) Enormous development of means of transport and communication both by land and sea. (9) Vast growth of the towns, as compared with the rural population. (10) Marvellous supply of new products in the world-market, such as tea, coffee, potatoes, maize, tobacco, rubber, etc. Vast increase of old products. CHAPTEK IV THE OBIGIN OF SOCIALISM IN the foregoing chapters we have given a very brief sketch of social and economic history. Our readers will see that it is a history of struggle, of clan against clan, of city against city, and of nation against nation. At first it was a struggle for mere existence. Those who were defeated were slain; whole tribes were exterminated and disappeared. Later on it became a struggle for a privileged existence, in which the victors reduced the van- quished to subjection as slaves or serfs. It was a struggle which was accompanied by unspeak- able misery and moral degradation. The privileged position which the victors claimed for themselves led to sloth, insolence, vice, and corruption in their own ranks. Among the servile class it was attended by the vices and defects which naturally belong to the servile condition. Alike in its origin and 17 18 A PRIMER OF SOCIALISM development slavery meant cruelty, vice, and moral and physical degradation. It may be said in favour of slavery that it gave the privileged classes leisure for the higher work of government and of culture. But the cost was terrible. Both in the governing and industrial classes it led to vices and defects which in time must prove ruinous to every community of which it is the basis. Every state dependent on servile labour contains within itself the seeds of decay and dissolution. In our chapter on the rise of the present system we have seen how serfdom disappeared. Serfdom may be described as a semi-servile condition, under which the tillers of the soil were constrained to support a military class. The negro slavery which arose in the colonies has also disappeared in more recent times. Negro slavery was a phase of the struggle for existence in which the superior white races forced the blacks to labour for them. The effect of the rise of strong central governments in England, France, and Spain was to restrict the struggle for existence among their subjects. Private wars came to an end ; a more regular system of justice and a stronger police enforced peace and order. Yet the struggle for existence still goes on in very hard and disastrous forms under the existing system. The characteristic feature of the present system is THE ORIGIN OF SOCIALISM 19 that industry is carried on by private competing capitalists served by wage-labour. We saw that, as a result of the Industrial Revolution in England, two new classes were established : a small class, who own the means of production ; and a very large class who, having neither land nor capital, are obliged to earn a living by labour in the service of the capitalist Such, then, is the position at which we have arrived. We have two great classes, the capitalists and the workmen, and their relations to each other are regulated by competition. Not only so, but capitalist competes against capitalist for business ; workmen compete against workmen for opportunity to work. Workmen also compete against machinery. Worst of all, the workmen have to compete against women and children. In other words, we have the struggle for existence still going on, though in milder forms. It is carried on in states which have governments strong enough to enforce laws that serve to check and moderate the struggle. It has been a distinguishing feature of the present system that competition has to such a degree taken an individual form. In all phases of society the individual has been a prominent figure in the struggle for existence. The strength and cunning of the individual were decisive factors in primitive societies. King David among the Israelites, Cyrus 20 A PRIMER OF SOCIALISM the founder of the ancient Persian Empire, are familiar examples of what could be accomplished by individual energy and capacity in later times. The careers of Julius Caesar and of Augustus show what decisive changes can be accomplished when the needs and tendencies of the time give scope for individual action in certain directions. Charlemagne, on the other hand, had only a very moderate success in moulding the intractable forces of the times in which he lived. The individual can accomplish great things only when circumstances are favourable. The present system has given wide scope for the individual alike in industry and commerce. The restrictions and regulations which used to be prevalent were removed or evaded. Through the opening up of a world-market with new and apparently unlimited opportunities for gain, a wonderful stimulus was given, as we have seen, to invention and to new methods of organising labour. Till 1824 the workmen had not the right of combina- tion, and were therefore obliged to treat individually with their employers. Inventors like James Watt, the improver of the steam-engine, like George Stephenson, the maker of railways, had a marvellous opportunity. Arkwright was both inventor and the founder of the factory system. Josiah Wedgwood made great improve- ments in pottery. In every department individual THE ORIGIN OF SOCIALISM 21 energy and capacity had scope for showing itself. Many who came to the front were men of the highest character ; many were driven by love of gain to hard, cruel, and unscrupulous action. Socialism had its origin in two historical changes. One was the Industrial Revolution, which we have already described ; the other was the great move- ment for freedom which had its climax in the French Eevolution. While the Industrial Eevolution brought with it many benefits, it led also to many evils. Children of five or six years of age and even younger were taken into the mills and were worked for twelve or fifteen hours a day. Many of them were brought from the workhouses and charities of the large towns, and had therefore no parents to care for them. They were sadly neglected, and often cruelly beaten by the overseers of the factories. Women and men were also frightfully overworked. They had no control of the conditions in which they worked. Round the factories towns grew up, in which the laws of health were disregarded. There was no proper sanitation. Thousands of families lived in cellars, which were damp, unwholesome, and some- times flooded after a heavy rainfall. The main object of the worker was to find employment; he could exercise little choice or care as to the dwelling in which he lived. 22 A PRIMER OF SOCIALISM The workers had no security. The men might lose their employment, because the work could be more cheaply done by machines tended by women and children. A time of feverish overwork might be followed by a period of stagnation, during which work could not be obtained. They had little or no education; there was no national system of education till 1870. At the time when the factory system was being established there were very few schools of any kind at which the children of workmen could be taught. The workmen had no vote, no voice or influence either in national or local government. The workers had little time for rest or recreation ; and they were so exhausted and worn out by hard work, that they too often had no taste or inclination for any but coarse and degrading pleasures. When people worked and lived under such condi- tions as we have described, we need not wonder that they suffered greatly in physique, intelligence, and character. During a great part of the time which saw the rise of our factory system our rulers were engaged in war with our American Colonies and with France. Factory legislation, which began in 1802, tended to check the evils of the new industrial system; but the mischief was done before it came into effective operation. We suffer still from the evil effects of the Industrial Revolution. THE ORIGIN OF SOCIALISM 28 The great change which came to a head at the French Revolution may be described as a rising of reason and of freedom against authority. A spirit of freedom had long been growing in England and Holland. It spread more or less over most countries of Europe during the eighteenth century. It was notably powerful in France, where the governing classes, the king and his court, the nobles, the clergy, and the legal class, had laid the burdens of industry and of taxation on the mass of the people. The meeting of the States-General at Paris in 1789 was the beginning of a mighty change, in which the king and the privileged orders were overthrown. In a few years a new France rose to take the place of the old. But the change was attended with terrible confusion, violence, and bloodshed. France had grievous civil wars within her own borders, and on her frontiers she waged war with nearly all the countries of Europe. This season of war and anarchy ended in the supremacy of a military chief, Napoleon Bonaparte. The cause of freedom was discredited for a time ; men found order a necessity, and order meant military despotism. Thus both revolutions, the Industrial Eevolution and the French Revolution, which were fitted to bring incalculable blessings material and moral, social and political, had wrought much evil 24 A PRIMER OF SOCIALISM The problem before Socialism, briefly stated, was therefore twofold: (1) how to make the machines subordinate to human well-being, and (2) how to secure and extend human freedom. But this double problem is really one, how to render the mechanism of the Industrial Revolution helpful to a better and freer life for mankind. In other words, was man to be the slave of the machine, or was the machine to be made serviceable to man ? How could a well-ordered freedom and a good and happy life for mankind be won from the two revolutions, the French Eevolution and the Industrial Revolution ? We are now to see what answers Socialism has given to these weighty questions. But it will help us to understand such answers if we keep three points clearly in view. Socialism means : (1) That the working people aim at gaining, by combination or association, the control of land and capital which they lost in the individual struggle. (2) That order, economy, and prevision should remedy the confusion, waste, and demoralisation caused by competition. (3) That industry should be carried on not for private gain, but for the common good. CHAPTER V EARLY SOCIALISM SAINT-SIMON and Fourier in France and Eobert Owen in England may be regarded as the founders of Socialism. The two French writers lived through the disorders of the Revolution, indeed both narrowly escaped being its victims ; and both were impressed with the need of a new social order. Owen was at a very early age the foremost cotton-spinner in England. He knew from experience the evils caused by the Industrial Revolution in England. The spirit of enlightenment and humanity of the eighteenth century was the motive power in his career, and he knew what services for human well-being could be rendered by machinery if it were made subservient to man. Those early socialists were not revolutionary in the ordinary sense; they made appeal to rulers and capitalists to carry their schemes into effect. Fourier published his first book in 1808, but he had no 25 28 A PRIMER OF SOCIALISM influence for many years. The real beginning of Socialism may be dated from 1817, the year when the theories of Saint-Simon and Owen began defin- itely to take a socialistic direction. SAINT-SIMON f Saint-Simon belonged to a very ancient and eminent noble family of France, and was born in Paris in 1760. He had an adventurous career. At the age of nineteen he, like other French nobles, went to America to help the Colonies in their War of Independence. During the French Revolution he made a little fortune by land speculation, and ran some risk of the guillotine in the Reign of Terror. He had no vulgar love of money, but wished to have leisure to live a life of original inquiry. From his youth he had felt called to great tasks. His ancestor Charlemagne in a dream promised him a great future. His valet had orders to awake him every morning with the reminder that he had great things to do. In 1801 Saint-Simon made an unhappy marriage, during which, though it lasted only a year, he spent all his means. He lived in poverty and distress for many years. He had to accept help for a time from a former valet. In 1813 he wrote an appeal for help to the Emperor and other leading personages, EARLY SOCIALISM 27 stating that he had nothing but bread and water to live on, and that he was obliged to work without a fire. During his later years his chief support was a modest pension which he received from his family. In 1823 he attempted suicide in despair. He died in 1825, leaving only a very few disciples. The aim of Saint-Simon was to found a new social order based on industry and science. He held that the order which had prevailed during the Middle Ages was no longer suitable. The desire for freedom, which had found expression in the French Eevolution, was good so far ; but it was mainly negative and therefore temporary. There was need for a new and positive order, an industrial order guided by science. Saint-Simon himself has only given general views as to what the new order should be. It was more definitely ex- plained by his followers, especially Bazard. We shall now set forth the main points of this Socialism as worked out in the school of Saint-Simon. The keynote of the social development of the future is the principle of association. In the past we have seen the exploitation of man by man in the three stages, slavery, serfdom, and the proletariat. In the future our aim must be ' the exploitation of the globe by man associated to man.' Under the present system the workers, who form the mass of the people, are free in name; but in 28 A PRIMER OF SOCIALISM reality they must accept the terms offered them by the owners of capital, or they must starve. Capital, which is only another name for the instruments of labour, is the hereditary property of a class. One class thus inherits the advantages of capital without regard to merit. The most numerous class inherits all the disadvantages of poverty without having done anything to deserve such a penalty. For such a state of things there is only one remedy to make capital social property. The State being the sole owner of the instruments of labour, will manage them, or see that they are managed, for the general good. The State will perform for industry the same functions as it has already per- formed for education, justice, and war. In order to do so effectually, the State will be organised on the principle of merit. The motto of the Saint-Simon school was : ' To each according to his capacity ; to each capacity according to its works.' That is, each would be placed according to his capacity, and rewarded according to his deserts. And it should be added that women should be on an equal footing with men. The ' social individual ' is not man alone, or woman alone, but man and woman. Man and woman should be associated in a lifelong union for the exercise of the threefold function of religion, the State, and the family. EARLY SOCIALISM 2 FOURIER Fourier was born at Besangon, in Eastern France, in 1772. His father, a prosperous draper, gave him a good education at the academy of hia native town. The son visited Holland and Germany as a com- mercial traveller, and afterwards set up in business at Lyons, where he narrowly escaped the guillotine during the Revolution. In his earliest years Fourier had his mind drawn to the abuses of the competitive system. At five years of age he had been punished for speaking the truth about some goods in his father's shop, and at twenty-seven it was his duty to destroy a large quantity of rice which had been held back for higher prices, till it became unfit for use. He felt that it was the task of his life to find a cure for such a state of things. The first book in which he expounded his method was published in 1808, but he did not find a hearing for many years after- wards. Indeed, he gained a few adherents only after the decline of the Saint-Simon movement, and even then the vogue of his system did not last long. He died in 1837. Fourier held that God had done all things well, but that men have failed to understand and carry out the purposes of the Creator. He believed that a law of attraction pervades all the world, from the 30 A PRIMER OF SOCIALISM starry heavens to the puniest insect, and that it would reign also in human society if we but followed the divine order. Our chief error lies in the fact that we have regarded passions as bad which are simply natural. We must give our passions their free and natural course. For this we must have new social arrangements, which Fourier provided in an institution which he called the phalange. It was to consist of about eighteen hundred persons settled on a square league of land, and dwelling in a large, beautiful, and con- venient building called a phalanstbre. Here they were to live and work together in agriculture or industry according to their liking. There would be opportunity for frequent change of occupation. If some preferred a solitary life, they could have it. But as there would be no reason or excuse for jealousy or suspicion, a social life would naturally be preferred. There would be officials who would be elected. Labour would be scientific and attractive. Hard work would be best paid ; the unpleasant work would, however, as far as possible, be done by machinery. Private capital would be allowed, and would receive a fixed rate of interest. Out of the produce of the phalange a very comfortable minimum would be assured to each person. The remainder would be divided between labour, capital, and talent in certain fixed proportions. EARLY SOCIALISM 31 The phalange, it will be seen, was an institution on a local scale. Once established, it would be widely imitated by others, which would grow and form federal groups till they spread over the entire world. ROBERT OWEN Robert Owen, the founder of English Socialism, was born at Newtown, in the county of Montgomery, North Wales, in 1771. His father had a little business as saddler and ironmonger in Newtown. Robert's education ended at the age of ten. After some experience as a shop-boy in London, Owen settled in Lancashire, where at a very early age he won a position as the first cotton-spinner in England. Then he and his partners bought the mills at New Lanark, near the Falls of Clyde, and Owen went there after his marriage in 1800, with the resolve to conduct them on the most enlightened principles. His success both in business and philanthropy was marvellous. The workpeople, who numbered two thousand, learned to trust him. He introduced shorter hours ; supplied them with better food and clothing at a store which he opened ; placed the sale of drink under strict control, and taught the people better moral habits. But his greatest success was among the young. He was the first to establish an infant school in Great Britain. The training he gave 82 A PRIMER OF SOCIALISM to the children was genial, kindly, and humane. It was observed with wonder and delight how frank, graceful, and happy their manners were. The fame of New Lanark as a scene of the most successful experiments in the improvement of the workpeople and in the education of the young spread throughout the world. It became a favourite place of pilgrimage for social reformers, statesmen, and royal personages, among whom was Nicholas, afterwards Emperor of Russia, and the bulwark of absolutism in Europe. It was in 1817 that his views began to take a definitely socialistic direction. The want of employ- ment which prevailed after the cessation of the wars against Napoleon, and the misery that ensued owing to the dislocation of industry, gave occasion to great anxiety in Great Britain. In a report which he laid before the Committee of the House of Commons on the Poor Law, he showed that the root of the evil was to be found in the competition of human labour with machinery, and that the only effectual remedy was the subordination of machinery to human welfare. The desirable subordination of machinery to human welfare could be accomplished only by the united action of men. For the cure of the prevailing distress and for the reconstruction of society on right principles he pro- posed that communities of from five hundred to EARLY SOCIALISM 83 three thousand persons should be formed on a suitable area of land. Work and the enjoyment of its products should be in common. They should have the best machinery to assist their efforts. Agriculture and industry would be carried on in the same community, so as to ensure the greatest and freest variety of occupation. They would thus not only possess the best machinery, but would combine the advantages of town and country life, the fresh air and the fresh products of the country with the social amenities of the town. Owen believed that these communities would multiply, and being united in federations, would cover the whole world. His plans were at first well received by the country. Leading men like the Duke of Kent, father of Queen Victoria, befriended him, and even the leading newspapers, such as the Times and the Morning Post, supported him. But he gave great offence by declaring his disbelief in all the accepted forms of religion at a large meeting in London. The attempts which he made to found communities all ended in failure. After 1828 he no longer had any connection with New Lanark. He lost his means in his various experiments. In 1858 he died in his native town at the advanced age of eighty-seven, having to all appearance accomplished little in comparison with the brilliant promise of his early career. CHAPTER VI SOCIALISM OF 1848 THE year 1848 was a season of revolution, during which there were serious troubles in France, Italy, Germany, Austria, and Hungary. We have now to give an account of the Socialism which came to a head in 1848. The Revolution of 1830 had brought the middle class into power in France, and the Reform Bill of 1832 had the same effect in England. Owing to the restricted franchise which was adopted, the working classes were left out in the cold. Political discontent was greatly aggravated by social misery, by lack of employment, and the want of food This unrest found expression in Chartism in England and in a new form of Socialism in France. Louis BLANC The founder of this new form of Socialism was Louis Blanc. Louis Blanc was born in 1811 at 84 SOCIALISM OF 1848 85 Madrid, where his father held the post of inspector- general of finance under Joseph, at that time King of Spain. Louis rose to eminence at Paris as a journalist and author. His book, The Organisation of Labour, captivated the workmen of France by the brilliancy of its style, by the simplicity of its schemes for the reconstruction of society, and by the moral fervour with which it advocated them. Social reform, he held, could not be won without political reform. The first need was a democratic State based on universal suffrage ; and the first duty of such a State was the emancipation of labour. For the emancipation of labour one thing was lacking, that the workers should be provided with the instruments of labour capital. He proposed therefore that social workshops should be established with capital provided by the State. Once established, they would be free to govern themselves, and he hoped they would increase till they had absorbed all the industry of France. During the Revolution of 1848 the schemes of Louis Blanc received great attention. He was a member of the Provisional Government, in which also a workman had a seat. But he had not influence enough to secure the adoption of his plans. The national workshops started in that year were only a makeshift to find employment for a crowd of men out of work, and were totally different from the 86 A PRIMER OF SOCIALISM social workshops recommended by Louis Blanc. After 1848 he lived in exile in England for many years, but returned to France on the fall of the Second Empire. He died in 1882. PROUDHON A very different form of Socialism was favoured by Proudhon, who, like Fourier, was born at Besan