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property of private companies, into a general state bank fund for the benefit of societies founded for co-operative production, according to Lassalle's plan, is a political and economic error. Capitalism, duly reformed and swept of abuses, must ever remain as a grand system of gravitation for independent individual enterprising bodies in the universal movement of society, just as much as the astronomical mechanism is required for keeping bodies in their spheres and in the universal system of the heavens. From times immemorial capitalism has maintained its place among other systems in the world's economy. It was the ruling principle in the commerce of the Phoenicians, the Italians, the German towns, long before slavery and feudalism ceased to dispute its pretensions as the exclusive economic motor of society. It has grown into importance in the course of centuries, and in proportion to the wider extension of national intercourse; and its superior value as a system cannot be doubted from a simply economic point of view. It is a superior organization for production chiefly because it is perfectly independent, resting upon a purely economic basis, requiring no extra economic motives. Former systems, e.g. where the patriarchal, priestly, or feudal forms prevailed, have not for their chief object economy or the creation of wealth. On the

contrary, there the will of the head in the family, ecclesiastical power, or the furtherance of the interests of the feudal lord, were the first consideration. But the primary object in the capitalistic organization is the most effective production and consumption of useful commodities and the accumulation of wealth. The centre of gravity of the whole system is purely economic, it is profit.

And just as the theocratical, patriarchal, and feudal political systems have been superseded by the supremacy of law and constitutional forms of government, so too

the former social-economic organizations have been superseded by capitalism. It has attained its independence and proper position as an economic system, free from the fetters of personal rule and the influences of class interests. Both in the macrocosm of society and in the microcosm of the family its power makes itself now felt, in the wise husbanding of economic resources, and their application towards the highest development of the individual and the nation. Thus capitalism marks an advanced state of modern civilization. Feudalism and the guild system, its immediate predecessors, retarded both agricultural and industrial progress; the former by heavy duties and villainage attached to the soil, the latter by corporation privileges interfering with the free combination of labour. Competition was thus shut out, and with it freedom of movement in the economic world.

Socialists of a higher order and scientific attainments do not deny this economic progress in the form of capitalism, encouraging as it does individual liberty and personal responsibility. Nor is it necessary to demonstrate for the benefit of socialists the superior advantages of liberal capitalism in the distribution of labour and capital, their best mechanical application by the aid of machinery and wholesale manufacture, and the beneficial results of competition and exchange. They have long since learned this alphabet of political economy. "Buy a starling M. Bourgeois," says Lassalle ironically with regard to such arguments, "and teach him to pronounce the three words Exchange, Exchange, Exchange! and you will have a most perfect political economist."

He and others, however, lay special stress upon the one-sided complaint that this capitalistic era has many defects which neither feudalism nor despotism could produce. They say this system enables one man to

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defraud another; it makes it possible for one man to appropriate dishonestly other men's labour, and the amount of life-force expended does not secure to every individual labourer the result, as his own; many disharmonies and acts of injustice result as the social process in production is carried on on a higher scale; and, so far from removing the more ancient modes of impoverishing the majority by a powerful minority, capitalism, under the semblance of liberty, is guilty of a more cruel injustice towards the proletariat. Proletarians, they say, are the slaves and serfs of capitalists, but as such are attached to their masters by no such tender ties as in ancient days: what is the good, they say, of a heightened productivity of labour and capital, if the benefit is felt only by a few, and capital becomes the insatiable sponge which absorbs the surplus value of labour, leaving the working man exposed to the fluctuations and disturbances on the social ocean, and making him the scapegoat of those commercial crises and other contingencies which are the result of overspeculation and the abuse of credit, private and public? By these abuses, it is asserted, millions of interest are paid over to a few members of the plutocracy, and one man without labour is made rich at the expense of thousands drudging in misery; this they call an "anarchical socialism," which in spite of a heightened productivity nevertheless leaves the masses in degradation, and even contributes towards utter failure in the mission of the wealthy.

Such are the complaints of the socialistic opposition. In answer to these it must be acknowledged that the fleecing process complained of here is possible in the present social combination. However, it is possible even for Robinson Crusoe by foolish manage

F

ment to expose himself to death by hunger, although being alone he is not exposed of course to the contingencies arising from the commercial movements of a whole community. It is moreover an undeniable fact that horrid abuses do now exist, which have been laid bare by socialistic critics, abuses against which the lower classes are raising their voices with invigorated fervour. Capitalism in many of its departments is rotten to the core; and wholesale frauds are being now perpetrated in European capitals, compared with which the feudal robberies and theocratic extortions were a mere trifle.

But the abuses existing do not touch the principles on which capitalism is founded, and the incompleteness of the positive and constructive part of socialistic literature does not give us a warrant of a better system in its place, supposing it to be abolished. Socialistic neology has to offer nothing else except the following. Either a co-operative system in which still competition for the highest profit forms an important element; this would only be capitalism in another form. Or it recommends the abolition of capitalism in favour of other forms, which however, whilst retaining all its defects, even in an intensified degree, fall far below it in its economic effects. Or, in fine, something is proclaimed as socialism which in part has always existed side by side with capitalism, namely the free, humane exertions for the public weal, in applying the eternal duties of justice and brotherly love in church and state; for this purpose we do not require an abolition of capitalism, although we may wish to see these duties carried out more intelligently and with more integrity than they are now. The first of these proposals of socialism is only a sheep in wolf's clothing, from which we have nothing to fear; the second is no reform, but

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reaction; the third is a by no means new and altogether harmless socialism.

Regarded therefore from its darker side, with its many defects, capitalism in the present day may appear only as a passing phase in the economic development, like feudalism of old. Regarded however as an economic organization, we may feel reassured as to its destiny as a lasting and ever increasing field of human economy. The ultra liberal view of reducing the whole social system to the speculative capitalistic form exclusively, as the only organization, is a doctrinaire idea, indefensible from a historical point of view. The communism of the family, the public organisms of the state, corporations, benevolent societies, and institutions for the encouragement of the arts and sciences, and the improvement of morals and religion, still will be necessary within their spheres just as much as the capitalistic organization in its own. On the other hand, the distorted view presented of capitalism and its many disharmonies is often overcharged. Besides, it is the object of political economy as a science to counteract these, and to adjust the irregularities in due course of time. At all events, the positive proposals of socialism are not such as to inspire us with any confidence. This we shall see in the next book, where we propose to consider them in order and judge them on their own merits.