- tions of Socialism. - The New Testament opposed Church. Temporizing Policy Suicidal. — Losing her Hold on the Masses. The Victim of Capital- ism. Respectability and Cant will not avail. Pro-capitalism or Anti-capitalism. Fiction of the Church as to Riches. - Capitalistic Perversion of SOCIALISM CHAPTER I THE GENESIS OF SOCIALISM I.— Definition and Essential Nature. "Every Christian, who understands and earnestly accepts the teachings of his master, is at heart a Socialist."- ÉMILE DE LAVELEYE. THE title of this book indicates its character and scope. Political economists of the new school agree that the current orthodox political economy is fatally defective: many of its assumptions are false, and it entirely ignores the ethical principle which in all departments of sociology has become the chief corner-stone. A member of the American Social Science Association excused his absence from one of its meetings by saying, "I stayed at home to read a book on social science that furnishes me with a solution of all the problems discussed there. The first chapter was written by a man named Moses, and the last. by a man named John, and the name of the book is the Bible." 1 If in the modern system of industry wage-workers, as a class, are oppressed by the tyranny of capital, as is charged by socialists, it is because the law of ethics laid down in the Christian Scriptures and acknowledged as obligatory in all civilized society has been violated. In an extended examination of the social question, the conviction that such is the fact has been ever deepening. The Bible is the only 1 Homiletic Review, January, 1885, p. 29. 1 solution of this question. Indeed, no wrong was ever righted, no truth ever established, without a rigid application of the precepts sanctioned and enforced in the Bible. "The ethics of Socialism are closely akin to the ethics of Christianity, if not identical with them.”1 Socialism denotes a particular industrial order, as Christianity denotes a particular religious order. Like Christianity, it is variform. Two essential factors inhere in every phase of Socialism; one is critical, the other constructive; one declares that capitalism, the existing order, enriches the few who are employers, and impoverishes the many who are wage-workers, by robbing the latter of a large part of their earnings; the other declares that in order to remedy this evil which has become insupportable, business should be taken out of the hands of private persons and placed under public management, so far as to secure justice to workingmen in the distribution of the necessities, comforts, and luxuries of life which constitute wealth in the economic sense. This management by the State, by society, would be social rather than individual, hence Socialism. Socialism is therefore twofold: it prefers a serious charge against the present industrial régime and proposes an adequate remedy. Again, Socialism is the opposite of individualism. What is understood by individualism? In answer, let us glance at the different industrial systems in the history of labor. The first was that of natural liberty, in which every man worked for himself and had a free seat at the table of nature; the second was slavery; the third feudalism; the fourth, which is the present and is called the capitalistic system, because based upon private capital. Its three factors are private capital, freedom of contract, and free competition. The centre of this system, around which these three satellites move and which is the source of all their light and life, is the vicious principle of self-interest. The essence of this system is that each individual, however strong or weak, shall have perfect freedom to provide for himself. This is economic individualism. It asks the State to let business alone, and to guarantee the right of 1 Encyclopædia Britannica, article "Socialism." each individual to seek his own interest and to be relieved from any responsibility for the welfare of his neighbors. We shall soon see that this anti-Christian and barbarous doctrine of self-interest is the corner-stone of the existing order. Socialists declare that this individual or capitalistic system has been thoroughly tried and everywhere results in the oppression and degradation of the laborer, and that this exploitation will continue until the system is abolished, and the State shall assume the ownership of all land and other instruments of production, and conduct all business for the benefit of all the citizens alike; then, and not till then, can working men hope to receive their share of the wealth they produce. To this industrial order the term Socialism was first applied by Reyband, a French writer, in 1839. The word, however, originated in England a few years earlier in connection with the Owen movement. Socialism should be sharply distinguished from communism, which is an older term and denotes a common life with property held in common rather than by individuals. Communism agrees with socialism as to the nationalization of industry, but Socialism does not agree with communism as to a common life. Nihilism, which is at the antipodes of Socialism, is from the Latin word nihil, meaning nothing. Nihilists put confidence in nothing as it now is, hence they would destroy all existing institutions while proposing nothing to take their place. It thus differs from Socialism, which has in view a new social organisın. Anarchism is individualism gone mad. Like individualism, anarchism says to the State "hands off, let us alone:" they both agree in the industrial freedom of each individual, but anarchism is violent, while individualism is peaceful. Individualism is pure industrial anarchism minus violence. Socialism is opposed to both. The German economist Schaeffle says, "The Alpha and Omega of Socialism is the transmutation of private competing capital into united collective capital." This is equivalent to saying that the State should be the only capitalist; it should produce and distribute all economic goods. It is evident, however, that Schaeffle has in mind not critical but only constructive or remedial Socialism, and of this his definition gives us the quintessence. II. - The Five Fingers of the Socialistic Hand. "But,' said the magistrate, are you not, then, a Socialist?'- 'Certainly.' 'Well, but what then is Socialism?'-'It is,' replied Proudon, 'every aspiration towards the improvement of society.' 'But in that case,' very justly remarked the magistrate,' we all are Socialists.' is precisely what I think,' rejoined Proudon." EMILE DE LAVELEYE. 'That If we examine the Socialistic hand we shall find five fingers: 1. Economic; 2. Social; 3. Moral; 4. Political; 5. Religious. 1. The economic finger points to a more equal distribution of wealth. The present industrial system so favors the capitalist that laborers are systematically robbed. The platform of the Socialistic Labor Party of the United States says that under the present competitive system, the directors of labor, necessarily a small minority, monopolize the means of labor, and the masses are therefore maintained in poverty and dependence. The products of industry, therefore, must be more equally distributed, and nothing less than a new economical system can accomplish this result. 2. The social finger points to labor, rather than birth or wealth, as the condition of social recognition. It demands that the interests of society as a whole, rather than of individuals and classes, shall be the supreme object of the State and of each citizen. Its motto is, "Each for all, and all for each." 3. The moral finger points to the principles of justice and brotherhood. Socialism bases its demands upon simple justice. It claims that since all wealth is produced by labor, it is purely a matter of right that laborers should enjoy what they produce; and any system which deprives them of such enjoyment and confers these products upon non-workers, enabling them to live in idleness and luxury, |