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INTRODUCTION
1 The Success of Socialist Ideas
Socialism is the watchword and the catchword of our day. The socialist idea dominates the modem spirit. The masses
approve of it. It expresses the thoughts and feelings of all; it has set its seal
upon our time. When history comes to tell our story it will write above the chapter
"The Epoch of Socialism."
As yet, it is true, Socialism has not created a society
which can be said to represent its ideal. But for more than a generation the policies
of civilized nations have been directed towards nothing less than a gradual realization
of Socialism.[1] In recent years the movement has grown noticeably in vigour and
tenacity. Some nations have sought to achieve Socialism, in its fullest sense, at
a single stroke. Before our eyes Russian Bolshevism has already accomplished something
which, whatever we believe to be its significance, must by the very magnitude of
its design be regarded as one of the most remarkable achievements known to world
history. Elsewhere no one has yet achieved so much. But with other peoples only
the inner contradictions of Socialism itself and the fact that it cannot be completely
realized have frustrated socialist triumph. They also have gone as far as they could
under the given circumstances. Opposition in principle to Socialism there is none.
Today no influential party would dare openly to advocate Private Property in the
Means of Production. The word "Capitalism" expresses, for our age, the sum of all
evil. Even the opponents of Socialism are dominated by socialist ideas. In seeking
to combat Socialism from the standpoint of their special class interest these opponents—the
parties which particularly call themselves "bourgeois" or "peasant"—admit indirectly
the validity of all the essentials of socialist thought. For if it is only possible
to argue against the socialist programme that it endangers the particular interests
of one part of humanity, one has really affirmed Socialism. If one complains that
the system of economic and social organization which is based on private property
in the means of production does not sufficiently consider the interests of the community,
that it serves only the purposes of single strata, and that it limits productivity;
and if therefore one demands with the supporters of the various "social-political"
and "social-reform" movements, state interference in all fields of economic life,
then one has fundamentally accepted the principle of the socialist programme. Or
again, if one can only argue against socialism that the imperfections of human nature
make its realization impossible, or that it is inexpedient under existing economic
conditions to proceed at once to socialization, then one merely confesses that one
has capitulated to socialist ideas. The nationalist, too, affirms socialism, and
objects only to its Internationalism. He wishes to combine Socialism with the ideas
of Imperialism and the struggle against foreign nations. He is a national, not an
international socialist; but he, also, approves of the essential principles of Socialism.
[2]
The supporters of Socialism therefore are not confined to the Bolshevists and their
friends outside Russia or to the members of the numerous socialist parties: all
are socialists who consider the socialistic order of society economically and ethically
superior to that based on private ownership of the means of production, even though
they may try for one reason or another to make a temporary or permanent compromise
between their socialistic ideal and the particular interests which they believe
themselves to represent. If we define Socialism as broadly as this we see that the
great majority of people are with Socialism today. Those who confess to the principles
of Liberalism and who see the only possible form of economic society in an order
based on private ownership of the means of production are few indeed.
One striking fact illustrates the success of socialist ideas: namely, that we have grown accustomed
to designating as Socialism only that policy which aims to enact the socialist programme
immediately and completely, while we call by other names all the movements directed
towards the same goal with more moderation and reserve, and even describe these
as the enemies of Socialism. This can only have come about because few real opponents
of Socialism are left. Even in England, the home of Liberalism, a nation which has
grown rich and great through its liberal policy, people no longer know what Liberalism
really means. The English "Liberals" of today are more or less moderate socialists.[3]
In Germany, which never really knew Liberalism and which has become impotent and
impoverished through its anti-liberal policy, people have hardly a conception of
what Liberalism may be.
It is on the complete victory of the socialist idea in the
last decades that the great power of Russian Bolshevism rests. What makes Bolshevism
strong is not the Soviets' artillery and machine-guns but the fact that the whole
world receives its ideas sympathetically. Many socialists consider the Bolshevists'
enterprise premature and look to the future for the triumph of Socialism. But no
socialist can fail to be stirred by the words with which the Third International
summons the peoples of the world to make war on Capitalism. Over the whole earth
is felt the urge towards Bolshevism. Among the weak and lukewarm sympathy is mixed
with horror and with the admiration which the courageous believer always awakens
in the timid opportunist. But bolder and more consistent people greet without hesitation
the dawn of a new epoch.
2 The Scientific Analysis of Socialism
The starting-point of socialist doctrine is the criticism of the bourgeois order of society. We are
aware that socialist writers have not been very successful in this respect. We know
that they have misconceived the working of the economic mechanism, and that they
have not understood the function of the various institutions of the social order
which is based on division of labour and on private ownership of the means of production.
It has not been difficult to show the mistakes socialistic theorists have made in
analysing the economic process: critics have succeeded in proving their economic
doctrines to be gross errors. Yet to ask whether the capitalist order of society
is more or less defective is hardly a decisive answer to the question whether Socialism
would be able to provide a better substitute. It is not sufficient to have proved
that the social order based on private ownership of the means of production has
faults and that it has not created the best of all possible worlds; it is necessary
to show further that the socialistic order is better. This only a few socialists
have tried to prove, and these have done so for the most part in a thoroughly unscientific,
some even in a frivolous, manner. The science of Socialism is rudimentary, and just
that kind of Socialism which calls itself "Scientific" is not the last to be blamed
for this. Marxism has not been satisfied to present the coming of Socialism as an
inevitable stage of social evolution. Had it done only this it could not have exerted
that pernicious influence on the scientific treatment of the problems of social
life which must be laid to its charge. Had it done nothing except describe the socialistic
order of society as the best conceivable form of social life it could never have
had such injurious consequences. But by means of sophistry it has prevented the
scientific treatment of sociological problems and has poisoned the intellectual
atmosphere of the time.
According to the Marxist conception, one's social condition
determines one's way of thought. His membership of a social class decides what views
a writer will express. He is not able to grow out of his class or to free his thoughts
from the prescriptions of his class interests.[4]Thus the possibility of a general
science which is valid for all men, whatever their class, is contested. It was only
another step for Dietzgen to proceed to the construction of a special proletarian
logic.[5] But truth lies with the proletarian science only: "the ideas of proletarian
logic are not party ideas, but the consequences of logic pure and simple."[6] Thus
Marxism protects itself against all unwelcome criticism. The enemy is not refuted:
enough to unmask him as a bourgeois.[7] Marxism criticizes the achievements of all
those who think otherwise by representing them as the venal servants of the bourgeoisie.
Marx and Engels never tried to refute their opponents with argument. They insulted,
ridiculed, derided, slandered, and traduced them, and in the use of these methods
their followers are not less expert. Their polemic is directed never against the
argument of the opponent, but always against his person. Few have been able to withstand
such tactics. Few indeed have been courageous enough to oppose Socialism with that
remorseless criticism which it is the duty of the scientific thinker to apply to
every subject of inquiry. Only thus is to be explained the fact that supporters
and opponents of Socialism have unquestioningly obeyed the prohibition which Marxism
has laid on any closer discussion of the economic and social conditions of the socialist
community. Marxism declares on the one hand that the socialization of the means
of production is the end towards which economic evolution leads with the inevitability
of a natural law; on the other hand it represents such socialization as the aim
of its political effort. In this way he expounded the first principle of socialist
organization. The purpose of the prohibition to study the working of a socialist
community, which was justified by a series of threadbare arguments, was really intended
to prevent the weaknesses of Marxist doctrines from coming clearly to light in discussions
regarding the creation of a practicable socialist society. A clear exposition of
the nature of socialist society might have damped the enthusiasm of the masses,
who sought in Socialism salvation from all earthly ills. The successful suppression
of these dangerous inquiries, which had brought about the downfall of all earlier
socialistic theories, was one of Marx's most skillful tactical moves. Only because
people were not allowed to talk or to think about the nature of the socialist community
was Socialism able to become the dominant political movement of the late nineteenth
and early twentieth centuries.
These statements can hardly be illustrated better
than by a quotation from the writings of Hermann Cohen, one of those who, in the
decades immediately preceding the world war, exerted the strongest influence
on German thought. "Today," says Cohen, "no want of understanding prevents us from
recognizing the kernel of the social question and therefore, even if only furtively,
the necessity of social reform policy, but only the evil, or the not sufficiently
good, will. The unreasonable demand that it should unveil the picture of the future
state for the general view, with which attempts are made to embarrass party Socialism,
can be explained only by the fact that such defective natures exist. The state presupposes
law, but these people ask what the state would look like rather than what are the
ethical requirements of law. By thus reversing the concepts one confuses the ethics
of Socialism with the poesy of the Utopias. But ethics are not poetry and the idea
has truth without image. Its image is the reality which is only to arise according
to its prototype. The socialist idealism can to-day be looked upon as a general
truth of public consciousness, though as one which is still, nevertheless, an open
secret. Only the egoism implicit in ideals of naked covetousness, which is the true
materialism, denies it a faith."[8] The man who wrote and thought thus was widely
praised as the greatest and most daring German thinker of his time, and even opponents
of his teaching respected him as an intellect. Just for that reason it is necessary
to stress that Cohen not only accepts without criticism or reserve the demands of
Socialism and acknowledges the prohibition against attempts to examine conditions
in the socialist community, but that he represents as a morally inferior being anyone
who tries to embarrass "party-Socialism" with a demand for light upon the problems
of socialist economies. That the daring of a thinker whose criticism otherwise spares
nothing should stop short before a mighty idol of his time is a phenomenon which
may be observed often enough in the history of thought—even Cohen's great exemplar,
Kant, is accused of this.[9] But that a philosopher should charge with ill-will,
defective disposition, and naked covetousness not merely all those of a different
opinion but all who even touch on a problem dangerous to those in authority—this,
fortunately, is something of which the history of thought can show few examples.
Anyone who failed to comply unconditionally with this coercion was proscribed and
outlawed. In this way Socialism was able from year to year to win more and more
ground without anyone being moved to make a fundamental investigation of how it
would work. Thus, when one day Marxian Socialism assumed the reins of power, and
sought to put its complete programme into practice, it had to recognize that it
had no distinct idea of what, for decades, it had been trying to achieve.
A discussion of the problems of the socialist community is therefore of the greatest importance,
and not only for understanding the contrast between liberal and socialist policy.
Without such a discussion it is not possible to understand the situations which
have developed since the movement towards nationalization and municipalization commenced.
Until now economics—with a comprehensible but regrettable onesidedness—has investigated
exclusively the mechanism of a society based on private ownership of the means of
production. The gap thus created must be filled.
The question whether society ought
to be built up on the basis of private ownership of the means of production or on
the basis of public ownership of the means of production is political. Science cannot
decide it; Science cannot pronounce a judgment on the relative values of the forms
of social organization. But Science alone, by examining the effects of institutions,
can lay the foundations for an understanding of society. Though the man of action,
the politician, may sometimes pay no attention to the results of this examination,
the man of thought will never cease to inquire into all things accessible to human
intelligence. And in the long run thought must determine action.
3 Alternative Modes of Approach to the Analysis of Socialism
There are two ways of treating the problems
which Socialism sets to Science.
The cultural philosopher may deal with Socialism
by trying to place it in order among all other cultural phenomena. He inquires into
its intellectual derivation, he examines its relation to other forms of social life,
he looks for its hidden sources in the soul of the individual, he tries to understand
it as a mass phenomena. He examines its effects on religion and philosophy, on art
and literature. He tries to show the relation in which it stands to the natural
and mental sciences of the time. He studies it as a style of life, as an utterance
of the psyche, as an expression of ethical and aesthetic beliefs. This is the cultural-historical-psychological
way. Ever trodden and retrodden, it is the way of a thousand books and essays.
We must never judge a scientific method in advance. There is only one touchstone for
its ability to achieve results: success. It is quite possible that the cultural-historical-psychological
method will also contribute much towards a solution of the problems which Socialism
has set to Science. That its results have been so unsatisfactory is to be ascribed
not only to the incompetence and political prejudices of those who have undertaken
the work, but above all to the fact that the sociological-economical treatment
of the problems must precede the cultural-historical-psychological. For Socialism
is a programme for transforming the economic life and constitution of society according
to a defined ideal. To understand its effects in other fields of mental and cultural
life one must first have seen clearly its social and economic significance. As long
as one is still in doubt about this it is unwise to risk a cultural-historical-psychological
interpretation. One cannot speak of the ethics of Socialism before one has cleared
up its relation to other moral standards. A relevant analysis of its reactions on
religion and public life is impossible when one has only an obscure conception of
its essential reality. It is impossible to discuss Socialism at all without having
first and foremost examined the mechanism of an economic order based on public ownership
of the means of production.
This comes out clearly at each of the points at which
the cultural-historical-psychological method usually starts. Followers of this method
regard Socialism as the final consequences of the democratic idea of equality without
having decided what democracy and equality really mean or in what relation they
stand to each other, and without having considered whether Socialism is essentially
or only generally concerned with the idea of equality. Sometimes they refer to Socialism
as a reaction of the psyche to the spiritual desolation created by the rationalism
inseparable from Capitalism; sometimes again they assert that Socialism aims at
the highest rationalization of material life, a rationalization which Capitalism
could never attain.[10] Those who engulf their cultural and theoretical exposition
of Socialism in a chaos of mysticism and incomprehensible phrases need not be discussed
here.
The researches of this book are to be directed above all to the sociological
and economic problems of Socialism. We must treat these before we can discuss the
cultural and psychological problems. Only on the results of such research can we
base studies of the culture and psychology of Socialism. Sociological and economic
research alone can provide a firm foundation for those expositions—so much more
attractive to the great public—which present a valuation of Socialism in the light
of the general aspirations of the human race.
[1] "'It may now fairly be claimed that the socialist philosophy of today is but the
conscious and explicit assertion of principles of social organization which have been
already in great part unconsciously adopted. The economic history of the century is an
almost continuous record of the progress of Socialism." Sidney Webb in
Fabian Essays (1889), p. 30.
[2]Foerster points out particularly that the labour movement has attained its real triumph
"in the hearts of the possessing classes"; through this "the moral force for resistance has
been taken away from these classes." (Foerster,
Christentum und Klassenkampf [Zurich, 1908],
p. 111 ff.) In 1869 Prince-Smith had noted the fact that the socialist ideas had found supporters
among employers. He mentions that amongst business men, "however strange this may sound,
there are some who understand their own activity in the national economy with so little
clarity that they hold the socialist ideas as more or less founded, and, consequently,
have a bad conscience really, as if they had to admit to themselves that their profits
were actually made at the cost of their workmen. This makes them timid and even more muddled.
It is very bad. For our economic civilization would be seriously threatened if its bearers
could not draw, from the feeling of complete justification, the courage to defend its
foundations with the utmost resolution." (Prince-Smith's
Gesammelte Schriften [Berlin, 1877],
vol. 1, p. 362.) Prince-Smith, however, would not have known how to discuss the socialist
theories critically.
[3]This is shown clearly in the programme of present-day
English Liberals:
Britain's Industrial Future, being the Report of the Liberal Industrial
Inquiry, London 1928.
[4]"Science exists only in the heads of the scientists,
and they are products of society. They cannot get out of it and beyond it" (Kautsky,
Die
soziale Revolution, 3rd ed. [Berlin, 1911], vol. 2, p. 39).
[5]Dietzgen, "Briefe über Logik, speziell
demokratisch-proletarische Logik" (
Internationale Bibliothek, Vol. XXII, 2nd Ed. Stuttgart, 1903),
p. 112: "Finally logic deserves the epithet 'proletarian' also for the reason that to
understand it one must have overcome all the prejudices which hold the bourgeoisie."
[6] Ibid, p. 112.
[7]It is a fine irony of history that even Marx suffered
this fate. Untermann finds that "even the mental life of typical proletarian thinkers of the
Marxist school" contain "remains of past epochs of thought, if only in rudimentary form. These
rudiments will appear all the stronger the more the thought stages lived through before the
thinker became Marxist were passed in a bourgeois or feudal milieu. This was notoriously so with
Marx, Engels, Plekhanov, Kautsky, Mehring, and other prominent Marxists" (Untermann,
Die Logischen
Mängel des engeren Marxismus [Munich, 1910], p. 125). And De Man believes that to understand "the
individuality and variety of the theories" one would have to consider, besides the thinker's
general social background, also his own economic and social life—a "Bourgeois" life ... "in the
case of the college-trained Marx" (De Man,
Zur Psychologie des Sozialismus, new ed. [Jena, 1927],
p. 17).
[8]Cohen,
Einleitung mit kritischem Nachtrag zur neunten
Auflage der Geschichte des Materialismus von Friedrich Albert Lange, 3rd extended ed.
(Leipzig, 1914), P. 115. Also Natorp,
Sozialpädagogik, 4th ed. (Leipzig, 1920), p. 201.
[9]Anton Menger,
Neue Sittenlehre (Jena, 1905), pp. 45, 62.
[10]Muckle,
Das Kulturideal des Sozialismus (Munich, 1918)
even expects of socialism that it will bring about both "the highest rationalization of economic
life" and "redemption from the most terrible of all barbarisms: capitalist rationalism."
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