A contribution to the critique of attempts to construct a system of economic calculation for the Socialist community

Nothing is more difficult than to get a clear, historical perspective of a contemporary movement. The proximity of the phenomenon makes it difficult to recognize the whole in true proportion. Historical judgment above all demands distance.

Society is a product of will and action. Only human beings are able to will and act. All the mysticism and symbolism of collectivist philosophy cannot help us over the fact that we can speak only figuratively of the thinking, willing, and acting of communities, and that the conception of sentient thinking, willing, and acting communities is merely anthropomorphism.

The attitude of mind which sees in private property a privilege of the owners is an echo from former periods in the history of property. All property ownership began with appropriation of ownerless things. The history of property passed through a period in which forcible dispossession of the owners was the rule. It is safe to say that the ownership of any piece of ground property can be traced back to seizure by violence. This has of course no application to the social order of Capitalism, as property here is constantly being acquired in the process of market competition.

It is a mistake to think that the lack of success of experiments in Socialism that have been made can help to overcome Socialism. Facts per se can neither prove nor refute anything. Everything is decided by the interpretation and explanation of the facts, by the ideas and the theories.

According to Marx the political faith of the individual depends upon the class to which he belongs; the political faith of his class depends upon its interests as a class. The bourgeoisie is bound to support Capitalism. On the other hand the proletariat can only achieve its purpose, can only free itself from capitalist exploitation, by preparing the way for Socialism, Thus the respective positions of the bourgeoisie and the proletariat in the political arena are defined in advance. Perhaps no doctrine of Marx has made a deeper or more lasting impression on political theory than this.

Socalist policy employs two methods to accomplish its purposes: the first aims directly at converting society to Socialism; the second aims only indirectly at this conversion by destroying the social order which is based on private ownership. The parties of social reform and the evolutionary wings of the socialist parties prefer the first means; the second is the weapon of revolutionary Socialism, which is primarily concerned to clear the ground for building up a new civilization by liquidating the old one.