Thomas Kirkup

“ Let it be understood that in the great struggle for a really free commonwealth against organised wealth, called plutocracy, on which men are now entering, we shall achieve victory only by deserving it. The sacred cause of freedom will not be maintained by mammon-worshippers, parasites, and pedants. No nation or class whose women are slaves of self-indulgence and of fashion can expect to be free. ”

“ What he desiderated, for instance, in an ideal society was the most perfect equality of remuneration. It was his principle that service pays service, that a day’s labour balances a day’s labour—in other words, that the duration of labour is the just measure of value. He did not shrink from any of the consequences of this theory, for he would give the same remuneration to the worst mason as to a Phidias; but he looks forward also to a period in human development when the present inequality in the talent and capacity of men would be reduced to an inappreciable minimum. ”

“ In fact, it is not a paradox but the plain truth that socialists are now the greatest obstacle to the progress of their ideal. Nor is this at all strange. The same thing has happened in the development of all great ideals; men are too little for them, and in their love for forms and dogmas forget and even repudiate or suppress the spirit. For the progress of socialism the thing most needful now is to throw off the technical dogmatic and ultra-revolutionary form which it has inherited from the past, and to study the real needs and live issues of the present. ”

“ Property and capital are defined and treated as the power of exploiting the labour of other men, of claiming the results of labour without giving an equivalent. Proudhon’s famous paradox, ‘Property is theft,’ is merely a trenchant expression of this general principle. As slavery is assassination inasmuch as it destroys all that is valuable and desirable in human personality, so property is theft inasmuch as it appropriates the value produced by the labour of others in the form of rent, interest, or profit without rendering an equivalent. ”

“ Socialism, considered both as a movement and as a system of economic thought, is still in process of development. Its theories must undergo the rough-hewing of continual controversy, discussion, and criticism. The whole movement must pass through the test, the tear and wear of experience, under the conditions prescribed by history and the fundamental laws of human nature, before its ideals can hope to be wedded to fact. We might add that it will receive the purification of experience; only, we have to lament that it is the fate of our ideals to submit also to the degradation of experience. ”

“ Saint-Simon saw that a new world, an industrial world resting on labour, had arisen, while the old feudal and theological world—fainéant courtiers and a clergy steeped in ignorance—still ruled. All this array of parasites, who had no longer any useful function to perform for society, Saint-Simon sought to replace by the industrial chiefs and scientific leaders as the real working heads of the French people. Only, he expected that these exceptionally gifted men, instead of exploiting the labour of others, should control an industrial France for the general good. ”

“ Having shown at length that the working class are called to be the creators and representatives of a new historical era, he proceeds: ‘From what we have said there follows for all who belong to the working class the duty of an entirely new bearing.
‘Nothing is more suited to stamp on a class a worthy and deeply moral impress than the consciousness that it is called to be the ruling class, that it is appointed to raise its principle to be the principle of an entire epoch, to make its idea the ruling idea of the whole society, and so again to mould society after its own pattern. ”

“ Under the pressure of the competition of the large industry, the small capitalist is gradually crushed out, and the working producers become wage-labourers organised and drilled in immense factories and workshops. The development of this system still continues, and is enveloping the whole world. Such is the industrial revolution.
Parallel with this a revolution in the world of ideas, equally great and equally necessary to the rise of socialism, has taken place. ”

“ Thirdly, Socialism has brought the cause of the poor most powerfully before the civilised world. It is one of the enduring results of socialistic agitation and discussion that the interests of the suffering members of the human race, so long ignored and so fearfully neglected, have become a question of the first magnitude, the foremost question in all progressive countries. It is this question which gives a substantial basis and a real meaning to the great democratic movement, which it would be the gravest of all errors to regard as a merely political struggle. ”

“ All the more regrettable, therefore, is it that Marx should have adopted such a narrowing system of philosophy as materialism. It is also remarkable that he, the severest of critics, should have adopted, at so early an age and without due scrutiny, the theory of value set forth by Adam Smith and Ricardo, and that he should have applied it without question during the remainder of his life to the building up of a vast system of thought, and to a socialistic propaganda which was meant to revolutionise the world. ”

“ This was to be followed in time by the development of machinery, like the cotton-spinning machine of Arkwright, itself the living embodiment of the industrial and economic revolution, which was destined to produce a corresponding political change. The new machinery, the large industry, the division of labour, cheap goods, and the world-market—these were all parts of an organic whole. Production in mass made cheap goods possible; the cheapening of commodities called forth a wider market, and the wider market led to a still larger production. ”

“ It reaps without labour, consumes without producing, and enjoys without exertion.
Proudhon’s aim, therefore, was to realise a science of society resting on principles of justice, liberty, and equality thus understood; ‘a science, absolute, rigorous, based on the nature of man and of his faculties, and on their mutual relations; a science which we have not to invent, but to discover.’ But he saw clearly that such ideas, with their necessary accompaniments, could be realised only through a long and laborious process of social transformation. ”

“ A most wholesome effect of the adverse experience of the Social Democratic party was that it sifted from their ranks all who were not thoroughly in earnest in the cause of the working man. It is a grave misfortune of new movements like socialism that it attracts from the middle and upper classes all manner of faddists and crotchety enthusiasts and adventurers, vapid and futile talkers, acrid and morbid pessimists, who join the movement, not from real love of the cause, but because it gives them an opportunity to scheme and harangue, and to lash out at the vices of the existing society. ”

“ In this struggle, if the individual had been left to himself, he could have made no progress. The State it is which has the function to accomplish this development of freedom, this development of the human race in the way of freedom. The duty of the State is to enable the individual to reach a sum of culture, power, and freedom, which for individuals would be absolutely unattainable. ”

“ It is a result determined by the inherent laws of social evolution, independent of the will and purpose of individual men. All that the most powerful and clear-sighted intellect can do is to learn to divine the laws of the great movement of society, and to shorten and alleviate the birth-pangs of the new era. The efforts of reactionaries of every class to turn the wheel of history backwards are in vain. But an intelligent appreciation of its tendencies, and a willing co-operation with them, will make progress easier, smoother, and more rapid. ”

“ For the proletariat and the sinking intermediate grades—small tradesmen and peasant proprietors—it means increasing insecurity of their existence, increase of misery, of oppression, of servitude, degradation, and exploitation.
‘Ever greater grows the number of the proletarians, ever larger the army of superfluous workmen, ever wider the chasm between exploiters and exploited, ever bitterer the class struggle between bourgeoisie and proletariat, which divides modern society into two hostile camps, and is the common characteristic of all industrial lands. ”

“ It separates the workman from his means of production, and transforms him into a proletarian without property, whilst the means of production become the monopoly of a comparatively small number of capitalists and great landowners.
‘This monopolising of the means of production is accompanied by the supplanting of the scattered small production through the colossal great production, by the development of the tool into the machine, and by gigantic increase of the productivity of human labour. But all advantages of this transformation are monopolised by the capitalists and great landowners. ”

“ This appropriation of surplus labour is a very old phenomenon in human society. In all the forms of society which depended on slave-labour, and under the feudal régime, the appropriation of the results of other men’s labour was open, undisguised, and compulsory. Under the capitalistic system it is disguised under the form of free contract. The effect is the same. For the workman who is unprovided with the instruments of labour, whose working power is useless without them, this compulsion is not less real because it is concealed under the forms of freedom. ”

“ Whereas Newton discovered that the law of attraction governs one movement of the world, Fourier shows that it is universal, ruling the world in all its movements, which are four—material, organic, intellectual, and social. It is the same law of attraction which pervades all things, from the cosmic harmony of the stars down to the puny life of the minutest insect, and which would reign also in the human soul and in human society, if the intentions of the Creator were understood. In the elucidation of his system Fourier’s aim simply is to interpret the intentions of the Creator. ”

“ In its main practical aim, to serve as a common centre for the combined efforts of working men of all nations towards their universal emancipation, the International had only a moderate and transitory success. It was a great idea, for which the times were not ripe. How effectually organise so many millions of working men, of different countries, at different stages of social development—men ignorant of each other’s language, with little leisure, without funds for travelling and purposes of propaganda? ”

“ One of the first duties of the people will obviously be to simplify the cumbrous machinery of the Constitution, and to make it a more efficient organ of their will. In the two great crises of American history, nothing strikes us so forcibly as the high standard of character and intelligence which was shown. It may be regarded as a symptom of a really strong race, that they were so slow and reluctant to take decisive measures in the struggle for Independence and at the time of the Civil War. We may now see the same natural hesitation in deciding how to handle a problem of surpassing gravity. ”

“ They object to all authority and all government on principle, and in all human relations would, in place of legal and administrative control, substitute free contract, perpetually subject to revision and cancelment. But, as no freedom is possible in a society where capital is monopolised by a diminishing minority, they believe that capital, the common inheritance of humanity, since it is the fruit of the co-operation of past and present generations, ought to be at the disposal of all, so that no man be excluded from it, and no man seize part of it to the detriment of the rest. ”

“ Rockefeller reveal a rare combination of insight and energy in founding and consolidating a new industry which of itself is sufficient to account for success. In any case, we in England, looking back on our history, have no right to point the finger of reproach at our American kinsmen. There is indeed a cynical theory that our ruling classes are free from such reproach only because they have been sated with the wealth they have already gained. With us the struggle has long been decided; whereas in America the dust and heat of battle still blind the eyes of men. ”

“ It is a free self-governing form of industry, corresponding in the economic sphere to the democratic system in politics; industry of the people, by the people, for the people. But while a rational socialism seeks to establish industrial freedom, it aims also at promoting and securing industrial peace by terminating the struggle between labour and capital, for, as we have seen, its aim is to unite them in the same group.
Under such a system the workers will have full control of their economic interests. They will have the sobering and steadying discipline of responsibility. ”

“ Every year it widens and grows, and we hope it will grow and widen till the old, with all its false and base ideals, its unreason, its militarism, its mismanagement, waste, and extravagance has been put away. Hearts have been burning with the sacred fire of noble ideals in the promoting of this grand work. Imaginations have been haunted with beautiful dreams, which have not been vain. But we should prize not less the patient and persevering integrity which, through a multitude of petty and prosaic details, is bearing the movement onward to an ever higher position in the world. ”

“ To say that socialism exacts a greater regard for the common weal than is compatible with human nature is to pass sentence on the movement, not to define it. In all ages of the world, and under all forms and tendencies of government and of social evolution, the will of the individual has been subordinated to the will of society, often unduly so. ”

“ Need we wonder that the teaching of Marx, Lassalle, and Engels has become a possession to them, a theme for mind and heart? The seed has taken root among millions of men and women remarkable for intelligence, thoroughness, and earnestness. And the process that has thus gone on in Germany goes on more or less all over the world.
The men and women of the labouring democracy, let us remember, have, many of them, known hunger and privation in every form, not only as an exceptionally severe occurrence in times of strike and unemployment, but as a chronic experience. ”