Socialism

“ He saw socialism then in its ideal aspect, as a triumph of justice and love: a reasonable career offered to the whole race. For this triumph, this reordering of the common life, he never ceased to work; but a deeper experience taught him that it could not be effected by any change imposed on society from without, or any readjustment between man and man. ”

“ I never heard of any system of socialism which did not seem to defeat the very object which it had at heart. And yet it was surely deplorable that the men should be there, and that the work should be there, and that none could command the link which would unite them. ”

“ Whoever has come to a full consciousness of the nature of capitalist society and the foundation of modern socialism, knows also that a socialist movement that leaves the basis of the class struggle, may be anything else, but it is not socialism. ”

“ Administrative Socialism gave it a physical structure and nerves, defined its organs and determined its functions; it remains for the Socialist of to-day to realize in this shaping body of the civilized State of the future the breath of life already unconfessedly there, to state in clear terms the reality for which our plans are made, by which alone they can be realized, that is to say, the collective mind of humanity, the soul and moral being of mankind. ”

“ Thus the aristocracy took their revenge by singing lampoons on their new master, and whispering in his ears sinister prophecies of coming catastrophe.
In this way arose feudal socialism; half lamentation, half lampoon; half echo of the past, half menace of the future; at times, by its bitter, witty and incisive criticism, striking the bourgeoisie to the very hearts' core, but always ludicrous in its effect, through total incapacity to comprehend the march of modern history. ”

“ I have tried briefly to show that Socialism originated as a class movement, a proletarian movement; that the classes, wage-earner and capitalist, are the natural outcome of machine production; that Socialism is one of the natural products of the antagonistic relations that these two classes at present occupy; that Socialism intends to eliminate this antagonism by eliminating the private employer. I have tried to show also that Socialism is a criticism of the present social order placing the blame for the miseries of society upon the shoulders of private property and competition ”

“ Socialism, therein lies the future, the new instrument of government; and the kings tottering on their thrones, the middle-class presidents of anxious republics, the ambitious plotters who dream of power, all dabble in socialism! They all agree that the capitalist organisation of the State is a return to pagan times, to the olden slave-market ”

“ The distinctive feature of Socialism is not that all things are in common, but that production is only carried on upon the common account, and that the instruments of production are held as common property. ”

“ Socialism is first of all a political movement of the working class, clearly defined and uncompromising, which aims at the overthrow of the prevailing capitalist system by securing control of the national government and by the exercise of the public powers, supplanting the existing capitalist class government with Socialist administration—that is to say, changing a republic in name into a republic in fact. ”

“ This is the true socialism, which comes from the spirit of Christ, and, without breaking down existing orders of society, by love makes the property and possessions of the higher class the property of the lower. ”

“ This ideal and hope of a new society founded on industrial peace and forethought, bearing with it its own ethics, aiming at a new and higher life for all men, has received the general name of Socialism, and it is my firm belief that it is destined to supersede the old order of things founded on industrial war, and to be the next step in the progress of humanity. ”

“ Modern socialism, akin to communism, and in all its tendencies subversive of good government, declaims over the poverty and misery of the unhappy masses, laments their insufficient shelter, food, and clothing, is sentimental on the subject of labor and wages, and seeks to rouse the abject sufferers to a sense of their sad condition. ”

“ IN its early days, socialism was a revolutionary movement of which the object was the liberation of the wage-earning classes and the establishment of freedom and justice. The passage from capitalism to the new régime was to be sudden and violent: capitalists were to be expropriated without compensation, and their power was not to be replaced by any new authority. ”

“ So socialism regards the common nature and powers and needs of men as so much more important than the respects in which they differ, that it deliberately puts the latter to one side—and in the resolve to ignore differences lies an inspiring force. ”

“ Dominant 'Moderate Socialism' forgot the teachings of the founders of scientific Socialism, forgot its function as a proletarian movement--'the most resolute and advanced section of the working class parties'--and permitted the bourgeois and self-seeking trade union elements to shape its policies and tactics. ”

“ To understand the effect on the whole socialist movement, one must distinguish clearly the two contrasting types of socialism. It is the curse of the orthodox, or Marxian, type of socialism, that it was "made in Germany." ”

“ Socialism is one of the vaguest words in the language, but in the form in which it is often preached it is the doctrine according to which all the means of producing wealth, land, factories, machinery, and so on, should be possessed by the state. ”

“ As yet, to the average bourgeois mind, socialism is merely a menace, vague and formless. The average member of the capitalist class, when he discusses socialism, is condemned an ignoramus out of his own mouth. ”

“ Whether the question was the right of petition or the duty on wine, the liberty of the press or free trade, clubs or municipal laws, protection of individual freedom or the regulation of national economy, the slogan returns ever again, the theme is monotonously the same, the verdict is ever ready and unchanged: Socialism! Even bourgeois liberalism is pronounced socialistic; socialistic, alike, is pronounced popular education ”

“ Socialism must, therefore, pursue simultaneously the economic, moral, and political emancipation of the proletariat. Nevertheless, the economic point of view must be paramount, for the concentration of capital in the hands of a single class forms the basis of all the other forms of its domination. ”

“ Marxian socialism has the candor to say, through the mouths of its most authoritative spokesmen, to the great suffering host of the modern proletariat, that it has no magic wand to transform the world in a single day, as one shifts the scenes in a theatre ”

“ A favourite dream of socialism is—or was until the idea of collectivism obtained—that each State of Europe should be divided into an infinite number of small self-contained communes. Now, it sometimes happens that the thing we desire is already realised, had we eyes to see. ”

“ Such were paradise and hell in the middle ages, short words that have the power of answering for everything, and to simple minds explaining everything. The word socialism represents to the modern workman one of these magical and synthetic formulas capable of ruling the mind. ”

“ But socialism is more than such a belief. It is not only a theory of the State's action, but a theory of the State's action founded on a theory of the labourer's right. It is at bottom, as I have said, a mistaken demand for social justice. It tells us that an enlargement of social justice was made when it was declared that every man shall be free—or, in other words, that every man shall possess completely his own powers of labour; and it claims that a new enlargement of social justice shall be made now, to declare that every man shall possess the whole produce of his labour. ”

“ I have already shown, in speaking of anthropological inequalities, that socialism will, on the contrary, assure to all individuals the conditions of a human existence and the possibility of developing with the utmost freedom and completeness their own respective individualities. ”

“ In the course of my work as an agitator (and socialist agitation is the best School of Socialism) I met many sterling socialists who had never been Utopians as I had. They were born fighters, so to speak, and had been full of the class spirit, and fighting the capitalists in the trade-union and elsewhere in every way they could think of, long before they had ever heard of the ideal of the Co-operative Commonwealth. And these men are among our best and most uncompromising socialists. ”

“ We have demonstrated that the socialism which characterizes the end of the nineteenth century and which will illumine the dawn of the coming century is in perfect harmony with the entire current of modern thought. ”

“ Only time can show what possibilities of understanding, leadership, and political action lie in our new generation of the better-educated middle class. Will it presently begin to define a line for itself? Will it remain disorganized and passive, or will it become intelligent and decisive between these millstones of the organized property and the organizing State, between Plutocracy and Socialism, whose opposition is the supreme social and political fact in the world at the present time? ”

“ But the modern Socialist considers that this generalization is a little too confident and comprehensive; he perceives that a change in custom, law or public opinion may delay, arrest or invert the economic process, and that Socialism may arrive after all not by a social convulsion, but by the gradual and detailed concession of its propositions. The Marxist presents dramatically what after all may come methodically and unromantically, a revolution as orderly and quiet as the precession of the equinoxes. ”

“ I was going on to protest that I was not ignorant of the doctrine.
“Oh, what you call socialism is merely what you believe to be the more or less crude and utopian propaganda of an obscure political party. ”

“ For, to make men Socialists is nothing, but to make Socialism human is a great thing. ”

“ Since socialism seeks to construct what may be called a working class State, where the material welfare of each shall be the great object of the organization of all, it is common to represent as socialistic any proposal that asks the State to do something for the material well-being of the working class, and to describe any group of such proposals, or any theory that favours them, by the name of socialism. ”

“ This is what constitutes the radical, immeasurable transformation that socialism demands, but that it also has discovered and announces as an evolution—already begun in the world around us—that will be necessarily, inevitably accomplished in the human society of the days to come. ”

“ The term socialism at the present time has two distinct concepts, the one standing for the process by which the proletariat develops its political and industrial independence of the existing capitalistic regime, and the other a more or less hazy objective, which is sometimes called socialism and often the co-operative commonwealth. ”

“ Democracy, under the impetus given it by organized labor, is evolving irresistibly toward Socialism, and Socialism toward a form of property which will deliver man from his exploitation by man, and bring to an end the régime of class government. The Radicals flatter themselves that they can put a stop to this movement by promising the working classes some reforms, and by proclaiming themselves the guardians of private property. ”

“ It should be said, moreover, that Socialism is to-day used in the distinct sense of a system which abolishes private property, and places the control of the capital, labor, and combined industries of the country in the hands of the state. ”

“ The philanthropic and experimental forms of socialism, which played a conspicuous rôle before 1848, perished then in the wreck of the Revolution, and have never risen to life again. The old schools have dispersed. Their doctrines, their works, their very hopes have gone. The theories of man's entire dependence on circumstances, of the rehabilitation of the flesh, of the passional attraction, once in everybody's mouth, have sunk into oblivion. ”

“ We have seen, then, that the rise of socialism as a new and reasoned theory of society was relative to the industrial revolution and to the ideas proclaimed in the French Revolution, prominent among which, besides the much emphasised idea of freedom and the less easily realised ideals of equality and fraternity, was the conception of the worth and dignity of labour. ”

“ Socialism must be organized, drilled, equipped, and the place to begin is in the industries where the workers are employed. Their economic power has got to be developed through efficient organization, or their political power, even if it could be developed, would but react upon them, thwart their plans, and all but destroy them. ”

“ I refrain from going at length into a discussion of labor issues. Shall prohibitionists come out for State Socialism, shall they pledge themselves to make that economic nationalism which is now only a prophecy and an ideal, a political fact when they came into administration? No political party should do this. But the word socialism is a word of good meaning. It means fraternity, industry upon a Christian basis. ”

“ Socialism, however, which strives to annihilate the struggle for existence, competition, and the collision of capital with labour, aims at a millennium of orderly progress from which the pressure of want and the stimulus of ambition shall be excluded. ”

“ He makes clear that socialism in its economic aspect is but a single phase of a great movement; that in every avenue of its activity, a higher meaning is connoted and that every Socialistic aspiration is as important ethically as economically and politically. ”