assumed first principle, like the French who start from "Social equality" or like Herbert Spencer, when in his Social Statics he lays it down as an axiom, that every man has freedom to do all that he wills, provided he infringes not the like freedom of every other man; "but basing themselves on experience-not individual but universal experience—they can and do present clear-cut, definite solutions. It is this German Socialism which is presented in the following pages, with this important inodification that it has been digested by a mind, Anglo-Saxon in its dislike of all extravagancies and in its freedom from any vindictive feeling against persons, who are from circumstances what they are. In the first three chapters we present the Socialist critique of the phenomena of the era in which we are living ; in the next three chapters we indicate the coming Social order which will, probably, develop itself out of the present system; in the three that follow we outline the political and legal machinery which very likely will be found necessary to the working of that new order; in chapters X, XI and XII, we point out the principal social effects which may be expected to follow from it, and in the last chapter we consider how the revolution—the changeis likely to be accomplished in our country and England. We believe it is time that a work, containing all the leading tenets of Socialism in a concise, consecutive form should be presented in the English language-in the language of the two countries where the social, and specially the industrial conditions, are ripening quicker than anywhere else. Such a work, in fact, exists nowhere. Whenever any one now wishes to inform himself on the subject he has to wade through innumerable books and pamphlets, mostly German. That such a candid man as John S. Mill, who had a truly Socialist heart. did not become a Socialist we attribute to this fragmentary shape of Socialist thought, and that in a tougue unknown to him; for his Chapters on Socialism." published after his death, show that he was familiar only with French speculations, of a time when Socialism was yet in its infancy. We can dismiss nearly all that thus far has been written in our language by Socialists on the subject with the remark that it is not exactly adapted to people of judgment and culture. We think that all Americans who simply want to be well-informed ought to make themselves acquainted with this new philosophy-and Socialism is nothing less than that-which is believed in by hundreds of thousands of our fellow-men with a fervor equalling the enthusiasm of the early Christians. We think they will make themselves acquainted with it, as soon as it is presented to them in readable English, and applied to American phenomena and American conditions by a writer possessing the American bias for the practical. Such Socialism, whether true or false, whether destined to be successful or unsuccessful, is a matter that concerns you personally. But if the writer of this work did not hope to accomplish something beyond giving some, or even many, Americans more correct notions of the aims of Socialists than those they have, it would never have been written. We have a deeper purpose, far nearer our heart. Most reflective minds, if they do not go the whole length of the one who speaks in the dialogue with which we started, do admit that we are at the brink of an extraordinary change; that a crisis of some sort is impending, no matter if it is likely to burst out now or in ten or fifty years from now. We then say that the only thing that can save us and our children from horrors, ten-fold worse than those of the French Revolution, that can save us from the infliction of such a scourge as Napoleon, will be the activ ity of a minority, acting as the brains of the Revolution. For while there will be a revolution, it need not necessarily be one marked by blood. We hope it will not be such a one: a revolution by violence is to Society what a hurricane is to a ship struggling on the stormy ocean; it is only by herculean efforts that we shall succeed in avoiding the rocks and bring it into the secure haven, and even then we shall be but at the threshold of our task. But, then, we must first have in our country this minority; a vigorous minority, even if but a small one; a minority of intelligent and energetic American men and women; a minority with sound convictions as to what the crisis means and how it may be made to redound to the welfare of the whole of Society and with the courage of their convictions. Such a minority will be indispensable to render the revolution a blessing, whether it comes peaceably or forcibly. Not that this minority is to make the coming Revolution—an individual, a clique, a majority even can as little make a revolution as the fly makes the carriage wheel roll; the Revolution makes itself or "grows itself; "— but this minority is to prepare for it and, when the decisive moment has arrived, act on the masses, as the power acts on the lever. To reach and possibly win this minority-however sınall—this book has mainly been written. We shall, for that purpose, address ourselves to the reflective minds of all classes, rich as well as poor, professional as well as working men-and, indeed, many, very many, literary men and women, very many lawyers, very many physicians and teachers are just as much in need of this Coming Revolution as most working men. But we shall assume, reader, that you are not one of those who are personally interested in the maintenance of the present Social Order, or rather Social Anarchy, for then it is hopeless to try to win you over. Very likely you will deem it a difficult feat to win you over, to turn you into a Socialist-All we ask of you is with us to view familiar facts of life from a standpoint, very different from the one you have hitherto been occupying, to look at them in other lights and shades, and then await the result. A man is never the same any more after he has once got a new impression. Much that we are going to say cannot but shock your preconceived ideas, but from St. Paul down many have been indignant at first hearing what afterwards became their most cherished convictions. We shall discard all common-places and phrases and throughout be mindful of Samuel Johnson's admonition : "Let us empty our minds of cant, gentlemen!" THE COOPERATIVE COMMONWEALTH. CHAPTER I. THE PROFIT SYSTEM. "The working class is the only class which is not a class. It is the nation. It represents, so to speak, the body as a whole, of which the other classes only represent special organs. These organs, no doubt, have great and indispensable functions, but for most purposes of government the State consists of the vast laboring majority. Its welfare depends on what their lives are like." -Frederic Harrison. "They (Political Economists) are men of only one idea— Wealth, how to procure and increase it. Their rules seemed infallibly certain to that supreme end. What did it signify that a great part of mankind was made meanwhile even more wretched than before, provided wealth on the whole increased?" Catholic Quarterly Review, Jan. 1880. "That the masses of men are robbed of their fair earnings that they have to work much harder than they ought to work for a very much poorer living than they ought to get, is to my mind clear."-Henry George. |