BIBLIOGRAPHY

MARX, The Poverty of Philosophy. Chicago, 1910.

JAURES, Studies in Socialism. New York, 1906.

GUTHRIE, Socialism before the French Revolution. New York, 1907.

ELY, French and German Socialism in Modern Times. New York, 1886.

LAVELEYE, Socialism of To-day. London, 1885.

II

THE BEGINNINGS OF MODERN SOCIALISM IN FRANCE

I

SOCIALISM, both as a philosophy and as a concerted movement, has its real beginning in the nineteenth century, and must be regarded as among the most remarkable developments of that age.

As a philosophy, Socialism proposes an interpretation of history that is worthy of a preliminary examination. A great evolution has been in progress for ages, of which Socialism is held to be the necessary outcome.1 The essential feature of this long-continued movement is a reaction against the theory of imperialism, or centralized authority, embodied in the Roman Empire and continued in the Roman Church. In its successive stages this reaction has received various names: the struggle for liberty of thought was called the Renaissance; the contest for religious freedom was known as the Reformation;

1 It is somewhat difficult for us to receive this interpretation of history, because the social order to which we have been accustomed from childhood seems to us a very stable thing, and we can hardly believe in the possibility of radical changes in it. But this apparent stability of society proves, on even a slight investigation, to be as deceptive as the apparent stability of the earth - it is hard to convince a child or a sav

age that the earth turns completely over every twenty-four hours, and is continually turning at a speed compared with which the swiftest railway train might seem to be standing still.

the attempt to win civic freedom men named the Revolution. So much as this has long been accepted as a sound historical generalization.

But the socialist further asserts that underneath this evolution, conditioning and controlling these outward manifestations, was a series of economic changes in society that historians have too little recognized. When Christianity began its career in the Roman Empire, it found a social order based on the institution of slavery, whose principal source of wealth was cultivation of the soil. This society was itself an advance on the prehistoric barbarism, in which a continual state of war prevailed. In such wars the defeated were at first killed on the spot by the victors, or taken prisoners only to be put to death by cruel tortures, as with the American aborigines, or to be eaten, as is still the custom among various African tribes. But after a time it was discovered that the worst use to which men could put a fellow-man was to kill him that it was far more profitable to spare his life and condemn him to perpetual servitude. Greek and Roman civilization was based on this system. At first free labor flourished alongside of slave labor, but at length slave labor drove out free labor and the agricultural system of the Empire became a series of vast farms or ranches worked by slaves. This system was falling into decay when the irruption of the Germanic tribes precipitated its downfall, and out of the ruins of slavocracy slowly emerged another social order, feudalism.

Feudalism had the same economic basis as Roman civilization; the main source of wealth was still agriculture. But under feudalism arms was the only calling of the freeborn population, and a class to cultivate the

soil was a necessity. Slavery had ceased to be profitable, and gradually became modified into serfdom. The slave's labor had been unpaid, but, on the other hand, the owner took the responsibility of the slave's maintenance. The serf was no longer a chattel, but the land was not his. He was permitted to occupy it, on condition of giving part of his labor to the feudal proprietor, and he paid the remainder of his rent in kind; that is, from the produce of the soil that he cultivated in his own time. Neither he nor his wife and children could be sold to another master without their consent, but this freedom of person was not accompanied by any great increase of comfort or privilege. It is doubtful if the serf were better lodged, better fed, or better clothed than the slave. Even his advance in personal liberty was slight, for he could not change his domicile without his lord's consent - he was adscriptus glebæ.

The close of the Middle Ages saw the decay of feudalism, and the rise of a new system, based on commerce. Agriculture was no longer the mainstay of European society; manufactures vied with cultivation of the soil as a source of wealth, while commerce, surpassing both, became the foundation of the new social order. We mark the growth of this new order by the upspringing of numerous crafts and guilds, by the rise of free cities that the guilds built up and sustained, and the Hansas or leagues of cities for the protection and furtherance of commerce. The first stages in the rise of modern Capitalism are found in the fortunes great for their time that were accumulated through this commerce. With this new commercialism came the need for facilitation of exchanges, and this produced banking, with its bills of

exchange, drafts, and credits. The coining of money, almost disused under feudalism, also began anew.

The more enterprising of the serf or peasant class forsook their fields and lords, in spite of all attempts to restrain and punish them, and became artisans, tradesmen, burghers. Wealth was gradually transferred from the owners of the soil to the merchants, bankers, and craftsmen. The cities grew rich and powerful at the expense of the country, and the result was the formation of a strong middle class, which became the wealthiest and therefore the most powerful body in the state. The continued refusal to this body of political rights, the continued imposition on them of inequitable burdens by those who had been born to rank and titles, led finally to the uprising of the bourgeoisie or middle class, or third estate, that is known as the Revolution. The ostensible object of the Revolution was the abolition of privilege and the establishment of "liberty, fraternity, equality." But these were mere words; the real object was the transference of political and social power from the nobility to the middle class. In this struggle the remnants of feudalism disappeared, and out of it the modern social order emerged.

II

We see, therefore, that the history of the world is the history of a struggle for wealth, power, honor - first a struggle between communities or nations or races, and then in the conquering community or nation a struggle between classes. The law of survival applies to societies as well as to individuals; communities must be fitted to survive, class must prove superior to class, as truly as