Part 947

"Speculative Communism has a brilliant history. It begins about six hundred years before Christ with Phaleas of Chalcedon, whom Milton speaks of as the first to recommend the equalization of property in land. Plato favors Communism. In the fifth book of the 'Republic,' Socrates is made to advocate, not merely community of goods, but also community of wives and children. This was no after-dinner debauch in the groves of the Academy, as Milton too severely suggests. It was a logical conclusion from a mistaken premise. … The ideal aimed at was the unity of the State, whose pattern appears to have been partly Pythagorean, and partly Spartan. In regard to property, the formulated purpose was, not to abolish wealth, but to abolish poverty. In the 'Laws' (volume 13), Plato would allow to the richest citizen four times as much income as to the poorest. In regard to women, the aim was not sensual indulgence, but the propagation and rearing of the fittest offspring. This community of wives and children was for the ruling class only; not for the husbandmen, nor for the artificers. So also, probably, the community of goods. We say probably, for the scheme is not wrought out in all its details, and Plato himself had no hope of seeing his dream realized till kings are philosophers, or philosophers are kings. The echoes of this Platonic speculation have been loud and long. About the year 316 B. C., Evemerus, sent eastward by Cassander, King of Macedon, on a voyage of scientific discovery, reports in his 'Sacred History' the finding of an island which he calls Panchaia, the seat of a Republic, whose citizens were divided into the three classes of Priests, Husbandmen, and Soldiers; where all property was common; and all were happy. In 1516 Sir Thomas More published his 'Utopia;' evidently of Platonic inspiration. More also chose an island for his political and social Paradise. He had Crete in mind. His island, crescent-shaped, and 200 miles wide at the widest point, contained 54 cities. It had community of goods, but not of women. {2933} The 'Civitas Solis' of Campanella, published in 1623, was in imitation perhaps of More's 'Utopia.' This City of the Sun stood on a mountain in Ceylon, under the equator, and had a community both of goods and of women. About the same time Lord Bacon amused himself by writing the 'New Atlantis,' a mere fragment, the porch of a building that was never finished. In the great ferment of Cromwell's time the 'Oceana' of Harrington appeared (1656); a book famous in its day, with high traditional repute ever since, but now seldom read except by the very few who feel themselves called upon to master the literature of the subject. Hallam pronounces it a dull, pedantic book; and nobody disputes the verdict. Harrington advocates a division of land, no one to have more than two thousand pounds' (ten thousand dollars') worth. The upshot of it all would be, a moderate aristocracy of the middle classes. Such books belong to a class by themselves, which may be called Poetico-Political; æsthetic, scholarly, humane, and hopeful. They are not addressed to the masses. If they make revolutions, it is only in the long run. They are not battles, nor half battles, but only the bright wild dreams of tired soldiers in the pauses of battles. Communistic books with iron in them … are not modern only, but recent. Modern Communism, now grown so surly and savage everywhere, began mildly enough. As a system, it is mostly French, name and all. The famous writers are Saint-Simon, Fourier, Considérant, Proudhon, Cabet, and Louis Blanc."

_R. D. Hitchcock, Socialism, pages 33-36._

ALSO IN: _M. Kaufmann, Utopias._

SOCIAL MOVEMENTS: Definition of Terms: Socialism. Communism. Collectivism.

"As socialism has been most powerful and most studied on the Continent, it may be interesting to compare the definitions given by some leading French and German economists. The great German economist Roscher defines it as including 'those tendencies which demand a greater regard for the common weal than consists with human nature.' Adolf Held says that 'we may define as socialistic every tendency which demands the subordination of the individual will to the community.' Janet more precisely defines it as follows:—'We call socialism every doctrine which teaches that the State has a right to correct the inequality of wealth which exists among men, and to legally establish the balance by taking from those who have too much in order to give to those who have not enough, and that in a permanent manner, and not in such and such a particular case—a famine, for instance, a public calamity, etc.' Laveleye explains it thus: 'In the first place, every socialistic doctrine aims at introducing greater equality in social conditions; and in the second place at realising those reforms by the law or the State.' Von Scheel simply defines it as the 'economic philosophy of the suffering classes.'"

_T. Kirkup, A History of Socialism, introduction._

"The economic quintessence of the socialistic programme, the real aim of the international movement, is as follows. To replace the system of private capital (i. e. the speculative method of production, regulated on behalf of society only by the free competition of private enterprises) by a system of collective capital, that is, by a method of production which would introduce a unified (social or 'collective ') organization of national labour, on the basis of collective or common ownership of the means of production by all the members of the society. This collective method of production would remove the present competitive system, by placing under official administration such departments of production as can be managed collectively (socially or co-operatively), as well as the distribution among all of the common produce of all, according to the amount and social utility of the productive labour of each. This represents in the shortest possible formula the aim of the socialism of today."

_A. Schäffle, The Quintessence of Socialism, pages 3-4._

"Socialism, … while it may admit the state's right of property over against another state, does away with all ownership, on the part of members of the state, of things that do not perish in the using, or of their own labor in creating material products. Its first and last policy is to prevent the acquisition or exclusive use of capital, by any person or association under the control of the state, with the exception, perhaps, of articles of luxury or enjoyment procured by the savings of wages. No savings can give rise to what is properly called capital, or means of production in private hands. … Commun·ism, in its ordinary signification, is a system or form of common life, in which the right of private or family property is abolished by law, mutual consent, or vow. … Collectivism, which is now used by German as well as by French writers, denotes the condition of a community when its affairs, especially its industry, is managed in the collective way, instead of the method of separate, individual effort. It has, from its derivation, some advantages over the vague word socialism, which may include many varieties of associated or united life."

_T. D. Woolsey, Communism and Socialism, pages 1-8._

SOCIAL MOVEMENTS: A. D. 1720-1800. Origin of Trades Unions in England.

"A Trade Union, as we understand the term, is a continuous association of wage-earners for the purpose of maintaining or improving the conditions of their employment. … We have, by our definition, expressly excluded from our history any account of the innumerable instances in which the manual workers have formed ephemeral combinations against their social superiors. Strikes are as old as history itself. The ingenious seeker of historical parallels might, for instance, find in the revolt, B. C. 1490, of the Hebrew brickmakers in Egypt against being required to make bricks without straw, a curious precedent for the strike of the Stalybridge cotton-spinners, A. D. 1892, against the supply of bad material for their work. But we cannot seriously regard, as in any way analogous to the Trade Union Movement of to-day, the innumerable rebellions of subject races, the slave insurrections, and the semi-servile peasant revolts of which the annals of history are full. … When, however, we pass from the annals of slavery or serfdom to those of the nominally free citizenship of the mediæval town, we are on more debatable ground. We make no pretence to a thorough knowledge of English town-life in the Middle Ages. But it is clear that there were at all times, alongside of the independent master craftsmen, a number of hired journeymen, who are known to have occasionally combined against their rulers and governors. … {2934} After detailed consideration of every published instance of a journeyman's fraternity in England, we are fully convinced that there is as yet no evidence of the existence of any such durable and independent combination of wage-earners against their employers during the Middle Ages. There are certain other cases in which associations, which are sometimes assumed to have been composed of journeymen maintained a continuous existence. But in all these cases the 'Bachelors' Company,' presumed to be a journeymen's fraternity, formed a subordinate department of the masters' gild, by the rulers of which it was governed. It will be obvious that associations in which the employers dispensed the funds and appointed the officers can bear no analogy to modern Trade Unions. The explanation of the tardy growth of stable combination among hired journeymen is, we believe, to be found in the prospects of economic advancement which the skilled handicraftsman still possessed. … The apprenticed journeyman in the skilled handicrafts belonged, until comparatively modern times, to the same social grade as his employer, and was, indeed, usually the son of a master in the same or an analogous trade. So long as industry was carried on mainly by small masters, each employing but one or two journeymen, the period of any energetic man's service as a hired wage-earner cannot normally have exceeded a few years. … Under such a system of industry the journeymen would possess the same prospects of economic advancement that hindered the growth of stable combinations in the ordinary handicrafts, and in this fact may lie the explanation of the striking absence of evidence of any Trade Unionism in the building trades right down to the end of the eighteenth century. When, however, the capitalist builder or contractor began to supersede the master mason, master plasterer, &c., and this class of small entrepreneurs had again to give place to a hierarchy of hired workers, Trade Unions, in the modern sense, began, as we shall see, to arise. We have dwelt at some length upon these ephemeral associations of wage-earners and on the journeymen fraternities of the Middle Ages, because it might plausibly be argued that they were in some sense the predecessors of the Trade Union. But strangely enough it is not in these institutions that the origin of Trade Unionism has usually been sought. For the predecessor of the modern Trade Union, men have turned, not to the mediæval associations of the wage-earners, but to those of their employers—that is to say, the Craft Gilds. … The supposed descent of the Trade Unions from the mediæval Craft Gild rests, as far as we have been able to discover, upon no evidence whatsoever. The historical proof is all the other way. In London, for instance, more than one Trade Union has preserved an unbroken existence from the eighteenth century. The Craft Gilds still exist in the City Companies, and at no point in their history do we find the slightest evidence of the branching off from them of independent journeymen's societies. … We have failed to discover, either in the innumerable trade pamphlets and broad-sheets of the time, or in the Journals of the House of Commons, any evidence of the existence, prior to 1700, of continuous associations of wage-earners for maintaining or improving the conditions of their employment. And when we remember that during the latter decades of the seventeenth century the employers of labour, and especially the industrial 'companies' or corporations, memorialised the House of Commons on every conceivable grievance which affected their particular trade, the absence of all complaints of workmen's combinations suggests to us that no such combinations existed. In the early years of the eighteenth century we find isolated complaints of combinations 'lately entered into' by the skilled workers in certain trades. As the century progresses we watch the gradual multiplication of these complaints, met by counter-accusations presented by organised bodies of workmen. … If we examine the evidence of the rise of combinations in particular trades, we see the Trade Union springing, not from any particular institution, but from every opportunity for the meeting together of wage-earners of the same trade. Adam Smith remarked that 'people of the same trade seldom meet together, even for merriment and diversion, but the conversation ends in a conspiracy against the public, or in some contrivance to raise prices.' And there is actual evidence of the rise of one of the oldest of the existing Trade Unions out of a gathering of the journeymen 'to take a social pint of porter together.' More often it is a tumultuous strike, out of which grows a permanent organisation. … If the trade is one in which the journeymen frequently travel in search of work, we note the slow elaboration of systematic arrangements for the relief of these 'tramps' by their fellow-workers in each town through which they pass, and the inevitable passage of this far-extending tramping society into a national Trade Union. … We find that at the beginning of the eighteenth century the typical journeyman tailor in London and Westminster had become a lifelong wage-earner. It is not surprising, therefore, that one of the earliest instances of permanent Trade Unionism that we have been able to discover occurs in this trade. The master tailors in 1720 complain to Parliament that 'the Journeymen Taylors in and about the Cities of London and Westminster, to the number of seven thousand and upwards, have lately entered into a combination to raise their wages and leave off working an hour sooner than they used to do; and for the better carrying on their design have subscribed their respective names in books prepared for that purpose, at the several houses of call or resort (being publick-houses in and about London and Westminster) where they use; and collect several considerable sums of money to defend any prosecutions against them.' Parliament listened to the masters' complaint, and passed the Act 7, Geo. 1. st. 1, c. 13, restraining both the giving and the taking of wages in excess of a stated maximum, all combinations being prohibited. From that time forth the journeymen tailors of London and Westminster have remained in effective though sometimes informal combination, the organisation centring round the fifteen or twenty 'houses of call.'"

_S. and B. Webb, The History of Trade-Unionism, chapter 1._

{2935}

SOCIAL MOVEMENTS: A. D. 1753-1797. Mably, Morelly, and the conspiracy of Babœuf, in France.

"If Rousseau cannot be numbered among the communistic writers, strictly so called, two of his contemporaries, Mably and Morelly—the first more a dreamer, the second of a more practical spirit —deserve that title. … In the social theory of Mably, inequality of condition is the great evil in the world … Mably was a theorist who shrunk back from the practical application of his own theories. The establishment of community of goods, and even of equality of fortunes, he dared not advocate. 'The evil,' he says, 'is too inveterate for the hope of a cure.' And so he advised half measures—agrarian laws fixing the maximum of landed estates, and sumptuary laws regulating expenses. … Morelly, whose principal works are a communistic poem, called 'The Basiliade' (1753) and 'The Code of Nature' (1755), is called by a French writer one of the most obscure authors of the last century. But he knew what he wanted, and had courage to tell it to others. … Morelly's power on subsequent opinion consists in his being the first to put dreams or theories into a code; from which shape it seemed easy to fanatical minds to carry it out into action. His starting-point is that men can be made good or evil by institutions. Private property, or avarice called out by it, is the source of all vice. 'Hence, where no property existed there would appear none of its pernicious consequences.' … In 1782, Brissot de Warville invented the phrase, used afterward by Proudhon, Propriété c'est le vol. … Twelve years afterward a war against the rich began, and such measures as a maximum of property and the abolition of the right to make a will were agitated. But the right of property prevailed, and grew stronger after each new revolution. In 1796 the conspiracy of the Equals, or, as it is generally called, of Babœuf, was the final and desperate measure of a portion of those Jacobins who had been stripped by the fall of Robespierre (in 1794) of political power. It was the last hope of the extreme revolutionists, for men were getting tired of agitations and wanted rest. This conspiracy seems to have been fomented by Jacobins in prison; and it is said that one of them, who was a believer in Morelly and had his work in his hands, expounded its doctrines to his fellow-prisoner Babœuf. When they were set at liberty by an amnesty law, there was a successful effort made to bring together the society or sect of the Equals; but it was found that they were not all of one mind. Babœuf was for thorough measures—for a community of goods and of labor, an equality of conditions and of comforts. … There was a secret committee of the society of the Equals, as well as an open society. The latter excited the suspicion of the Directory, and an order was given to suspend its sessions in the Pantheon (or (Church of St. Geneviève). The order was executed by Bonaparte, then general of the army of the interior, who dispersed the members and put a seal on the doors of the place of meeting. Next the Equals won over a body of the police into their measures; and, when this force was disbanded by the Directory, the Equals established a committee of public safety. The committee was successful in bringing as many as sixty of the party of the mountain into their ranks, and an insurrection was projected. Seventeen thousand fighting men were calculated upon by the conspirators as at their disposal. But an officer of the army whom they had tried to bring into their plots denounced them to the Directory. The leading conspirators were arrested [1797]. Babœuf and Darthé suffered death, and five others were banished."

_T. D. Woolsey, Communism and Socialism, pages 97-104._

SOCIAL MOVEMENTS: A. D. 1774-1875. The Communities of the Shakers.

See SHAKERS.

SOCIAL MOVEMENTS: A. D. 1800-1824. Robert Owen. His experiments at New Lanark and his New Harmony Society.