Part 951

On the 29th day of September, 1841, articles of association were made and executed which gave existence to an Association bearing the name and style of "The Subscribers to the Brook Farm Institute of Agriculture and Education." By the second of these articles, it was declared to be the object of the Association "to purchase such estates as may be required for the establishment and continuance of an agricultural, literary, and scientific school or college, to provide such lands and houses, animals, libraries and apparatus, as may be found expedient or advantageous to the main purpose of the Association." By article six, "the Association guarantees to each shareholder the interest of five per cent. annually on the amount of stock held by him in the Association." By article seven, "the shareholders on their part, for themselves, their heirs and assigns, do renounce all claim on any profits accruing to the Association for the use of their capital invested in the stock of the Association, except five per cent. interest on the amount of stock held by them." By article eight it was provided that "every subscriber may receive the tuition of one pupil for every share held by him, instead of five per cent. interest." The subscribers to these Articles, for shares ranging in amount from $500 to $1,500, were George Ripley, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Minot Pratt, Charles A. Dana, William B. Allen, Sophia W. Ripley, Maria T. Pratt, Sarah F. Stearns, Marianne Ripley, and Charles O. Whitmore. "The 'Brook Farm Association for Education and Agriculture' was put in motion in the spring of 1841. There was no difficulty in collecting a company of men and women large enough to make a beginning. One third of the subscriptions was actually paid in, Mr'. Ripley pledging his library for four hundred dollars of his amount. With the sum subscribed a farm of a little less than two hundred acres was bought for ten thousand five hundred dollars, in West Roxbury, about nine miles from Boston. The site was a pleasant one, not far from Theodore Parker's meeting-house in Spring Street, and in close vicinity to some of the most wealthy, capable, and zealous friends of the enterprise. {2944} It was charmingly diversified with hill and hollow, meadow and upland. … Later experience showed its unfitness for lucrative tillage, but for an institute of education, a semi-æsthetic, humane undertaking, nothing could be better. This is the place to say, once for all, with the utmost possible emphasis, that Brook Farm was not a 'community' in the usual sense of the term. There was no element of 'socialism' in it. There was about it no savor of antinomianism, no taint of pessimism, no aroma, however faint, of nihilism. It was wholly unlike any of the 'religious' associations which had been established in generations before, or any of the atheistic or mechanical arrangements which were attempted simultaneously or afterwards. … The institution of Brook Farm, though far from being 'religious' in the usual sense of the word, was enthusiastically religious in spirit and purpose. … There was no theological creed, no ecclesiastical form, no inquisition into opinions, no avowed reliance on super-human aid. The thoughts of all were heartily respected; and while some listened with sympathy to Theodore Parker, others went to church nowhere, or sought the privileges of their own communion. … A sympathizing critic published in the 'Dial' (January, 1842) an account of the enterprise as it then appeared: … 'They have bought a farm in order to make agriculture the basis of their life, it being the most direct and simple in relation to nature. … The plan of the Community, as an economy, is, in brief, this: for all who have property to take stock, and receive a fixed interest thereon; then to keep house or board in common, as they shall severally desire, at the cost of provisions purchased at wholesale, or raised on the farm; and for all to labor in community and be paid at a certain rate an hour, choosing their own number of hours and their own kind of work. With the results of this labor and their interest they are to pay their board, and also purchase whatever else they require, at cost, at the warehouses of the community, which are to be filled by the community as such. To perfect this economy, in the course of time they must have all trades and all modes of business carried on among themselves, from the lowest mechanical trade which contributes to the health and comfort of life, to the finest art which adorns it with food or drapery for the mind. All labor, whether bodily or intellectual, is to be paid at the same rate of wages, on the principle that, as the labor becomes merely bodily, it is a greater sacrifice to the individual laborer to give his time to it.' … The daily life at Brook Farm was, of course, extremely simple, even homely. … There was at no time too much room for the one hundred and fifty inmates. … The highest moral refinement prevailed in all departments. In the morning, every species of industrial activity went on. In the afternoon, the laborers changed their garments and became teachers, often of abstruse branches of knowledge. The evenings were devoted to such recreations as suited the taste of the individual. The farm was never thoroughly tilled, from the want of sufficient hands. A good deal of hay was raised, and milk was produced from a dozen cows. … Some worked all day in the field, some only a few hours, some none at all, being otherwise employed, or by some reason disqualified. The most cultivated worked the hardest. … The serious difficulties were financial. … As early as 1843 the wisdom of making changes in the direction of scientific arrangement was agitated; in the first months of 1844 the reformation was seriously begun," and the model of the new organization was Fourier's "Phalanx." "The most powerful instrument in the conversion of Brook Farm was Mr. Albert Brisbane. He had studied the system [of Fourier] in France, and made it his business to introduce it here. … In March, 1845, the Brook Farm Phalanx was incorporated by the Legislature of Massachusetts. The Constitution breathes a spirit of hope which is pathetic at this distance of time. … The publication of the Constitution was followed in the summer by 'The Harbinger,' which became the leading journal of Fourierism in the country. The first number appeared on June 14th. … Its list of contributors was about the most remarkable ever presented. Besides Ripley, Dwight, Dana, and Rykman, of Brook Farm, there were Brisbane, Channing, Curtis [George W., who had lived at Brook Farm for two years], Cranch, Godwin, Greeley, Lowell, Whittier, Story, Higginson, to say nothing of gentlemen less known. … 'The Harbinger' lived nearly four years, a little more than two at Brook Farm, less than two in New York. The last number was issued on the 10th of February, 1849. … It is unnecessary to speculate on the causes of the failure at Brook Farm. There was every reason why it should fail; there was no earthly, however much heavenly reason there may have been, why it should succeed." In August, 1847, a meeting of stockholders and creditors authorized the transfer of the property of the Brook Farm Phalanx to a board of three trustees, "for the purpose and with the power of disposing of it to the best advantage of all concerned." And so the most attractive of all social experiments came to an end.

_O. B. Frothingham, George Ripley, chapters 3-4._

SOCIAL MOVEMENTS: A. D. 1842-1889. Profit-sharing experiments.

Profit sharing was first practised systematically by M. Leclaire, a Parisian house-painter and decorator. Beginning to admit his workmen to participation in the profits of his business in 1842, he continued the system, with modifications and developments, until his death in 1872. His financial success was signal. It was not due to mere good fortune. Leclaire was a man of high business capacity. … In France, the increase in the number of participating firms, from 1855 onwards, has been comparatively steady, the number now [1889] standing between 55 and 60. In Switzerland, the 10 instances, dating ten years back or more, have no followers recorded in the sources of information open to me. This fact may be explained in some degree by the circumstances that Dr. Böhmert's work, the chief authority thus far on this subject, was published in 1878, and that the principal investigations since that time have been concerned mainly with France, England, and the United States. This remark will apply to Germany also; but the prevalence there of socialism has probably been an important reason for the small and slow increase in the number of firms making a trial of the system of participation. … {2945} In England, the abandonment of their noted trials of industrial partnership by the Messrs. Briggs and by Fox, Head and Co. in 1874 checked the advance of the scheme to a more general trial; but in the last five years, 7 houses have entered upon the plan. In the United States, the experience of the Messrs. Brewster and Co. exerted a similar influence, but by 1882 6 concerns had introduced profit sharing; these were followed by 11 in 1886, and in 1887 by 12 others. There are, then, at least 29 cases of profit sharing in actual operation at this time [1889] in this country, which began in 1887, 1886, or 1882. As compared with France, Germany, and Switzerland, the United States show a smaller number of cases of long standing, and a considerably larger number of instances of adoption of the system in the last three years [1887-1889]. … Not by mere chance, apparently, the two republics of France and the United States show the longest lists of profit sharing firms."

_N. P. Gilman, Profit Sharing, chapter 9._

See, also, SOCIAL MOVEMENTS: A. D. 1859-1887. The "Social Palace" of M. Godin at Guise.

SOCIAL MOVEMENTS: A. D. 1843-1874. Ebenezer and Amana, the communities of the "True Inspiration Congregations."

In 1843 the first detachment of a company of immigrants, belonging to a sect called the "True Inspiration Congregations" which had existed in Germany for more than a century, was brought to America and settled on a tract of land in Western New York, near the city of Buffalo. Others followed, until more than a thousand persons were gathered in the community which they called "Ebenezer." They were a thrifty, industrious, pious people, who believed that their leader, Christian Metz, and some others, were "inspired instruments," through whom Divine messages came to them. These messages have all been carefully preserved and printed. Communism appears to have been no part of their religious doctrine, but practically forced upon them, as affording the only condition under which they could dwell simply and piously together. In 1854 they were "commanded by inspiration" to remove to the West. Their land at Ebenezer was advantageously sold, having been reached by the widening boundaries of Buffalo, and they purchased a large tract in Iowa. The removal was accomplished gradually during the next ten years, and in their new settlement, comprising seven villages, with the common name, Amana, the community is said to be remarkably thriving. In 1874 Amana contained a population of 1,485 men, women and children.

_C. Nordhoff, The Communistic Societies of the United States, pages 25-43._

SOCIAL MOVEMENTS: A. D. 1843-1883. Karl Marx. His theory of Capital. His socialistic influence.

"The greatest and most influential name in the history of socialism is unquestionably Karl Marx. … Like Ferdinand Lassalle, he was of Jewish extraction. He was born at Treves in 1818, his father being a lawyer in that town; and he studied at Berlin and Bonn, but neglected the specialty of law, which he nominally adopted, for the more congenial subjects of philosophy and history. Marx was a zealous student, and apparently an adherent of Hegelianism, but soon gave up his intention of following an academic career as a teacher of philosophy, and joined the staff of the Rhenish Gazette, published at Cologne as an organ of the extreme democracy. While thus engaged, however, he found that his knowledge of economics required to be enlarged and corrected, and accordingly in 1843, after marrying the sister of the Prussian Minister, Von Westfalen, he removed to Paris, where he applied himself to the study of the questions to which his life and activity were henceforward to be devoted so entirely. Here also he began to publish those youthful writings which must be reckoned among the most powerful expositions of the early form of German socialism. With Arnold Ruge he edited the 'Deutsch-Französische Jahrbücher.' In 1845 he was expelled from Paris and settled in Brussels, where he published his 'Discours sur Je Libre ÉChange,' and his criticism of Proudhon's 'Philosophie de la Misère,' entitled, 'Misère de la Philosophie.' In Paris he had already met Friedrich Engels, who was destined to be his lifelong and loyal friend and companion-in-arms, and who in 1845 published his important work, 'The Condition of the Working Class in England.' The two friends found that they had arrived at a complete identity of opinion; and an opportunity soon occurred for an emphatic expression of their common views. A society of socialists, a kind of forerunner of the International, had established itself in London, and had been attracted by the new theories of Marx and the spirit of strong and uncompromising conviction with which he advocated them. They entered into relation with Marx and Engels; the society was re-organised under the name of the Communist League; and a congress was held, which resulted (1847) in the framing of the 'Manifesto of the Communist Party,' which was published in most of the languages of Western Europe, and is the first proclamation of that revolutionary socialism armed with all the learning of the nineteenth century, but expressed with the fire and energy of the agitator, which in the International and other movements has so startled the world. During the revolutionary troubles in 1848 Marx returned to Germany, and along with his comrades, Engels, Wolff, &c., he supported the most advanced democracy in the 'New Rhenish Gazette.' In 1849 he settled in London, where he spent his after-life in the elaboration of his economic views and in the realisation of his revolutionary programme. During this period he published 'Zur Kritik der politischen Oekonomie' (1859), and the first volume of his great work on capital, 'Das Kapital' (1867). He died in London, March 14, 1883."

_T. Kirkup, A History of Socialism, chapter 7._

"As to the collectivist creed, Marx looks upon history as ruled by material interests. He borrows from Hegel the idea of development in history, and sees in the progress of civilization merely the development of economic production, which involves a conflict of classes. The older socialists were idealists, and constructed a perfect social system. Marx simply studies economic changes, and their effects on the conflict of classes, as a basis for predicting the future. Starting from the principle that there are no permanent economic laws, but merely transitory phases, a principle denied by the modern French economists, he does not criticise but explains our modern capitalistic industrial system, and its effects on society. Formerly, says Engels, an artisan owned his tools and also the product of his labor. If he chose to employ wage earners, these were merely apprentices, and worked not so much for wages, but in order to learn the trade. {2946} All this is changed by the introduction of capital and the modern industrial system. Marx explains the origin of capital by saying that it was formerly the result of conquest, the pillage of peasants, and of colonies, and the secularization of church property. However, he does not hold the present capitalists to be robbers. He does not deal with the capitalist but with capital. His primary theory then is that profit on capital, on which the possibility of accumulating wealth depends, is due to the fact that the laborer does not receive the entire product of his labor as his reward, but that the capitalist takes the lion's share. Under the old industrial system, the laborer's tools, his means of production, belonged to him. Now they are owned by the capitalist. Owing to the improvement of machinery, and the invention of steam-power, the laborer can no longer apply his energy in such a way as to be fully remunerated. He now must sell his muscular energy in the market. The capitalist who buys it offers him no just reward. He gives the laborers only a part of the product of his labors, pocketing the remainder as interest on capital, and returns for risks incurred. The laborer is cheated out of the difference between his wages and the full product of his labor, while the capitalist's share is increased, day by day, by this stolen amount. 'Production by all, distribution among a few.' This is the gist of Marx's theories. Capital is not the result of intelligent savings. It is simply an amount of wealth appropriated by the capitalist from the laborer's share in his product."

_J. Bourdeau, German Socialism (New Englander and Yale Review, September, 1891, translated from Revue des Deux Mondes)._

"The principal lever of Marx against the present form of industry, and of the distribution of its results, is the doctrine that value—that is, value in exchange—is created by labor alone. Now this value, as ascertained by exchanges in the market or measured by some standard, does not actually all go to the laborer, in the shape of wages. Perhaps a certain number of yards of cotton cloth, for instance, when sold, actually pay for the wages of laborers and leave a surplus, which the employer appropriates. Perhaps six hours of labor per diem might enable the laborer to create products enough to support himself and to rear up an average family; but at present he has to work ten hours for his subsistence. Where do the results of the four additional hours go? To the employer, and the capitalist from whom the employer borrows money; or to the employer who also is a capitalist and invests his capital in his works, with a view to a future return. The laborer works, and brings new workmen into the world, who in turn do the same. The tendency of wages being toward an amount just sufficient for the maintenance of the labor, there is no hope for the future class of laborers. Nor can competition or concurrence help the matter. A concurrence of capitalists will tend to reduce wages to the minimum, if other conditions remain as they were before. A concurrence of laborers may raise wages above the living point for a while; but these fall again, through the stimulus which high wages give to the increase of population. A general fall of profits may lower the price of articles used by laborers; but the effect of this is not to add in the end to the laborer's share. He can live at less expense, it is true, but he will need and will get lower wages. Thus the system of labor and capital is a system of robbery. The capitalist is an 'expropriator' who must be expropriated, as Marx expresses it. A just system can never exist as long as wages are determined by free contract between laborers and employers; that is, as long as the means of carrying on production are in private hands. The only cure for the evils of the present industrial system is the destruction of private property—so far, at least, as it is used in production; and the substitution of the state, or of bodies or districts controlled by the state, for the private owner of the means of production. Instead of a number of classes in society, especially instead of a bourgeoisie and a proletariat, there must be but one class, which works directly or indirectly for the state, and receives as wages what the state decides to give to them. The state, it is taken for granted, will give in return for hours of labor as much as can be afforded, consistently with the interests of future labor and with the expenses necessary for carrying on the state system itself."

_T. D. Woolsey, Communism and Socialism, pages 162-163._

ALSO IN: _K. Marx, Capital._

SOCIAL MOVEMENTS: A. D. 1848. The founding of the Oneida Community.

The Oneida and Wallingford communities of Perfectionists are followers of doctrines taught by one John Humphrey Noyes, a native of Vermont, who began his preaching at Putney, in that state, about 1834. The community at Oneida, in Madison county, New York, was formed in 1848, and had a struggling existence for many years; but gradually several branches of industry, such as the making of traps, travelling bags, and the like, were successfully established, and the community became prosperous. Everything is owned in common, and they extend the community system" beyond property to persons." That is to say, there is no marriage among them, and "exclusiveness in regard to women and children" is displaced by what they claim to be a scientific regulation of the intercourse of the sexes. In the early years of the Oneida Community several other settlements of the followers of Noyes were attempted; but one at Wallingford, Connecticut, is the only survivor.

_C. Nordhoff, The Communistic Societies of the United States, pages 259-293._

ALSO IN: _J. H. Noyes, History of American Socialisms, chapter 46._

SOCIAL MOVEMENTS: A. D. 1848-1883. Schulze-Delitzsch and the Co-operative movement in Germany.