SOCIALISM AND ANARCHISM. 
 
 " DISSERTATION IN PART FULFILMENT OF THE 
 CONDITIONS NECESSARY FOR THE ATTAIN- 
 MENT OF THE DEGREE OF DOCTOR OF 
 PHILOSOPHY, SCHOOL OF POLITICAL 
 SCIENCE, COLUMBIA COLLEGE:' 1 
 
 BY 
 
 HERBERT LEVI OSGOOD, A.M., 
 
 Seligman Fellow. 
 
 Boston, U.S.A., and London : 
 
 GIXN & COMPANY, PUBLISHERS. 
 
 1889. 
 
 Copyright, 1889, by Ginn & Co. 
 
SCIENTIFIC SOCIALISM. 
 
 RODBERTUS. 
 
 HE current ideas in this country respecting theoretical 
 
 J- socialism are derived chiefly from the last work of Marx, 
 Das Kapital. The views which prevail concerning the policy 
 of the socialists are such as the International, the Socialistic 
 Labor Party, and the Anarchists have given rise to. These are 
 thought to be the only possible theories and policy. But many 
 of the German economists have come to regard Rodbertus as 
 the real master of scientific socialism, and to assign Marx to a 
 secondary place as a theorist. There are also some important 
 points wherein his views differ from those of Marx. The repu- 
 tation which Rodbertus has acquired as a thinker, and the 
 inherent excellence of his works, furnish the excuse for this 
 attempt to outline his life and theory. 1 
 
 Carl Rodbertus, like Marx and Lassalle, was educated amid 
 the movements which led to the revolution of 1848, and received 
 
 1 In order to avoid the multiplication of references, the titles of the most important 
 works of (and about) Rodbertus which have been used in preparing this article are 
 given here together. 
 
 Zur Erkentniss unserer staatsivirthschaftlichen Zusliznde. 1 842. 
 
 Sociale Briefe an von Kirchmann : 
 
 Erster Brief, Die sociale Bedeutung der Staatsivirthschaft. 1850. Reprinted in 
 1885. This edition contains Rodbertus' history of crises. 
 
 Zweiter Brief und dritter Brief appeared first in 1 850 and 185 1, but were 
 reprinted together in 1875 under the title : Zicr Beleuchtung der socialen Frage. 
 The Second Letter contains the author's theory of the distribution of the national 
 product. The most important portion of it has been reprinted in the first volume of 
 R. Meyer's Emancipationskampf des vierten Standes. The Third Letter contains 
 Rodbertus' theory of rent and the argument against Ricardo's doctrine. 
 
 Vierter Brief Das Kapital, was published in 1884 by Wagner and Kozak 
 from the literary remains of Rodbertus. It contains more important material than 
 any other in the series. Besides a resumi of his theory of rent and of crises, Rodber- 
 tus unfolds in this his doctrine of capital, and describes society as it is organized, 
 with private property in land and capital, and as it will be when private ownership 
 shall be abolished. 
 
 In 1885 that which the author had completed of the second part of the Fourth 
 
SCIENTIFIC SOCIALISM. 
 
 561 
 
 his practical training during that revolution. Born in 1 805, the 
 son of a professor of law in the University of Greifswald, he 
 himself studied law, history, political economy, and philology at 
 various universities ; and, after a brief time spent in travel, bought 
 the estate of Jagetzow, in Pomerania, where he settled down 
 to the life of a landed proprietor. The agitations preceding 
 1848 called him from seclusion to a place in the Provincial Diet, 
 and afterwards in the Second United Diet, which met at Berlin 
 in 1847. While in this body he acted as member of a commis- 
 sion to prepare a new election law for the National Assembly. 
 The king offered him a patent of nobility, but this honor Rod- 
 bertus declined. Early in the next year he was elected to the 
 new Constitutional Assembly. Later he was for a short time 
 member of the cabinet, but resigned because he saw that the 
 government would not come to terms with the parliament at 
 Frankfort. During 1849 Rodbertus labored at Berlin to secure 
 the acceptance of the constitution of Frankfort ; but it was in 
 vain. After that was rejected, and the political reaction set in, 
 he retired from public life, never to enter it again. When the 
 restoration of the German unity was in progress, he sympathized 
 fully with the policy of Bismarck and the Prussian monarchy, 
 
 Social Letter was published. It contains some very important material on the method 
 of transition to the socialistic state. 
 
 Zur Erklarung und Abhiilfe der heutigen Kreditnoth des Grundbesitzes. 
 Two volumes, 1868 and 1869. This contains the explanation of the crisis in German 
 landed property, and of the Rentenprincip. 
 
 Rodbertus' articles on the economic history of Rome, Untersuchen auf dem Gebiete 
 der Xationalokonomie des klassischen Alterthums, are to be found in Hildebrand's 
 Jahrbiicher. They appeared, 1864-74, in volumes ii. to xxiii. 
 
 Briefe und socialpolitische Aufslitze, issued in two volumes, by R. Meyer, 
 Berlin, 1882, contain Rodbertus' correspondence with Meyer from 1871 to his death 
 in 1875, an d many short articles which were contributed to the Berlin Revue. 
 
 Prof. Adolph Wagner contributed to the Tubinger Zeifschrift, in 1878, under 
 the title, Einiges von und ilber Rodbertus, some additional correspondence and 
 a reprint of the Normal-Arbeitstag. 
 
 Briefe von Ferdinand Lassalle an Carl Rodbertus- Jagetzo7L<, Berlin, 1878, 
 throw light on the relations existing between the two socialistic leaders. 
 
 Dr. Theophil Kozak, in a book entitled : Rodbertus- Jagetzow' s socialokon- 
 omiscJie Ansichten, Jena, 1882, has given a systematic statement of his entire 
 theory, mainly in the language of Rodbertus himself. It is thoroughly trustworthy, 
 and a most valuable help to the understanding of the author. 
 
562 
 
 POLITICAL SCIENCE QUARTERLY. 
 
 [Vol. I. 
 
 but took no active part in the movement. Even the socialistic 
 agitation of Lassalle did not bring him to the front. Yet after 
 i860 he. was known to all the socialistic leaders, and was often 
 called upon to address their meetings or send them letters of 
 advice. He never acceded to the former request, though he 
 sometimes did to the latter. He shunned the work of an agi- 
 tator. He was too much of a conservative to act otherwise 
 than in full agreement with the powers that be. 1 Thus Rod- 
 bertus lived almost unknown to the general public till his death 
 in 1875. His fame is chiefly posthumous, and is due in a 
 degree to the labors of his disciples and admirers. His life was 
 one of thought rather than of action. About the theories which 
 he elaborated centres the chief interest of his career. 
 
 Roclbertus formulated his views on politics and economics 
 early in life and adhered to them with little change throughout. 
 His best years were passed while the Hegelian school of 
 thought was dominant in Germany. Though he did not 
 expressly ally himself to any branch of it, as Marx did, yet he 
 is full of the idea of historic evolution. His doctrine, as well as 
 Hegel's, was an outgrowth of the prevalent tendency toward 
 historic research which had its rise at Gottingen in the latter 
 part of the eighteenth century. Rodbertus had nothing in 
 common with the pessimistic and fatalistic views of the young 
 Hegelians. He was always a firm believer in human progress, 
 as the result of conscious activity, and was a firm theist. 
 
 Extreme laissez faire notions never found acceptance in 
 Germany. The theoretical views of Adam Smith always met 
 with abundant criticism there. This is to be explained by the 
 fact that the German state is too prominent in industrial enter- 
 prises, as well as in all other spheres of action, to be ignored in 
 economic theory. Moreover, historical study opened the way 
 for criticism of the existing social order in the light of experi- 
 ence. The historical study of institutions, inclusive of the state 
 
 1 During the troubles of 1848 his place was in the party of the centre or of "all 
 the talents," where he urged the introduction of a popular representative element 
 into the constitution, without making any violent break with the history and tradi- 
 tions of the nation. 
 
No. 4-] 
 
 SCIENTIFIC SOCIALISM. 
 
 5^3 
 
 which is above and around them all, was favorable to the social 
 view of political economy. It promoted the habit of looking at 
 economic phenomena from the standpoint of the community 
 and of social development in general. Hence, as soon as the 
 modern industrial system, with its crises and other drawbacks, 
 was developed in Germany, the way was prepared for intelligent 
 criticism. Use was^ made of the works of Sismondi, and the 
 earlier French socialists, but independent lines of thought were 
 developed. 
 
 Rodbertus became impressed very early with the advantage 
 which might come to the political sciences from following out 
 the analogies which exist between the development of nature 
 and of society. His philosophy professes to cover all of life, 
 and aims at the most comprehensive view. To him life in soci- 
 ety is the result of the inter-action of a trinity of forces — spirit, 
 will, and matter; or the intellectual, manifesting itself in sci- 
 ence and language ; the moral, appearing in morality and law ; 
 and the material, or the sphere with which economics deal. 
 The conditions in the lowest stages of social development are 
 analogous to those of inorganic nature, or to the lowest forms of 
 organic existence. With the advent of agriculture, based on 
 the institution of slavery, society becomes organized, and states 
 appear. When once that point is reached, all impulses to prog- 
 ress spring from society, and result in its movement as a whole. 
 This idea Rodbertus keeps ever in mind. He constantly empha- 
 sizes the fact that the social standpoint is the one from which 
 the phenomena of organic human life should be viewed. On 
 that hinges his criticism of economic theories and public 
 policy. But, as we shall see, he holds that the periods of tran- 
 sition from one form of organization to another are those in 
 which the largest amount of individual liberty prevails. 
 
 All great historic changes are economic in their origin. 
 Human labor is the one universal economic factor. There- 
 fore the great periods of history will be distinguished from 
 one another chiefly by the forms in which labor is organized. 
 In pursuance of this thought Rodbertus — passing over primi- 
 tive society, where the clan constitution prevailed, where all 
 
5^4 
 
 POLITICAL SCIENCE QUARTERLY. 
 
 [Vol. I. 
 
 property was communal and only simple economic conceptions 
 apply — divides the history of mankind into two periods : 
 
 (1) The ancient Heathen State, which, after passing through 
 the forms of theocracy and satrapy, culminated in the polis ; 
 
 (2) The German-Christian State. This has traversed the 
 feudal and bureaucratic stages, and is now existing under the 
 representative form. 
 
 The radical distinction between the two is, that in the former 
 the individual had no rights as against the state, and all labor 
 was slave labor; in the latter, human rights were recognized 
 and human slavery disappears. 
 
 Rodbertus' historic studies were devoted chiefly to Rome, 
 and therefore its economic development occupies a larger share 
 of his attention than that of any other period of history except 
 our own. He views it as the culmination of the polis, and as 
 illustrating all which that form of development has to offer. 
 The oikos, or primitive family, formed the germ of the ancient 
 city-state among the Greeks and Romans. Here the economic 
 arrangements were simple, and such as would be found in a 
 community where there was no division of labor, no distinction 
 between manufacturing and agriculture, but little transportation, 
 few exchanges, limited use of money, and where there could be 
 no contest between the laborer and the capitalist, because the 
 former was the property of the latter. There was but one form 
 of tax, a progressive income tax in Athens, and a general prop- 
 erty tax for citizens in Rome. The expenses of the state were 
 few. There was but little distinction between it and society. 
 The same families were leaders of both. Solidarity was the 
 principle of organization throughout. 
 
 The growth of individualism in Rome began with the legis- 
 lation of Servius Tullius, and ended with the full realization of 
 the policy of the Empire. It was the work largely of the capi- 
 talist party of which Caesar was the leader and representative. 
 The strength of the family bond was weakened. Industry 
 developed, new forms of production began to be carried on by 
 corporations independent of the oikos. The system of taxation 
 was enlarged by the early emperors to cover the newly devel- 
 
No. 4-] 
 
 SCIENTIFIC SOCIALISM. 
 
 565 
 
 oped enterprises. A special capitation tax, for instance, was 
 levied by Alexander Severus on slaves, because their labor as 
 artisans had become so profitable to their masters. When Cara- 
 calla in 213 admitted all the provincials to citizenship, uniformity 
 between the Italian and the provincial system of taxation was 
 approximately established. Systematic plundering of the prov- 
 inces ceased. Means were taken to facilitate transfers of land. 
 For a long time previous to this, freedom of traffic had existed 
 between all parts of the empire. Thus free competition (Fret- 
 liandel) was established for the first time in history throughout 
 the civilized world. 
 
 By the system of free competition, Rodbertus means not the 
 absence of customs duties levied on the boundaries of a country, 
 nor unhindered communication between different parts of the 
 same country for industrial purposes, but absence of economic 
 organization, i.e., of legal combinations of persons engaged in 
 similar pursuits. It is individualism, the negation of all forms 
 in the domains of science, law, and labor. It means the disin- 
 tegration of society. When one form of social organization has 
 lived its time, a process of dissolution begins. Individuals 
 struggle against the old in the domains of science (free thought), 
 of law (political freedom), and of economy (freedom of competi- 
 tion). By these assaults the old forms are broken down. All 
 that remains is a certain store of knowledge, the elements of 
 faith, the principles of morality, — especially those which in- 
 volve protection for person and property, — and a definite divis- 
 ion of property. To every person is given the free use of his 
 powers for production up to the limits of the criminal law. It 
 is then thought that social laws operate like natural laws, and 
 will of themselves work out the common weal. In its extreme 
 form this involves the negation of the state. "Anarchy is 
 panarchy" becomes the motto of the system. Persons who 
 live in periods when the theory of free competition is carried 
 into practice think they have reached an advanced stage of 
 progress. They are really living in a time of transition, when 
 the old is being torn away preparatory to a higher form of com- 
 bination. If the tendency to individualism is allowed to operate 
 
5 66 
 
 POLITICAL SCIENCE QUARTERLY. 
 
 [Vol. I. 
 
 without restraint, it will prove unfavorable to freedom, because 
 it will destroy the unity of the state. Ultimately, the state 
 must interfere in the interest of public welfare, check the strug- 
 gle for existence, and establish new social forms. Community 
 feeling is the positive, constructive, life-giving principle in 
 society. Individualism can stimulate for a time, but its effect 
 must be temporary. 
 
 The period of freedom of competition in the Roman Empire 
 continued fully developed from Caesar to Diocletian. Its oper- 
 ation was on the one hand intensified by slavery, but on the 
 other moderated by colonization. It produced great social in- 
 equality. Still, economic institutions continued to bear to a 
 certain extent the stamp of antiquity. Barter always remained 
 a prevalent form of exchange. The book-keeping of the 
 Romans, both private and national, shows that even in the 
 later Empire money was by no means universally employed. 
 Also, the old theory of the unlimited power of the state was 
 still held. Hence, the principles of solidarity in taxation, arbi- 
 trary assessments, payment in kind or by personal services ren- 
 dered to the state, were employed with crushing effect by the 
 later emperors. The needs of a vast military despotism were 
 supplied by a system of taxation which had originated in the 
 city-state, where the expenditures were few and civil power 
 unlimited. It was in part the combination of the old and the 
 new in the conditions of the Empire which made the fiscal 
 policy of Diocletian and his successors so oppressive. 
 
 Diocletian brought the period of Roman laissez faire to an 
 end. For fiscal purposes he sought to introduce the hereditary 
 principle into all corporations, to freeze society into the forms 
 which it then held. Moreover, with Constantine began a series 
 of laws by which the coloni, who, since the later Republic, had 
 been somewhat loosely attached to the soil, were now firmly 
 bound to it (adscriptitii). This process was completed by the 
 time of Justinian, and from the class thus formed developed the 
 mediaeval peasantry (Bauemstand). In this way originated one 
 of the chief differences between ancient and modern society — 
 the economic distinction between city and country. Agricul- 
 
No. 4.] 
 
 SCIENTIFIC SOCIALISM. 
 
 567 
 
 ture and manufacturing, which in the primitive city had been 
 carried on indiscriminately by all, henceforth became the pur- 
 suits of two distinct social classes. 
 
 Thus the way was prepared for the downfall of the Roman 
 system by the contradictions which were developed within it. 
 The Germans only completed a work which was far advanced 
 before they appeared west of the Rhine or south of the 
 Danube. The Roman nationality, as well as the ancient eco- 
 nomic institutions, disappeared in the transition to the German- 
 Christian State. 1 
 
 From the abandonment of the slave system, and the rise 
 of the distinction between city and country, follow all the eco- 
 nomic characteristics of modern as distinguished from ancient 
 society. The power of the state is now limited by the rights 
 of the individual. A conflict between labor and capital becomes 
 possible. It was impossible in antiquity, because the laborer 
 was the property of the capitalist. Lastly, the separation of em- 
 ployments, beginning with the appearance of agriculture and 
 manufactures as independent pursuits, and the organization of 
 labor which has grown up with this separation, divides society 
 into classes unknown to the ancients. 
 
 We are living in the third stage of the development of the 
 German-Christian State, viz., the representative. The bloom of 
 the representative state coincides with the existence of the 
 second period of free competition in the world's history. It was 
 ushered in by the industrial growth of the last quarter of the 
 eighteenth century. This movement was accompanied by 
 sweeping legislation, based on the principle of "natural rights," 
 which has established in the western nations freedom of labor 
 and domestic traffic, and the equality of all before the law. The 
 legislators who have carried this out stand to the present social 
 system in a relation similar to that borne by Servius Tullius 
 and Caesar to the period of Roman laissez faire. The old re- 
 strictions were justly condemned and abandoned because they 
 were proven to be injurious. The revolution proceeded from 
 
 1 Robertus did not live to complete his account of the transition period after 
 Diocletian. He announced another article on that, but died before it was written. 
 
5 68 
 
 POLITICAL SCIENCE QUARTERLY. 
 
 [Vol. I. 
 
 the real needs of the time, but it resulted in social disorganiza- 
 tion. The development of the existing social order is no further 
 advanced now than that of antiquity was in the time of Caesar. 
 It has by no means borne its full fruit. Neither is it the last 
 and highest possible form of social development. It is tran- 
 sitional, like its predecessor. Through it the way is being pre- 
 pared for a higher form of organization than that of antiquity or 
 of the middle ages. 
 
 Rodbertus bases his discussion of the phenomena of our pres- 
 ent social order on the doctrines of Smith and Ricardo. Ac- 
 cording to the views indicated above, he regards society as com- 
 posed of laborers and capitalists, who are rivals in the struggle 
 for existence. The one class possesses the instruments of pro- 
 duction, and the other is unable to obtain a chance to labor 
 without the consent of its opponents. The remuneration of the 
 laborer is fixed by contract. In antiquity the master was bound 
 to support his slave, if he was to have the results of his labor. 
 Now the laborer has what he can get. 
 
 In his analysis of production and distribution under the sys- 
 tem of division of labor, Rodbertus differs from the English 
 economists only in viewing the subject from the social stand- 
 point. He conceives of society as divided into several classes, — 
 the raw-producers, the half-manufacturers, the manufacturers, 
 the transporters. Commodities are ever passing in a continuous 
 stream through the hands of these producers. If the current 
 were stopped at any time, commodities would be found at all 
 points along the line, from the raw-producers to the consumers. 
 Also, the general classes of producers are subdivided into 
 branches, as the various forms of raw-production and manufac- 
 turing, and these again are carried on as individual enterprises. 
 The division of labor, by separating producers into classes, 
 causes the development of the market, and makes exchange uni- 
 versal. With exchange, money comes into general use. As 
 society advances, money will lose its character as a commodity, 
 and be used only for settling balances. Then we shall have 
 reached the period of credit economy. 
 
 But little is to be gained by looking only at the individualistic 
 
No. 4.] 
 
 SCIENTIFIC SOCIALISM. 
 
 569 
 
 side of division of labor. Its essence is community of labor, 
 whether we contemplate the work in a factory, or enterprises 
 which encircle the globe. A truly national and world-economy 
 arises from it. It is the material bond which, with law and lan- 
 guage, unites men in society. Each labors for all, and all for 
 each. If we follow a commodity through all the stages of its 
 course from the raw-producer to the consumer, we shall see that 
 each class is dependent on all the others for the success of its 
 work. Each class depends on the one before it for its raw 
 material. By neglecting this point of view, the earlier econo- 
 mists have failed to see that the national product is a unit, in 
 which all classes of producers share. By the same cause they 
 have been led to adopt the erroneous view that the value of the 
 product depends on the amount of the shares into which it is 
 divided ; e.g., that the price of the product is affected by the rate 
 of wages ; that high wages hinder competition. 
 
 Distribution is more individualistic in its character than pro- 
 duction. All who have contributed in any way to the work of 
 production put in their claims and receive a part of the product. 
 Public law decides how much shall go to society and the em- 
 ployees of the state. The amount which goes to individuals is 
 fixed by competition in the form of rent, wages, and profits. 
 The class engaged in transportation conveys the product to the 
 individual to whom it belongs. But even in distribution the 
 communistic element predominates, though obscured by the 
 present legal system. Society is^a unit ; not simply an aggre- 
 gate of individuals. The income of the state and of the various 
 associations within it far exceeds that of any individual. 
 
 Here, then, we have a picture of the operation of supply and 
 demand on the largest scale. In primitive society it was easy 
 to adapt the one of these to the other. Each producer could 
 easily obtain the full result of his labor, because production and 
 consumption touched each other. But in the present complex 
 society the adaptation of supply to demand becomes a service 
 to the public of the most important and delicate character, re- 
 quiring special knowledge and ability. The work is actually 
 done by the capitalists, the managers of production, who, though 
 
570 POLITICAL SCIENCE QUARTERLY. [Vol. I. 
 
 acting in a private capacity, are yet performing the service of 
 public functionaries. 
 
 In the course of the preceding discussion we have had hints 
 of the line of thought which Rodbertus would naturally pursue 
 in his criticism of the existing social order. His historical 
 philosophy is full of the idea that social systems are only rela- 
 tively excellent ; that is, excellent to the degree in which they 
 satisfy the needs of the times. Every system hitherto has con- 
 tained a latent contradiction. This has slowly developed till 
 the conditions of life have become intolerable. Then has fol- 
 lowed a revolution, either sudden and by force, or gradual and 
 peaceful. Rome fell because of the contradiction between the 
 old principle of the omnipotence of the state, and the new eco- 
 nomic conditions of the Empire. A contradiction exists in our 
 society, arising from the relations between labor and capital, 
 which will inevitably, in the one way or the other, cause the 
 overthrow of existing property institutions. The argument by 
 which Rodbertus seeks to establish this proposition runs as 
 follows : 
 
 He starts from the Ricardian doctrine that labor is the only 
 productive agent. Therefore, he argues, it must be the only 
 source of value. He gives a broad definition of labor, viz.> the 
 expenditure of human energy. He therefore includes under the 
 term intellectual as well as physical labor. He acknowledges 
 that nature is the source from which forces and materials are 
 derived ; but its activity is not economic. Economy begins and 
 ends with man in society ; either in the family or in some larger 
 association. It is only through human labor bestowed upon 
 them that natural products become commodities. Before that, 
 they form the subject-matter of the natural, but not of the 
 social sciences. In order to attain clear definition and classifi- 
 cation, it is necessary to exclude from economics all considera- 
 tion of nature apart from human labor. Economic science takes 
 nature's work for granted, but from that work it is impossible 
 to derive any rights in distribution. Land is neither capital, 
 nor a productive factor. It is only through a misdirected social 
 development that it has come to be so considered. Physical 
 
No. 4.] 
 
 SCIENTIFIC SOCIALISM. 
 
 571 
 
 labor is "immediately" productive, and so should receive a 
 share in " direct distribution." Intellectual labor is " mediately " 
 productive, and is entitled to share in " derivative distribution." 
 The classification of society into laborers and capitalists, mean- 
 ing by the former those whose labor is mostly physical and 
 comparatively unskilled, employed in the mass and paid accord- 
 ing to the time spent, is perfectly justifiable. 
 
 This doctrine of labor is, of course, given its due weight in 
 Rodbertus' theory of capital. But another point of prime 
 importance here is his distinction between essential capital 
 (Kapital an sick) and historic capital. This involves also his 
 theory of income. When we look at economic phenomena from 
 the standpoint of the community, we find that the products of 
 labor fall into two classes, essential capital and income. The 
 former consists of those products which are devoted to the pur- 
 poses of immediate production ; the latter is composed of those 
 which are accumulated in order that they may be consumed. 
 They are the means of satisfaction ; e.g., objects of luxury, 
 furniture, and the like. Capital, on the other hand, comprises 
 tools and materials actually used in productive enterprises. 
 Capital is not the result of saving ; it is not an accumulation 
 (Vorrath). Its nature is that it should be consumed almost as 
 fast as it is produced. It is produced that it may disappear as 
 soon as possible in new products. J. S. Mill's statement about 
 the rapid disappearance of capital is eminently true. Saving or 
 accumulation would necessarily jlefeat the end of its existence. 
 How can materials and tools be saved ? Nobody thinks of 
 accumulating such, or of producing them for the purpose of 
 accumulation. Essential capital, therefore, cannot be the result 
 of saving, neither can that theory of its origin furnish the 
 source of any claim for the capitalist in distribution. Capital is 
 solely the product of labor, mediate or immediate. The labor 
 bestowed upon the manufacture of a machine is, so far as the 
 products of that machine are concerned, mediate labor. The 
 labor of operating the machine itself in the manufacture of final 
 products is immediate labor. If the machine cost n labor, and 
 produces x goods before it is worn out, and if we designate the 
 
572 
 
 POLITICAL SCIENCE QUARTERLY. 
 
 [Vol. I. 
 
 immediate labor bestowed by m, then the value of each com- 
 modity produced will be represented by the formula m -J- -. 
 
 Essential capital, then, is not a productive agent. It is sim- 
 ply intensified labor. All implements are vorgcthanc Arbeit — 
 labor already performed, accumulated labor. When a person 
 uses an implement in a productive operation, he is calling into 
 activity the labor of the present and of the past. The pre- 
 historic man first increased the efficiency of his labor. He then 
 had time left, after satisfying his wants, which he devoted to 
 the making of his first tool. Production in all its stages is only 
 a repetition of this process. When a new and better machine 
 is put in the place of an old one, there is no increase of capital. 
 On the other hand, there is often a positive diminution of the 
 same, and that according to the prevailing notion of capital. 
 
 Moreover, the way in which products are distributed makes 
 no difference with the fact that they have sprung entirely from 
 labor. If we follow the series of productive operations back to 
 their very beginning, we find that they resolve themselves into 
 labor, and their products into the results of labor. Capital is 
 ever rising to the surface of this vast stream of production only 
 to sink again and disappear. 
 
 Finally, essential capital is not the source of income. Labor 
 is the source of both. Capital may become income by being 
 diverted from productive purposes to those of consumption. In 
 the isolated and primitive condition of society, capital and 
 income stand to each other in the relation of successive steps in 
 economic progress, the one constantly passing into the other. 
 But the connection of cause and effect does not exist between 
 the two. Income may be great or small in proportion to capi- 
 tal, but not because it is created by capital. The income and 
 capital of a nation together form the collective product of its 
 labor, and this product is distributed among the different classes 
 of producers. 
 
 Historic capital is a product of the system of private property 
 in land and the other means of production. It is private cap- 
 ital, a result of social development, and therefore has no claim 
 to universality or permanency. Private property in land arose 
 
No. 4.] 
 
 SCIENTIFIC SOCIALISM. 
 
 573 
 
 in consequence of the appropriation by individuals of the primi- 
 tive communal domain. All the implements and materials of 
 production have been appropriated by a special class — the cap- 
 italists. They employ these in productive enterprises of which 
 they have complete control. Capitalists decide what enter- 
 prises shall be undertaken and upon what scale they shall be 
 carried on. They- advance the means for prosecuting the busi- 
 ness and are the owners of the entire product. Their object in 
 this is private gain. They will undertake nothing unless there 
 promises to be a good demand, and that implies a previous 
 accumulation and distribution of property. The laborers, who 
 are the real producers, form a distinct class over against the 
 capitalists. They own none of the implements and materials 
 which they have produced. They use those which the capital- 
 ist, their employer, furnishes ; and during the actual periods of 
 production they live upon the commodities which he advances. 
 Hence it seems as if the capitalist contributed an important 
 productive agent, and that the profit which he receives is a 
 return for its use. But this is to mistake the possession of capi- 
 tal for capital itself. The radical error in the theories of the 
 earlier economists is that on this point they have confounded 
 the appearance with the reality. The capitalist class is enabled 
 to perform its function, not because it controls a separate factor 
 of production, but because it has appropriated the lion's share 
 of the products of labor. This result has been produced by 
 laws favoring capital, and by J;he unequal conditions under 
 which, from the first, labor has competed. 
 
 It follows from the doctrine already advanced that wages do not 
 form a part of capital, but, with rent and profits, belong to national 
 income. Whether they are paid after or before the sale of the 
 product, the commodities out of which the wages come were 
 produced before the time of making the payment. The wages 
 paid at the close of each period of production, the day or the 
 week, are in return for the goods produced during that period. 
 
 Rodbertus does not seek to deny or obscure the fact that the 
 service performed for society by the capitalist class is very 
 great. The skill and knowledge shown by them in starting and 
 
574 
 
 POLITICAL SCIENCE QUARTERLY. 
 
 [Vol. I. 
 
 managing industries he recognizes as labor of a very high 
 quality. As such it is entitled to its just reward. It is labor 
 which society cannot dispense with. The laborers themselves 
 cannot perform it. The function of the manager must be 
 retained, but his reward should consist only of wages of super- 
 intendence. Labor, in the broadest sense of the term, is the 
 sole productive agent, and therefore is entitled to the whole 
 product. But now the capitalist class receives it all, not 
 because of the labor which they have performed, but because 
 they are the possessors. All income in excess of the just return 
 for labor, whether derived from land or capital, Rodbertus calls 
 rent. This is what a man obtains without effort on his own 
 part. It is the result of expropriation, robbery. He divides 
 it into ground-rent and capital-rent, and the latter into interest 
 and undertaker's profit. 
 
 From the point now reached it is easy to understand Rodber- 
 tus' theory of pauperism and crises. If rent, profits, and wages 
 are paid from the total national income, it follows that a rise of 
 the two former, or of either one of them, without a corre- 
 sponding decline of the other, will be followed by a fall of 
 wages. Rodbertus holds, with Ricardo, that under the system 
 of free competition wages tend toward the minimum point, viz., 
 that amount which will supply the barest necessities of life. 
 The forces which operate against this tendency are increase in 
 the efficiency of labor, and checks to the growth of population. 
 National productivity has been greatly increased, but most of 
 its results have passed into the hands of the capitalists. That 
 this is a necessary result appears when we examine the origin 
 and present condition of the laborers as a class. Their ances- 
 tors were slaves in antiquity and serfs during the middle 
 ages. When they emerged into freedom, ignorant and desti- 
 tute, they found themselves in competition with an active, 
 intelligent class furnished with capital. It was not a struggle 
 between labor and the owners of land, alone and unas- 
 sisted ; but labor was forced into competition with a class 
 possessing in addition all the fruits of a thousand years of 
 civilization, developed during the ages of slavery and servitude. 
 
No. 4.] 
 
 SCIENTIFIC SOCIALISM. 
 
 575 
 
 Hence the start was unfair, and its effect has continued till the 
 present. As the entire product of the slave's labor belonged to 
 his master, so it continued to belong to his employer after the 
 slave became a wage-worker. Instead of labor and property co- 
 operating in the production of wealth, a form of contract was 
 entered into. But contracts between members of two classes 
 so situated cannot be fair. The laborer has only his one com- 
 modity, labor, which he must sell at once, or lose entirely. It 
 is like "selling the harvest upon the stalk." Also, the general 
 use of money in exchange is unfavorable to the laborer. It 
 separates him further than ever from his product. Its pur- 
 chasing power may differ from the value of the laborer's share 
 of his product, nominal from real wages. Money is used when 
 the employer pays his men, and again when it is expended 
 in the purchase of the real wages. Whenever exchange is 
 resorted to, the laborer comes under the operation of the so- 
 called natural law of supply and demand. They always work 
 to his disadvantage, because he is not in a condition to compete 
 on an equality with the capitalist. Furthermore, the vigorous 
 competition between capitalists makes cheapness a necessity. 
 The reduction in cost which this necessitates is usually made 
 at the expense of labor, because it is the weaker party. To the 
 employer wages seem to be a part of the cost of production, 
 and hence they are forced down. 
 
 The above considerations explain the fact that wages tend 
 toward the starvation point. Competition can be free only 
 between classes of equal economic strength. Between classes 
 of unequal strength it is slavery under the name of freedom. 
 The spirit of the system is seen in the prevailing doctrine that 
 labor, meaning the laborer, is a commodity, a chattel, which 
 forms a part of the cost of production, and is subject in all 
 respects to the operation of supply and demand. Statistics 
 confirm these statements, for they show that throughout Europe 
 the wages of common laborers have never risen, except for short 
 intervals, above the point of absolute need. The laborers are 
 practically in the condition of serfs. On the other hand, profits 
 and rent have risen greatly, the former more than the latter, 
 
576 
 
 POLITICAL SCIENCE QUARTERLY. 
 
 [Vol. I. 
 
 because the productiveness of manufacturing and transporta- 
 tion has increased faster than that of agriculture. Improve- 
 ments in production under the present system are therefore a 
 curse rather than a blessing. The defenders of free competi- 
 tion assert that everything which adds to national wealth is a 
 good, and everything which takes from it is an evil. This is 
 not necessarily so. Every addition made to national wealth 
 may help the growth of inequality. While the laborers at one 
 extreme of society sink into pauperism, the plutocrats at the 
 other extreme pass from the struggle to increase productive- 
 ness, to the struggle for gain, pure and simple. From that 
 they pass to rivalry in the pursuit of enjoyment. From this 
 develops luxury, followed by moral corruption, which is the last 
 stage in the process of social decay. 
 
 In his theory of pauperism Rodbertus discusses the move- 
 ment of wages in reference to the minimum point. But there 
 is another point of comparison. The expressions, wages are 
 " rising" or "falling," are "high" or "low," may be used in 
 another sense. This is with reference to the total product of 
 labor. Wages may be absolutely high, that is, far above the least 
 amount necessary for the support of the requisite number of 
 laborers, and yet form a small part of the total national product. 
 They will then be relatively low. The total national income 
 may increase so much faster than wages, that the rate of wages 
 may be slowly rising, though at the same time a continually 
 diminishing share of the national product goes to the laboring 
 classes. This is actually realized under the system of private 
 property and free competition, and from it is derived the only 
 satisfactory explanation of commercial crises. 
 
 Crises appeared with the advent of the modern industrial 
 system, and have kept pace with its development. Instead of 
 disappearing, they are becoming more frequent and severe. 
 They may arise from the failure of producers properly to adapt 
 supply to demand. That of .itself reveals a weak point in the 
 present social system. The fact that capitalists attempt noth- 
 ing unless they think profit can be made out of it, and act upon 
 the most imperfect knowledge of the conditions of the market, 
 
No. 4.] 
 
 SCIENTIFIC SOCIALISM. 
 
 577 
 
 leads to reckless and blundering ventures, which end in great 
 and constantly recurring losses. But this, Rodbertus says, is 
 by no means the source of modern crises. Their symptoms he 
 describes with great ability. They are uniformly preceded by a 
 period of high prices, great productiveness of labor and increase 
 of capital, high wages, and fall in the rate of interest. The 
 banks overflow with deposits ; credit is so easy and confidence 
 is so great that multitudes of new enterprises are started. 
 Suddenly, as if by a stroke of lightning, the situation is changed. 
 A stagnation occurs in some of the leading branches of a na- 
 tion's industry, which extends to all forms of business. The 
 prices of all commodities fall rapidly. Property and incomes 
 shrink in value till all find it difficult to meet obligations, while 
 many temporarily suspend payment or become bankrupts. Pro- 
 duction is greatly curtailed. Thousands of laborers are left 
 without work, and hence without food. The capitalist and 
 laborer alike suffer. Sometimes a shock to credit begins the 
 collapse ; again, a poor harvest, or some important loss of capi- 
 tal. But most frequently it begins with a fall of prices. The 
 channels of trade become obstructed ; but in this case, unlike a 
 river in the time of freshet, there is no overflow and enrichment 
 of the surrounding wastes. The current of production stops 
 and remains fixed in its channel. Abundance and want exist 
 side by side, but cannot meet. Only after this condition has 
 lasted for an indefinite time, does production begin slowly to 
 revive, and better prospects appe>r for capital and labor. 
 
 Crises begin at the centres of industry and trade, where capi- 
 tal is most abundant and credit most developed. Commercial 
 prosperity furnishes the conditions under which they thrive. 
 In the most advanced nations they are felt most severely. 
 They originated in England, the city of the world ; but the de- 
 velopment of railways, of steam navigation, and of stock trans- 
 actions, has spread their effects over the two hemispheres. 
 The crises since 1830 have affected all the western nations, 
 and each has been more severe than its predecessor. The in- 
 terval between the first and third crises (18 18-1836) was eigh- 
 teen years; that between the second and fourth (1826- 1840) 
 
578 POLITICAL SCIENCE QUARTERLY. [Vol.1. 
 
 was fourteen years; that between the third and fifth (1836- 
 1847) was eleven years. 
 
 Since the growth of national debts and the issue of so many 
 securities by corporations, stock transactions play a part in 
 crises so important as to obscure their real nature. They are 
 not money crises, but trade or community crises. Merchants 
 who have imposed their superficial views on society explain 
 them as the result of excessive speculation. But the real cause 
 is to be found in the explanation of the first symptom ; viz., 
 the fall of prices. Rodbertus, in his history of the crisis pre- 
 vious to 1848, strives to prove this point. He claims, for exam- 
 ple, that the crisis of 1837 in England could not have been 
 caused by the revolution in Lisbon, which depreciated Portu- 
 guese bonds. Large amounts of Spanish securities were held 
 in England, but in 1835 a serious revolution occurred there 
 without causing a panic in the English market. If a collapse 
 of credit caused the panic in the former case, it should have 
 produced a similar result in the latter. The fact, however, is 
 that the year 1837 was preceded both in America and England 
 by a period of most rapid increase in national wealth. The 
 extent to which railroad building was carried is one evidence 
 of this. But there was the greatest activity in every branch of 
 agriculture and manufacturing. The introduction of machines 
 vastly increased the labor power. Credit, which aids produc- 
 tion by removing the necessity of waiting till new capital is 
 created before enterprises can be started, was called into active 
 service. Banks of issue, the most powerful organs of credit, 
 gave their impulse to industrial progress. Under these circum- 
 stances great enterprises flourished, and it was these which pro- 
 duced a mass of commodities, the accumulation of which clogged 
 the channels of trade. The crisis which followed, though intro- 
 duced by a money panic, was really a sudden fall of prices in 
 all the industrial centres from America to Constantinople. 
 These phenomena are repeated in all crises. The all-important 
 question then is, Why do commodities accumulate in this way ? 
 Production is only a few steps ahead of consumption ; and if the 
 entire wealth of any country were distributed equally among its 
 
No. 4.] 
 
 SCIENTIFIC SOCIALISM. 
 
 579 
 
 population, each individual would receive only a small amount. 
 Why are not commodities taken off the market as soon as they 
 are produced ? The reason is, that the purchasing power of the 
 masses, nine-tenths of the population, does not keep pace with 
 the productiveness of their labor. This is the correct form of 
 statement, rather than the one used by Malthus and Sismondi, 
 that the producing* power of the laborers exceeds their purchas- 
 ing power. If each individual or class of producers received 
 their entire product, the supply they bring to the market would 
 equal their demand. These crises would be impossible, because 
 purchasing power and productiveness would balance. It mat- 
 ters not whether the share of the laboring classes be absolutely 
 small or not ; so long as it does not increase as fast as their 
 ability to produce, with the aid of all the machinery which is in 
 operation, crises must be regular visitors in modern society. 
 No class is responsible for their occurrences. Capital suffers 
 from their effect as much as labor. The fault is in the system ; 
 it is organic. Attempts to restrict the proper development of 
 credit, like the Peel Bank Act of 1844, will not cure the evil. 
 We need all the aid that credit can furnish. Production should 
 be extended in its scope rather than restricted. All that is 
 needed is a more equal distribution. But can that be obtained 
 under the system of free competition ? Rodbertus holds that 
 it cannot. Pauperism and crises are so related that the one 
 cannot be removed without the cure of the other. Pauperism 
 makes crises possible, and crises defeat all attempts of the 
 laborers to escape from their poverty. Here lies the fatal con- 
 tradiction which is to cause the overthrow of modern society. 
 It is as real and deep-seated as that which prepared the way for 
 the triumph of the barbarians over Rome. Now, however, the 
 barbarians who threaten society with their attacks live within, 
 rather than outside its borders. They are not slaves, excluded 
 from the protection of the law, nor serfs, possessing a limited 
 number of rights, but citizens, endowed with full political 
 equality. They see in political freedom only a form, without 
 substantial advantage. So direct and intense is the conflict of 
 interests between capital and labor that Rodbertus sees only 
 
5 8o 
 
 POLITICAL SCIENCE QUARTERLY. [Vol. I. 
 
 revolution ahead, unless the state interferes to secure peaceful 
 and regular developments. 
 
 The treatment of the problem of land and rent occupies an 
 important place in Rodbertus' works, but only a passing refer- 
 ence can be made to it here. He subjected Ricardo's theory of 
 rent to a searching criticism, holding that it does not explain 
 the origin, but simply deals with the fact of rent. He brings 
 out the points which have been made familiar to English readers 
 by Carey and Jones, but adds others of greater scientific value. 
 He would substitute for the doctrine the idea which has ap- 
 peared already ; viz., that rent, like profits and interest, is the 
 product of our social institutions. It is one of the forms under 
 which the laborer is robbed of the product of his effort. "The 
 theory of rent," he says, " is the answer to the question why 
 persons who perform no service participate in the original dis- 
 tribution of goods." Again he says : "The taking of them out 
 as a special share" — meaning rent and profits — "is private 
 property in land and capital." Rodbertus seeks to explain the 
 recent growth of indebtedness upon land throughout Germany, 
 wholly from the fact that it has been treated as capital. By the 
 legislation of the present century it has been brought under the 
 influence of free competition. It is exchanged as if it were 
 capital, and its value is expressed in the terms of capitalized 
 rent. Thereby it has been subjected to the fluctuations of in- 
 terest and of speculative demand. The result, in brief, has 
 been that the owners of it, and dealers in it, have become in- 
 volved more and more deeply in debt. But land, according to 
 Rodbertus, is not capital at all. It is simply the source of rent. 
 That alone measures its value. To treat land legally as if it 
 were capital results not only in confusion, but in the loss to the 
 landholding class. The principles underlying real credit are 
 quite different from those of personal credit. Therefore Rod- 
 bertus urges that the rent-principle of the middle ages be 
 brought again into use, and sees in that, together with the es- 
 tablishment of a system of country banks, a specific cure for 
 the evils under which German agriculture is suffering. 
 
 The most important reforms proposed by Rodbertus are those 
 
No. 4.] 
 
 SCIENTIFIC SOCIALISM. 
 
 58l 
 
 intended to remove the great social dilemma, the struggle be- 
 tween labor and capital. Unless this and the evils which come 
 from it are cured, society will go to pieces. But they will be 
 cured, he says, and that by means of a long process of historical 
 development, continuing at least five hundred years. This 
 process will not go on of itself. It must be a self-conscious 
 evolution, guided-by the controlling organ of society, the state. 
 The evils of the present system will probably make themselves 
 felt much more keenly than at present. But the sense of suffer- 
 ing caused by them will force society into a course of develop- 
 ment which will lead ultimately to a complete transformation, 
 a new social order. It is absolutely necessary, then, to discern 
 aright the goal toward which we are tending. Then only can 
 appropriate measures and a safe course of policy be chosen. 
 The social question cannot be solved by any political change. 
 It lies deeper than forms of government ; it exists under all 
 forms. It can be solved under a republic or a monarchy, though 
 the latter offers advantages towards its solution, which the 
 former does not possess. As already indicated, the process of 
 change must be gradual, not sudden or destructive. No val- 
 uable human institution, whether in the domain of thought, 
 morals, or economics, should be sacrificed. The production and 
 distribution of wealth should be continued at least upon their 
 present scale, and the way should be opened for extending 
 them. Capital must not be swept away, but a balance to the 
 power of capital secured. UncLer any tolerable form of society, 
 laborers, landholders, and capitalists, in the sense of managers, 
 must exist together. The ordinary laborers cannot manage the 
 works of production. If they should successfully attempt it, 
 the result would be the universality of corporation property, the 
 worst and most tyrannical of all forms of ownership. 
 
 For this reason, and because Lassalle proceeded by agitation 
 and antagonized the government, Rodbertus would have nothing 
 to do with him. The two agreed in their theoretical views and 
 ultimate objects, but they could not agree as to practical methods. 
 It appears from his correspondence that Lassalle repeatedly 
 begged Rodbertus to aid his movement, to offer some positive 
 
POLITICAL SCIENCE QUARTERLY. 
 
 [Vol. 1. 
 
 programme. He accused Rodbertus of being visionary, and 
 promised, if he would present something definite and tangible, 
 to take it into consideration. But all appeals were in vain. 
 Rodbertus insisted that the laborers were not ready for action. 
 They would not unite, because community feeling was not de- 
 veloped within them. They were too ignorant of the problem 
 and the conditions under which it must be solved. They must 
 pass through a long course of training, intellectual as well as in 
 the school of experience, before they will be ready .to attempt 
 the final solution. The other classes need developing also, as 
 truly as the laborers. The moral tone of society must be raised, 
 its will power increased. Class antagonism should be discour- 
 aged rather than intensified. The nation must move together 
 under the lead of its government, if any true social progress is 
 to be made. Strikes will be of no avail. They have not bene- 
 fited the laborer's condition in England. The methods of 
 trades-unions are open to serious objection. Association is 
 the all-important thing, but it must be managed on peaceful 
 principles. 
 
 The difference between the spirit of Rodbertus and that of 
 Marx appears here very clearly. The latter held that indi- 
 viduals could accomplish nothing as such. The evils of society 
 must develop until they become intolerable ; and therefore the 
 course to pursue was to increase the evil as rapidly as possible 
 by agitation and attempts at revolution — TJieorie der Bosheit. 
 That would lead to a violent collapse and the establishment of 
 the new system by force — a Napoleonic era. 
 
 The following quotations will make Rodbertus' views on this 
 point still clearer : 
 
 The Social Question is the problem how peaceably to transfer society 
 from our system, based on private propety in land and capital, to the 
 higher order which is necessarily and historically to follow it, and the 
 signs of the approach of which are already appearing. 
 
 The Social Question is not to be solved upon the streets with paving 
 stones and petroleum. Decrees might be obtained which would suffice. 
 But by these the Social Question would be smothered in the cradle. 
 However, it has already grown up above our heads, and cannot be 
 
No. 4.] 
 
 SCIENTIFIC SOCIALISM. 
 
 583 
 
 solved at present. All we can now do is to organize. We must proceed 
 carefully, and not destroy the plant by rough usage. Social peace, 
 unified political power, great preparations and deep-laid combinations, 
 made quietly and with order and energy, — these are the conditions of 
 the solution of the Social Question. 
 
 If conservative means the conserving of accursed plunder, then there 
 is nothing more anti-conservative than the Social Question. But if con- 
 servative means strengthening the power of the monarchy, peaceful 
 reforms, harmonizing pi social classes under the aegis and according to 
 the rule of suum cuique, then there is nothing more conservative than 
 the Social Question. 
 
 The works of Rodbertus abound in passages similar to these. 
 One of his favorite illustrations is that the transition to the 
 new order will be like that from the invertebrates to the verte- 
 brates in the animal kingdom. Now the state has as little 
 organic adaptation to the rest of society as the head would have, 
 if it were placed upon the back of an insect. The state should 
 be placed at the top of society and in organic connection with 
 it, so that its guiding influence may be felt through the whole 
 body. 
 
 But it must not be imagined that Rodbertus was destitute of 
 a practical programme. Although he avoided agitation, he was 
 not simply the leader of a philosophical school. He distin- 
 guished specific diseases in the body politic from the general 
 malady. To the former he would apply specific remedies, and 
 that immediately. A case in point is the lack of credit accom- 
 modation and the burden of debt, from which the German land- 
 owners are suffering. The specific remedy which he would 
 apply to that is the establishment of a system of banks, and the 
 introduction of the rent-principle. 
 
 Relative are also to be distinguished from final solutions. 
 The former will only prepare the way for the latter. The final 
 solution of the social problem will be found where the system 
 of private property in the instruments of production has been 
 succeeded by that of pure income property, and when the 
 management of production and distribution has been assumed by 
 the state. This involves a transition from one social order to 
 another radically different, from the present to the ideal state. 
 
5*4 
 
 POLITICAL SCIENCE QUARTERLY. 
 
 [Vol. I. 
 
 The new social order is so remote that anything more than 
 hints at its nature would be useless now. But there are pre- 
 paratory reforms, which can be carried out under the present 
 system. Among these are statistical inquiries on the largest 
 scale concerning the hours of labor, the amount of work per- 
 formed, and the income of the laboring classes. These should 
 show both what is, and what should be. They should be gath- 
 ered from existing conditions, and issued with such promptness 
 that they can be used as the basis of legislation. A reform 
 should at once be begun in the system of taxation. The rule 
 to be followed is that the heaviest rate of taxation should fall 
 on money capital, especially when it exists in larger amounts ; 
 the next lower on other movable property ; the next on land ; 
 and the lowest on labor. The necessities of life should not be 
 taxed. A heavy tax should be laid on inheritance, increasing in 
 amount as the relationship of the heir becomes more remote. 
 
 The above reforms will operate indirectly toward the solution 
 of the labor problem. The introduction of the " normal labor- 
 day," and of factory inspection, will tend directly to that end. 
 In the former case the only object aimed at, for the present, 
 should be to restrict the hours of labor to a reasonable length. 
 Ten hours would be a good average, but this could not be 
 enforced in all forms of business. All necessary allowances 
 should be made. Sunday labor should be discouraged. The 
 fixing of the normal day's labor is held in reserve. The Eng- 
 lish system of factory inspection, with some modifications, is 
 recommended. 
 
 Another class of reforms are those which contain the germ 
 of the new regime ; viz., the extension of state enterprise. The 
 railway, telegraph, post-office, and tobacco monopoly are illus- 
 trations of this. The history of these under government control 
 shows that the economic sphere of the state can be enlarged. 
 On this question Rodbertus claims to occupy a position between 
 the Manchester school, which rejects all state interference, and 
 the more extreme socialists, who say that state control is the 
 best under all circumstances. It is the best under certain 
 circumstances. It may improve the organization of society ; 
 
No. 4.] 
 
 SCIENTIFIC SOCIALISM. 
 
 585 
 
 it is the only way in which to prevent the extension of monop- 
 oly; the state may thereby secure more cheaply than other- 
 wise the articles which it consumes. The principle is right ; the 
 only question is that of its application. The aid of the state must 
 not be invoked in a spirit of favoritism toward the laborers, or 
 any other class. Its essence is that it substitutes public for 
 private interest, as -a controlling motive. It asserts the preroga- 
 tives of the community, as against those exercised by the 
 officials of a joint stock company. If it had control of railways 
 and bank notes, it would have a powerful weapon to use against 
 crises. The domain of state activity, meaning by state the 
 central organ of society, changes with historic progress. No 
 hard and fast bounds can be set to it. Its limits are never the 
 same in any two periods of history. In general, as the social 
 organism becomes more complex and highly developed, the 
 activity of the state increases both extensively and intensively. 
 All signs indicate that we live in such a period. 
 
 After society has become sufficiently accustomed to state 
 control, and methods of administration have been elaborated, 
 then the time will be ripe for more decisive measures. The 
 period of transition will then be entered upon. The statesman 
 must then aim at obtaining for the laboring classes the highest 
 available rate of wages. Even though we hold that the wage- 
 fund theory is false, there must be, at any given time, some 
 limit to the rise of wages. A certain sum in each line of 
 business must be fixed upon and-striven for by the state. This 
 should not be so high as to hinder production, nor so low as to 
 injure the laborers. It is useless to wait for such work as this 
 to be done by the church, education, self-help, or by letting 
 things go as they please. The state alone can effect it. But 
 it must be careful not to infringe upon the freedom of inheri- 
 tance, of alienation, or of mortgaging landed property ; upon 
 the right of placing or disposing of capital ; upon the right of 
 settlement, in its broadest sense ; and the right to choose 
 a calling. All these must be preserved intact. The state must 
 solve the labor problem on the basis of a pure wage system, 
 and it takes the initiative simply because employers and laborers 
 will not do so. 
 
5 86 
 
 POLITICAL SCIENCE QUARTERLY. [Vol. I. 
 
 Not only must the state secure a rate of wages which is up 
 to the necessary limit, but it must obtain for all laborers an 
 income, the growth of which shall keep pace with the increase 
 of their productivity. It will therefore be necessary from time 
 to time, as the productivity of labor increases, to increase the 
 amount of income. This means the periodical fixing of the rate 
 of wages by government according to the results obtained from 
 statistical investigation. If this be done, labor will cease to be 
 a commodity, at the mercy of the law of supply and demand. 
 
 It is clear that by the time this point is reached, private, or 
 rent-bearing property in the instruments of production will have 
 ceased. Collective, or state property will have taken its place. 
 Capitalists and landowners will not be expropriated, or arbitra- 
 rily dealt with. They will still continue to manage their enter- 
 prises. But they will do it, not according to the system of free 
 contract, but under the condition prescribed by the state. This 
 will be that they surrender to the state, and through it to their 
 employees, all their profits which exceed fair wages of superin- 
 tendence. They, like all others, will be rewarded in proportion 
 to their labor, and to that alone. All accumulation of capital 
 from profits will cease. All classes of producers will be viewed 
 solely from the standpoint of labor. Property will not be abol- 
 '.shed, but it will take the form of income-property ; that is, 
 the right of each to the full product of his labor, minus that 
 which the state will take for its own support. National income 
 will evidently consist of two parts, capital and income-property ; 
 the former that portion of the product which is devoted to future 
 production, the latter the part consumed. There will be no 
 need of waiting for capital to accumulate before starting enter- 
 prises, because all will take their pay from the product as it is 
 produced, and the state will see to it that demand is adapted to 
 supply. Artificial monopolies, and the waste arising therefrom, 
 will be avoided. 
 
 The central point in Rodbertus' theory of the ideal social 
 order is the adaptation of national supply to national demand 
 by the state. It is only in that way that the mischievous influ- 
 ence of competition can be abolished and the interests of the 
 
No. 4.] 
 
 SCIENTIFIC SOCIALISM. 
 
 587 
 
 community secured. Then only can the results mentioned 
 above be obtained. The officials of the central government 
 must ultimately superintend production and distribution. When 
 they have obtained this power, they will periodically ascertain 
 by statistical investigation the extent and character of the social 
 demand. They will then so guide production that the supply 
 of commodities shall always correspond to that demand. This 
 problem, which seems so vast, he claims can be solved by means 
 of the principle of time-labor. 
 
 We may suppose that the normal labor-day has long been 
 established. If we combine with this the idea of normal day's 
 work, we have the conception of tirne-labor. The quantity of 
 labor-power expended by a workman during a normal clay, 
 though varying greatly according to the nature of the occupa- 
 tion, the skill and energy of the laborer, etc., may be reduced to 
 an average. This will be a normal day's work, the work per- 
 formed by an average laborer. This, under the name time- 
 'abor, may serve as an ideal standard of measurement. Its 
 objective form will be the product of the day's work. Now the 
 productivity of all laborers in each branch of industry can be 
 ascertained and expressed in the terms of the standard. But 
 the sum of these, at any time, will be the social supply. The 
 work of calculating averages must be done for each line of busi- 
 ness separately. It will be a difficult undertaking, but the fact 
 that H. Peters, the architect, working with Rodbertus, has 
 performed the calculations fop-the labor of a carpenter, shows 
 that it is practicable. The state must cause the estimate, and 
 hence the standard, to be changed from time to time, as the 
 productivity of labor increases. 
 
 The work of distributing the supply of commodities so as to 
 satisfy the social demand will be managed as follows. The 
 value of all products, as well as the efficiency of labor, can be 
 ascertained by comparing them with the standard. By means 
 of this a wage, or share in the product, can be given to each 
 laborer, which exactly corresponds to the service he has ren- 
 dered. If a laborer in half a day produces a commodity similar 
 to that made by the average workman in his trade, working 
 
5 88 
 
 POLITICAL SCIENCE QUARTERLY. 
 
 [Vol. I. 
 
 with average skill and energy during an entire day (the stand- 
 ard), he will receive a full day's wages. If it takes another 
 laborer two days to perform the same work, he will receive no 
 more than a day's wages. Thus not only is a means devised 
 for measuring the value of all commodities in the terms of 
 labor, but we can, with its help, distinguish qualities of labor 
 and assign rewards corresponding to efficiency. 
 
 The last step in the process of establishing the socialistic 
 state will be taken when a form of paper money adapted to the 
 needs of such a community is issued, and magazines for the 
 storing of products before their distribution are built by the 
 government. To these magazines all commodities will be car- 
 ried after they are produced. Notes or certificates of work will 
 be given to each producer by the state in amount equal to the 
 labor he has performed. On presenting these at the public 
 warehouses, such products as the laborer has earned can be 
 obtained. In parts of this plan the influence of Proudhon can 
 be traced. 
 
 Such is the outline of Rodbertus' theory of the socialistic 
 state and of the method of transition to it. He claimed to have 
 thought it out even to its details, but forbore publishing a com- 
 plete picture of his ideal, because the public was not ready for 
 it. It is the ideal, however, toward which all scientific social- 
 ists of this generation are working. Because only hints of his 
 views concerning the ultimate solution of the social problem 
 were contained in the works issued before his death, some have 
 claimed that Rodbertus was not a socialist. There has been a 
 tendency to class him with Sismondi, a critic of existing society, 
 but without positive plans for the removal of its evils. But 
 Rodbertus, as truly as Marx, considered the abolition of private 
 property in land and capital to be the only sufficient remedy for 
 our social ills. That proves him to have been, not a man with 
 socialistic tendencies simply, but a socialist. He looked forward 
 to the development of a form of society wherein the state should 
 assume entire control of production and distribution. 1 Compe- 
 
 1 For full statement of legitimate conclusions from Rodbertus' doctrines see 
 Schaffle, Bau und Leben des socialen Ktirpers, Bd. 2, S. 457. 
 
No. 4.] 
 
 SCIENTIFIC SOCIALISM. 
 
 589 
 
 tition, exchange, the regulation of prices by the action of supply 
 and demand, would cease. Money would no longer be needed. 
 Credit and all its institutions would disappear. All producers 
 and consumers would be regarded from the standpoint of labor ; 
 wages would be the only form of income. Public officials, 
 elected or appointed for each district, would ascertain the 
 demand for the various commodities produced there, provide for 
 their supply, and fix the rates of wages according to the rule 
 described above. All these officials would be under the control 
 of a department of the central government. The production 
 and distribution of wealth for the entire nation would be under 
 the supervision of this central organ. The books kept by the 
 state would contain the most perfect picture of every depart- 
 ment of the economic life of the nation. Commodities, when 
 produced, would be stored in public warehouses, and thence 
 distributed by means of certificates of work. The state would 
 take immediately what was necessary for its own support. 
 Hence national debts and the modern system of taxation would 
 disappear. With the surplus remaining after necessary expenses 
 were paid, the state might patronize literature, science, and art 
 on the most magnificent scale. Public education would be 
 carefully provided for. Freedom of trade with other nations 
 could be maintained by the socialistic state. 
 
 Rodbertus, we repeat, always insisted that no valuable social 
 institution should be sacrificed in the transition to the new 
 order. He meant by this that^individual freedom in the choice 
 of an occupation, incitement to skill, energy, and carefulness in 
 production and in the work of the state officials should be 
 secured by means of an appropriately graded system of wages. 
 Also he would not abolish inheritance, only restrict it. There- 
 fore the family could exist in its present form under the new 
 system. Consumption would be for the most part unrestricted 
 by the socialistic state. There would be no encouragement to 
 amass large fortunes, because they could not be employed pro- 
 ductively. Hence laws against luxury need not be very numer- 
 ous or severe. Moreover, pauperism would disappear with its 
 causes, and all the poorer classes would be able to maintain 
 independent homes. 
 
590 
 
 POLITICAL SCIENCE QUARTERLY. 
 
 [Vol. I. 
 
 Rodbertus evidently thought that the church could be main- 
 tained and its operations carried on as well under the social- 
 istic, as under the present system of society. Of course its 
 alliance with capital, if any such there be, must cease. That, 
 viewed from the socialistic standpoint, would be the completion 
 of the work of the Reformation. But perfect freedom of 
 thought and worship would be consistent with the spirit of the 
 new system, and there might be less temptation to worldliness 
 and more devotion to good works than now. The essentially 
 Christian element in socialism, which is emphasized by Laveleye 
 and other writers, is not pointed out by Rodbertus, because he 
 treats the subject wholly from the standpoint of the economist. 
 But it is in perfect harmony with his general position and spirit. 
 He is not materialistic, not irreligious, not destructively revolu- 
 tionary, not exclusively devoted to the interests of one class as 
 opposed to those of the others. His aim is by a system of 
 checks and balances to secure all that is valuable and put an 
 end to strife. 
 
 If this economic millennium is ever to be realized, it of 
 course must be preceded by a most important change in the 
 spirit of society. Externally, the introduction of the socialistic 
 state would be effected by a development of the system of 
 administration. The idea was hatched in the heads of Germans 
 who have always been accustomed to an elaborate admin- 
 istrative system. The spirit of officialism has always been 
 dominant in Prussia. Political and economic freedom in that 
 country was almost thrust upon the people, not extorted by 
 generations of conflict with oppressive governments. Jealousy 
 of state interference, so much of it as exists, has for the most 
 part been imported from France and England. 1 Therefore the 
 confidence shown by the German people and by the majority 
 of their political philosophers in the capacity of the state to 
 solve all problems can scarcely be understood by an American 
 or Englishman. They are accustomed to a highly organized 
 civil service. A most important object of the system of na- 
 tional education is to prepare for official life. It is considered 
 
 1 J. R. Seeley, Life and Times of Stein. 
 
No. 4-] 
 
 SCIENTIFIC SOCIALISM. 
 
 591 
 
 an honorable calling. The best talent of the country, through- 
 out this century, has been devoted either directly or indirectly 
 to the service of the state. Twice, once at the beginning of 
 the century, and again in our own time, the greatest statesman 
 of his generation has been placed in control of affairs long 
 enough to impress his personality on contemporary events. 
 The rapid material, progress of Germany since 1870; the suc- 
 cessful operation of the railroads and telegraph by the state ; 
 the fact that the Prussian government has always controlled 
 the mining industry, forests, and large public domains, are con- 
 sidered good omens of success if the state should continue to 
 extend the scope of its activity. Therefore, most German theo- 
 rists acknowledge the abstract possibility of such a perfecting 
 of the science and art of administration, that much of raw pro- 
 duction, manufacturing, and transportation in their own coun- 
 try could be carried on by the state. This, so far as it goes, is 
 in agreement with the view of Rodbertus. But he, as well as 
 they, realized fully that a long period must elapse before any 
 change of this character could be brought about. Socialism, 
 according to him, is the opposite of individualism. Solidarity, 
 community feeling, public spirit, is the motive of action to which 
 it appeals, while self-interest is the peculiar motive of individu- 
 alism. He would by no means exclude the latter, but he would 
 bring the former to a place of equal prominence with it. He 
 did not believe in state-help alone, but in self-help supplemented 
 by state-help. 
 
 But before the socialistic ideal can be realized, the grosser 
 forms of self-seeking must disappear. Men must abandon their 
 selfishness to a degree. Honesty must prevail, both among the 
 official class and outside. Without the support of a public 
 opinion in harmony with socialism, the socialistic state would 
 be doomed to failure. No system of administration, however 
 well devised, would work smoothly under any other conditions. 
 So long as the capitalistic spirit prevails in society, capitalism 
 must be maintained. Socialism, if established now, would have 
 to rest upon force , and that, according to Rodbertus, is not the 
 condition of progress. Hence he urged that a long course of 
 
592 
 
 POLITICAL SCIENCE QUARTERLY. 
 
 [Vol. L 
 
 social training is necessary before the establishment of the 
 socialistic state can be even attempted. Marx and Lassalle 
 never insisted on this, and therefore their teachings have a 
 more revolutionary character. The object aimed at is the same, 
 but the method of reaching it is different. It is not so much 
 upon the fact that Rodbertus was the first to formulate the 
 theory of the socialistic state (i 837-1 842) that his claim to be 
 the leader of that school of thought rests, as upon his clear 
 appreciation of the only way in which the ideal can ever be 
 realized. He thought that a greater degree of social equality 
 could be secured without encroaching seriously upon essential 
 freedom. But in order to do this, the work of reform must not 
 be pushed faster than society is willing to advance. The legal 
 bonds within which society moves should always correspond to 
 its inner spirit. When, however, the time is ripe for an impor- 
 tant change, it can be made quickly, as was shown by the 
 experience of Prussia between 1807 an d 1820. During that 
 short period, under the leadership of Stein and Hardenberg, 
 the feudal system was cast aside, and freedom of competition, 
 together with a whole series of administrative reforms, was 
 introduced. 
 
 In order to criticise aright any system of thought or public 
 policy, it is necessary to know the best it has to offer. When 
 we denounce the average labor agitator, or the statements con- 
 tained in the manifestoes of the International, we do not 
 necessarily attack socialism. It would not be just to hold the 
 theory of individualism or free competition responsible for the 
 exaggerated claims of some of its advocates. Socialism is a 
 system of economic thought, standing over against laissez fairc. 
 It is the outgrowth of social conflict and of the development of 
 historic study. During the last twenty years it has certainly 
 wrought a great change in theoretical political economy. That 
 the problems of distribution are recognized and treated now so 
 much more prominently than by the older writers, is due to 
 socialism. Its doctrines, that labor in a complex society is the 
 only source of value, and that under the influence of competi- 
 tion wages must remain at or near the starvation point, are 
 
No. 4.] 
 
 SCIENTIFIC SOCIALISM. 
 
 593 
 
 exaggerations, borrowed from English economists, which can be 
 easily detected and exposed. But they have helped to correct 
 perhaps as serious exaggerations on the other side. The theory 
 that free competition always operates beneficently has, as its 
 correlative, the Darwinian hypothesis of natural selection ap- 
 plied to society. Humanitarian impulses are sentiment ; fail- 
 ures are always the result of vice or, what is worse, weakness. 
 The advocate of laissez faire starts with the individual, forms 
 his premises and draws his conclusions from the standpoint of 
 the successful producer and distributor of wealth. The socialist 
 starts from the opposite pole, the community ; seeks to explain 
 economic phenomena from the social standpoint, and keeps ever 
 in sight the needs of the nation as a whole. These views sup- 
 plement one another. The policy of every civilized nation is 
 the result of the interaction of the two. If socialism is now 
 considered revolutionary, individualism was in much the same 
 position a century ago. 
 
 In view of the theory stated in this paper, several of the 
 stock arguments against socialism fall away. The system is 
 not necessarily materialistic or irreligious, though some of its 
 advocates may be. It does not propose the abolition of prop- 
 erty, or the levelling of incomes. It would not abolish freedom 
 for the sake of establishing equality. It is not necessarily rev- 
 olutionary, or anti-conservative. If its ideal can ever be reached, 
 self-help would not be sacrificed to state-help. Socialism has 
 no appreciable connection with protectionism. The question 
 then between socialism and the present system is not one of 
 overwhelming moral importance, on which depends the safety 
 of the family, the church, and the individual. They can flourish 
 or decline under either regime, according to the moral tone pre- 
 vailing in society. 
 
 The question is one of expediency, of ways and means for 
 securing the maximum of social well-being. Under which sys- 
 tem can society perform its functions the more economically, 
 with the least waste and the largest total advantage ? In order 
 to be successful, the socialistic state would require a standard of 
 public and private morality far above the average attained in 
 
594 
 
 POLITICAL SCIENCE QUARTERLY. 
 
 our best communities to-day. Official life must be freed from 
 all corruption, from all tendencies to self-seeking, self-indul- 
 gence, or greed. Party government would have to undergo im- 
 portant restrictions and limitations. Patriotism must always 
 exist among the people to a degree now only realized by a few 
 during a great national struggle for liberty. The average man 
 must be so highly developed morally, that he will be ready to 
 sacrifice personal gain and enjoyment for the good of the com- 
 munity. To this age, a system with such requirements can 
 be only a dream, an aspiration. It cannot be a practical solu- 
 tion of the labor question. Under the conditions stated, any 
 social system would work smoothly. 
 
 Another question of prime importance is, whether so heroic a 
 measure as the substitution of state for private property is, or 
 ever will be, necessary. Is inequality developing so rapidly that 
 its progress cannot be checked by forces which society, even in 
 its present form, may call to its aid ? The socialists underesti- 
 mate the incalculable service rendered to society by freedom 
 of competition. The induction on which their sweeping con- 
 clusions are based is inadequate. This is notably true of Rod- 
 bertus ; and in the case of Marx, though the facts adduced are 
 more numerous, they are all drawn from one side. The conclu- 
 sion is not a new one that socialism, as a criticism of existing 
 society and of some lines of economic thought, is rendering 
 most valuable service. A healthful scepticism of schools and 
 policies is produced by it. But as a practical programme it has 
 little to offer which views of a more moderate character cannot 
 supply. 
 
 Herbert L. Osgood 
 
Volume IV.~\ March, 1889. [Number /. 
 
 POLITICAL SCIENCE 
 QUARTERLY. 
 
 SCIENTIFIC ANARCHISM. 
 
 IN ANARCHISM we have the extreme antithesis of social- 
 ism and communism. The socialist desires so to extend the 
 sphere of the state that it shall embrace all the more important 
 concerns of life. The communist, at least of the older school, 
 would make the sway of authority and the routine which follows 
 therefrom universal. The anarchist, on the other hand, would 
 banish all forms of authority and have only a system of the 
 most perfect liberty. The anarchist is an extreme individualist. 
 Using the words of the famous revolutionary formula, he would 
 secure equality through liberty, while the socialist would secure 
 it through fraternity. The anarchist holds that the revolt 
 against authority, which began in the field of religion with the 
 Protestant reformation, and which was extended into the realm 
 of politics by the revolutionary movement of the last century, 
 will end, when carried to its logical and necessary issue, in the 
 abolition of all government, divine and human. He subscribes 
 to the doctrine contained in the opening sentences of the Dec- 
 laration of Independence. He also claims that men who, like 
 Jefferson 1 and Herbert Spencer, express great jealousy of state 
 control, would, if they were logical and true to their principles, 
 become anarchists and advocate the complete emancipation of 
 society. 
 
 1 "The Declaration of Independence contains numerous internal evidences to 
 show that, were Thomas Jefferson living to-day, he would be a pronounced anarch- 
 ist." Liberty (the organ of the Boston anarchists), vol. ii, no. 5. "The anarchists 
 are simply unterrified Jeffersonian Democrats." Article by Benj. R. Tucker, in 
 Liberty, vol. v, no. 16. 
 
2 
 
 POLITICAL SCIENCE QUARTERLY. [Vol. IV. 
 
 I. Proudhon. 
 
 Anarchism, as a social theory, was first elaborately formulated 
 by Prouclhon. In the first part of his work, What is Property? 1 
 he briefly stated the doctrine and gave it the name anarchy, 
 absence of a master or sovereign. In that connection he said : 
 
 In a given society the authority of man over man is inversely propor- 
 tional to the stage of intellectual development which that society has 
 reached. . . . Property and royalty have been crumbling to pieces 
 ever since the world began. As man seeks justice in equality, so society 
 seeks order in anarchy. 
 
 About twelve years before Proudhon published his views, 
 Josiah Warren 2 reached similar conclusions in America. But 
 as the Frenchman possessed the originality necessary to the 
 construction of a social philosophy, we must regard him as 
 altogether the chief authority upon scientific anarchism. 3 
 
 Proudhon, in his destructive criticism of existing institutions, 
 made constant use of the logical formula of Hegel : thesis, antith- 
 esis, and synthesis. Negation he called his first principle, as 
 that of God is in religion and thought in the system of Des- 
 cartes. 4 He denied the truth of every dogma and showed the 
 contradiction or "antinomy " 5 existing in every human institution. 
 
 1 See Tucker's translation, pp. 271-288. 
 
 2 For an account of this man, see Ely's Labor Movement in America, p. 238. 
 Also Warren's books : True Civilization an Immediate Necessity, and Practical Details 
 of Equitable Commerce. His views are best stated in Stephen Pearl Andrews' True 
 Constitution of Government, New York, 1852. 
 
 3 So far as I know, all scientific writers who have discussed Proudhon have placed 
 him among the socialists. But at the same time they have either expressly or tacitly 
 protested against the classification. It has always been admitted that he stands apart 
 from the other revolutionary leaders. In the light of the development of anarchism 
 during the last ten years, his position seems to be clearly defined. Amid all the 
 inconsistencies and contradictions which may be found in his works, his central 
 thought is clear. His contemporaries did not understand him because they had not 
 conceived of anarchism. 
 
 1 < Euvres completes, tome 6, p. 144. 
 
 6 In his Systeme des Contradictions economiques, tome I, p. 67, Proudhon explains 
 antinomy to mean a law with a double face or with two tendencies, like the cen- 
 tripetal and centrifugal forces into which attraction may be analyzed. These oppo- 
 site tendencies do not destroy one another, but if kept in equilibrium "are the pro- 
 creative cause of motion, life, and progress." 
 
No. i.] 
 
 SCIENTIFIC ANARCHISM. 
 
 3 
 
 Like all a priori reasoners, however, he was forced to start with 
 a dogma, and this was that justice and certain rights — emphat- 
 ically those of liberty and equality — are natural, exist prior to 
 law, and furnish the criteria for judging all legal and social sys- 
 tems. He defined justice to be "the recognition of the equality 
 between another's personality and our own." 1 This, it will be 
 seen, is the golden rule put into philosophical language. Prou- 
 dhon, in fact, declares at the outset 2 that he accepts that decla- 
 ration of Christ as the correct rule of conduct ; but he aims to 
 make it more precise and positive by expounding the idea of 
 justice which it contains. Every one should claim from others 
 the full recognition of the manhood in him, stripped of all its 
 accessories, and should yield the same recognition in return. If 
 with this were combined the humanitarian spirit, which Prou- 
 dhon called cquite, or social proportionality, a perfect form of 
 society would be the result. 3 Equality and liberty would be 
 harmonized, and both would be developed to the highest possi- 
 ble degree. Society, justice, and equality would then be three 
 equivalent terms. All unequal, and therefore unnatural, con- 
 ditions would disappear. Force would no longer be resorted 
 to. Everything would be regulated by reason and persuasion. 
 Thought, knowledge, virtue would hold undisputed sway. 
 
 Furnished with this ideal conception of society, which he had 
 deductively attained, Proudhon attacked and in his own opinion 
 demolished every institution which he found in society about 
 him. In his Systhne des contradictions economiqucs he went 
 through the entire series of economic phenomena, — value, 
 division of labor, the use of machines, competition, credit, prop- 
 erty, international trade, taxation, population, — showing first 
 their beneficent effects and how they meet the needs of a pro- 
 gressive society, and then by way of antithesis their evil effects, 
 their fatal tendency toward the development of inequality. 
 Like the socialists, he borrows from Adam Smith the doctrine 
 that labor is the true measure of value. The utilities which it 
 
 1 What is Property? trans, p. 231. Proudhon repeated this definition and ex- 
 pounded it at length in a six-volume work entitled La Justice dans la Revolution. 
 
 2 What is Property? trans, p. 26. 3 What is Property? trans, p. 242. 
 
4 
 
 POLITICAL SCIENCE QUARTERLY. [Vol. IV. 
 
 produces should always exchange in proportion to their cost. 
 In other words, cost should be the limit of price. But value in 
 exchange, arising from demand, is "antinomical" to value in 
 use, which arises from labor and utility. The two tend in dif- 
 ferent directions and become divorced. We have therefore 
 this result : that the more utilities are multiplied, the less 
 becomes their value. In the natural or perfect society, where 
 exchange-value and utility are held in proper equilibrium, this 
 would not be true, but the value of any product would be the 
 formula, or monetary statement, which would express the pro- 
 portion which the product bore to the sum of social wealth. 1 
 Then the producer of a utility would receive its full value in 
 exchange. The laborer would reap the full benefit of improve- 
 ments in the methods of production, or, as Proudhon expressed 
 it, "all labor would leave a surplus." 
 
 The way in which Proudhon deals with other and less obscure 
 economic phenomena will be readily seen. For example : he 
 declares that the division of labor is a prime condition of social 
 progress. Without it, labor would be sterile, and neither wealth 
 nor equality could exist. But the principle, when followed out 
 to its natural consequences, becomes a most prolific source of 
 misery. The realization of justice in the economic sphere, 
 which is "to give equal wealth to each on condition of equal 
 labor," 2 is prevented. Hours of labor are increased ; the con- 
 ditions under which the work is done grow worse ; and the 
 laborer suffers mentally, morally and physically. He tends 
 downward to the condition of a serf, while his master, the 
 owner of the factory, becomes a moneyed aristocrat. The gulf 
 between the two grows ever wider, and association, education 
 or other schemes of improvement popular with economists can- 
 not bridge it. It would seem that the introduction of machines 
 might check the growing inequality, because through them the 
 forces of nature are made servants of man. They both increase 
 and cheapen production. They diminish the amount of human 
 labor necessary to accomplish a given result. The world can- 
 
 1 Systeme des Contradictions economiques, tome I, p. 82. 
 
 2 What is Property? trans, p. 234. 
 
No. i.] 
 
 SCIENTIFIC ANARCHISM. 
 
 5 
 
 not do without them. But they are gradually eliminating the 
 laborer, reducing his wages, making useless the trade which he 
 had learned and upon which he depended, causing over-produc- 
 tion, deterioration of products, disease and death. 
 
 Proudhon summed up his views on competition in these 
 words: " Competition destroys competition." 1 By this he 
 meant that, though indestructible in its principle, competition 
 in its present form should be abolished. In fact, he believed 
 that it was slowly preparing the conditions necessary to its own 
 destruction. Monopoly and credit he treated in essentially the 
 same way, and so the remaining economic categories, till in the 
 problem of population as stated by Malthus he found the cul- 
 mination • of human misery. The conclusion which he reached 
 was that we are living in a condition of anarchy ; meaning by 
 that not absence of government, but the other signification of 
 the word, viz. : disorder, confusion. 
 
 We need not follow Proudhon further in the application of 
 his logical method to social facts. He claimed that by his bril- 
 liant dialectics he had reduced them all to absurdities, fraught 
 however with infinite harm. For the present purpose it is 
 more important to note what he considered to be the source of 
 the antinomy, the cause of inequality and hence of misery and 
 decay. Like the socialists, he found this root of bitterness not 
 in man himself, not in the individual, but in society. Some- 
 thing was wrong in the form of social organization ; some evil 
 institution had been allowed to develop which by its influence 
 had thrown the whole system into disorder. If this could be 
 swept away, order would be restored, the diseased organism 
 would become healthy and perfect. The Satan in the social 
 philosophy of Proudhon was property : not property right limited 
 by social expediency and high moral considerations, but the jus 
 utendi et abutendi of the Roman law, the absolutely unlimited 
 right of private property. But he did not stop there. Property, 
 said he, is not a natural right, but is guaranteed and upheld by 
 the state. Property and the state are correlative terms. The 
 two institutions are reciprocally dependent and must co-exist. 
 
 1 Systeme des Contradictions 6conomiques, tome i, pp. 179 et seq. 
 
6 
 
 POLITICAL SCIENCE QUARTERLY. [Vol. IV. 
 
 The chief function of the state is that of police, the object of 
 which is to secure to individuals the enjoyment of their posses- 
 sions and of the privileges connected therewith. In the thought 
 of Proudhon, the essence of property was not the thing possessed 
 nor the act of possession, but the privileges, the power, the 
 possibility of gain, of obtaining rent, profit or interest which 
 accompanied it. To him private property in the exclusive 
 Roman sense was the very embodiment of inequality, and so 
 the efficient cause of all social evils. He sought to sum up in 
 the paradox, "property is robbery" the problem of human woe. 
 The laborer, the result of whose work is embodied in material 
 form, is the only producer. The proprietor, whether he be land- 
 lord or capitalist, is an unproductive laborer. He is a parasite 
 because he does nothing but consume. He receives without 
 rendering an equivalent. But since he owns the means of pro- 
 duction, he can appropriate a share of the laborer's products. 
 Because of the inequality thus developed, the tribute exacted 
 constantly increases. The laborer falls in debt and becomes 
 more and more dependent on his employer. 1 The tenant pays 
 for his land or house many times over, but never becomes its 
 owner. The commodities produced by the workman make his 
 employer rich. The interest paid by the borrower exceeds the 
 capital, but the debt is never paid. The proprietor virtually 
 exercises the rights which of old belonged to a seignior over 
 his vassal or to a master over his slave. The state, which is 
 organized force, legalizes rent, profit, interest, and protects 
 property owners while they plunder the rest of society. Hence 
 arises the poverty to which the masses of men are condemned, 
 and poverty is the mother of every form of crime. Society 
 thus appears amid terrible agony to be ever consuming itself. 
 
 These thoughts and more of a similar nature Proudhon 
 poured forth in volume after volume during the years immedi- 
 ately before and after the revolution of 1848. He lived amid 
 the ideas, the enthusiasm for liberty and equality, from which 
 that movement sprang. So vividly did he see and feel the 
 
 1 See the monograph entitled Banque d'Echange, in OEuvres completes, tome 6, 
 pp. 1 50 et seq. 
 
N ? . i.] 
 
 SCIENTIFIC ANARCHISM. 
 
 7 
 
 tragedy of human existence that he regarded revolution as 
 the only conserving force. He considered it inevitable, immi- 
 nent : no force could check its progress. It rested with society 
 only to determine whether it should be gradual and peaceful, 
 or violent. 1 He taught the theory of revolution as a permanent 
 factor in social life. Reaction, he said, could only quicken the 
 onward movement. The revolution must continue till right was 
 done, till justice was established. 
 
 According to Proudhon the great uprising of 1789 was not 
 a revolution, but only an important step of progress. 2 It was 
 an attempt to establish justice; but it failed, because it only 
 substituted one form of government for another. Had it abol- 
 ished government and instituted the rule of reason, it would 
 have been a genuine revolution. As it was, however, the work 
 of revolution was only half done. Parliamentary government, 
 democracy, the rule of the bourgeoisie took the place of the old 
 absolutism. The reign of force was not brought to an end, 
 but rather entered upon a new phase. Militarism continued, 
 though under a slightly different form. Now the contest is 
 waged for the control of the markets of the world rather than 
 for political supremacy. England has led the way in this strug- 
 gle by the development of manufacturing and the overthrow of 
 her protective system. 3 But monopoly supported by force is 
 as triumphant as ever. The corrupting influence of wealth is 
 seen in all departments of political life. Hence the work of 
 Augast 4 must be taken up where the Constituent Assembly 
 left it and carried on to completion. 
 
 To Proudhon, the revolution of 1848 was the proclamation 
 of a new era. It meant the substitution of an economic and 
 social regime for one of a governmental, feudal and military 
 character. 4 By this he meant not a system in which any 
 
 1 Systeme generale de la Revolution, p. 9. 2 What is Property ? trans, p. 32. 
 
 3 See chapter on Balance of Trade, in Systeme des Contradictions economiques, 
 tome 2. 
 
 4 Idee generale de la Revolution, pp. 177 ei se q. This idea was also enforced by 
 Proudhon in his speech delivered before the National Assembly, July 31, 1848, in 
 reply to criticisms of the committee of finance on his report in favor of gratuity of 
 credit. CEuvres completes, tome 7, pp. 263-313, 
 
8 
 
 POLITICAL SCIENCE QUARTERLY. 
 
 [Vol. IV. 
 
 economic class should become dominant, its rule being based 
 upon political power, but, as he expressed it, an organization of 
 economic forces based upon contract and operating according 
 to the principle of reciprocity. This means the entire abolition 
 of the state and the transfer of the control of social interests 
 to individuals, acting either singly or in voluntary association. 
 Such is the programme of the anarchists. It will be interesting 
 to examine a little more closely the course of thought which 
 led Proudhon to adopt it. 
 
 Like all social reformers, he was led to the study and criticism 
 of society by the sight of human misery. In the early pages 
 of What is Property ? 1 he says that perhaps he would have 
 accepted property as a fact without inquiring into its origin, 
 had all his fellow citizens been in comfortable circumstances. 
 As they were not, he would challenge this chief of social insti- 
 tutions and put it upon its defence. The result of his examina- 
 tion has already been stated. But property and the state he 
 found to be inextricably bound up together. The state, prop- 
 erty, inequality, misery, became to him synonymous terms. It 
 made no difference what the form of the government might be ; 
 its essential nature remained always the same. History shows 
 that nations are revolving in a fatal circle of imperial despotism, 
 constitutionalism, democracy, and from this by political means 
 they can never escape. 2 
 
 Experience finally proves [he says] that everywhere and always 
 government, however popular it may be in its origin, has taken sides 
 with the richer and more intelligent class against the poorer and more 
 numerous ; that, after having for a time shown itself liberal, it has little 
 by little become exclusive and partial ; finally, that, instead of main- 
 taining liberty and equality among all, it has, because of its natural 
 inclination toward privilege, labored obstinately to destroy them. 
 
 1 Translation, p. 53. In La Justice dans la Revolution, tome, 4, p. 291, Proudhon 
 spoke in most pathetic terms of the feeling of inferiority which oppressed him be- 
 cause of his inherited poverty. He felt powerless to raise himself to a position 
 among the learned and happy. He therefore resolved to search for the origin of 
 inequality. He found that the economists affirmed the natural origin and necessity 
 of inequality, while the revolution said that equality was the law of all nature. 
 
 2 For Proudhon's political philosophy see Idee generate de la Revolution, pp. in 
 et seq. Also Du Principe Federatif, CEuvres completes, tome 8. 
 
No. i.] 
 
 SCIENTIFIC ANARCHISM. 
 
 9 
 
 According to Proudhon, contract is the only bond which 
 can unite individuals into a society. But Rousseau's theory of 
 contract he rejects, and in the most admirable manner reduces 
 to an absurdity. He says that the idea of contract excludes 
 that of government. It imposes upon the contracting parties 
 no obligation but that which results from their personal promise ; 
 it is not subject ta any external authority; it alone constitutes 
 the common law of the parties ; it awaits execution only from 
 their initiative. 1 It should embrace all citizens, with their 
 interests and relations. If one man or one interest is left out, 
 it is no longer social. The welfare and liberty of each citizen 
 should be increased by the contracts ; otherwise it is a fraud, 
 and should be overthrown. It should be freely debated, in- 
 dividually assented to, and signed, nomine proprio, by all those 
 who participate in it. Otherwise it is systematic spoliation. 
 "All laws which I have not accepted I reject as an imposition 
 on my free will." 2 The true social contract has nothing in 
 common with the surrender of liberty or submission to a burden- 
 some solidarity. The premise from which Rousseau starts, viz. 
 that the people is a collective entity having a moral personality 
 distinct from that of the individual, is false. The conclusions 
 drawn from it, viz. the alienation of liberty for the sake of all, 
 a government external to society, division of powers, etc., are 
 equally false. Rousseau has in his theory misrepresented 
 social facts and neglected the true and essential elements of 
 contract itself. His theory is li^e a commercial agreement with 
 the names of the parties suppressed, the values of the products 
 and services, the conditions of quality, delivery, price, etc., in 
 short all essential things omitted, and with only the penalties 
 and jurisdictions given. In other words, the theory is absurd. 3 
 
 1 Idee generale de la Revolution, p. 117. 
 
 2 Idee generale de la Revolution, p. 138. In Du Principe Federatif, p. 53 n., 
 Proudhon defines a law to be " a statute arrived at as the result of arbitration between 
 human wills." 
 
 3 In connection with the history of political theories it is interesting to note what 
 the anarchists have to say about the doctrine upon which the American Revolution 
 was fought, and its conformity with actual political facts. Lysander Spooner, in his 
 Letter to Grover Cleveland, says : " It was once said in this country that taxation 
 without consent is robbery. But if that principle were a true one in behalf of three 
 
IO 
 
 POLITICAL SCIENCE QUARTERLY. 
 
 [Vol. IV. 
 
 Equally without reason in their practical operations are the 
 constitutional systems of government, whether monarchical or 
 republican, which are based upon this theory. The election 
 is the pivot about which they revolve. Its fundamental idea is 
 decision by number or lot. In what respect is this principle 
 better or more just than generation, the basis of the family ; 
 than force, the basis of the patriarchate ; than faith, the central 
 dogma of the church ; than primogeniture, upon which aristoc- 
 racy rests ? Elections, votes never decided anything. Inferior 
 matters of little importance may be decided by arbitration ; but 
 important things, the organization of society, my subsistence, 
 I will never submit to an indirect solution. I emphatically 
 deny that the people in elections are able to recognize and 
 distinguish between the merits of rival candidates. But when 
 presidents and representatives are once chosen, they are my 
 masters. What do numbers prove ? What are they worth ? 
 You refer my interests, subsistence, etc., to a Congress. What 
 connection is there between the Congress and me ? What 
 guarantee have I that the law which the Congress makes and 
 hands to me on the point of the bayonet will promote my 
 interest ? 1 Furthermore, how can I, in such a situation, main- 
 tain my dignity as a sovereign and party to the social contract ? 
 The democratic theory is thus an attempt to harmonize two 
 
 millions of men, it is an equally true one in behalf of three men, or of one man. 
 
 Who are ever taxed without their consent? Individuals only. Who then are robbed, 
 if taxed without their consent? Individuals only. If taxation without consent is rob- 
 bery, the United States government has never had, has not now, and is never likely to 
 have an honest dollar in its treasury." As soon as taxes are paid, he says further, 
 all natural rights are lost. The individual cannot maintain them against the police 
 and armies which the government will procure with the money. 
 
 1 For another brilliant specimen of the destructive criticism which the anarchist 
 applies to representative government see Prince Krapotkine's chapter on that subject 
 in his Paroles d'un Revolte, Paris, 1885. One could not wish to see the demos 
 krateo principle more completely demolished than it is here. The superficiality 
 and crudity of the notion that great public questions can be properly decided by 
 elections ; the petty self-seeking of politicians and party managers, to say nothing of 
 their positive corruption ; the disturbing influence of parliamentary tactics ; the 
 enormous disparity between the knowledge and strength of the legislator and the 
 number and magnitude of the public questions with which he has to deal, are 
 admirably stated and illustrated. The files of any daily newspaper will substantiate 
 it all. 
 
No. i.] 
 
 SCIENTIFIC ANARCHISM. 
 
 wholly inconsistent principles, those of authority and of con- 
 tract. The origin of authority is in the family. The necessity 
 for the maintenance of order, for the establishment of an arti- 
 ficial, and therefore of an impossible, harmony between indi- 
 vidual and common interests, is the only argument in its favor. 
 This means that government is based upon force, is in its 
 nature and operation wholly arbitrary. The belief that the 
 people, either collectively or individually, consent to its acts, 
 or that the will of the people can be ascertained, directly by 
 the plebiscite or indirectly through so-called public opinion, is a 
 superstition. It is one of the fictions with which the law and 
 politics abound. But, Proudhon would say, if it were really 
 possible that the majority should rule and carry its desires into 
 effect, its government would be as tyrannical as that of a single 
 despot, for it would impose upon the citizen the will of another, 
 it would violate the true principle of contract. 
 
 Returning then to the point whence we started, it appears 
 that Proudhon's social ideal was that of perfect individual liberty. 
 Those who have thought him a communist or socialist have 
 wholly mistaken his meaning. To be sure there is an expres- 
 sion here and there in his works which savors of communism, 1 
 but when more closely examined it will be found to be in 
 harmony with the general trend of his thought. No better 
 argument against communism can be found than is contained 
 in the chapter on that subject in the Systeme des Contradictions 
 economiques. In What is Property? he speaks of communism 
 as follows : 
 
 The disadvantages of communism are so obvious that the critics 
 never have needed to employ much eloquence to thoroughly disgust 
 
 1 See, for example, What is Property? trans, p. 244, where he says that "ine- 
 quality of wages cannot be admitted by law on the ground of inequality of talents." 
 But on p. 132 of the same treatise he explains his meaning as follows : "Give me a 
 society in which every kind of talent bears a proper numerical relation to the needs 
 of the society, and which demands from each producer only that which his special 
 function requires him to produce, and, without impairing in the least the hierarchy 
 of functions, I will deduce the equality of fortunes." This means that utilities must 
 be brought into such perfect proportionality that there will be just as many Flatos 
 and Newtons as are needed and no more. The same shall be true of all other pro- 
 ducers down to the lowest grade. 
 
12 
 
 POLITICAL SCIENCE QUARTERLY. 
 
 [Vol. IV. 
 
 men with it. The irreparability of the injustice which it causes, the 
 violence which it does to attractions and repulsions, the yoke of iron 
 which it fastens upon the will, the moral torture to which it subjects the 
 conscience, the debilitating effect which it has upon society, and, to 
 sum it all up, the pious and stupid uniformity which it enforces upon 
 the free, active, reasoning, unsubmissive personality of man, have 
 shocked common sense, and condemned communism by an irrevocable 
 decree. 1 
 
 This passage, together with his famous sayings : " Commun- 
 ism is inequality " ; " Communism is oppression and slavery " ; 
 " Property is the exploitation of the weak by the strong, com- 
 munism is the exploitation of the strong by the weak," furnish 
 sufficient documentary evidence upon the question. Proudhon 
 regarded the rise of socialistic and communistic opinions as an 
 added sign that the times were out of joint. Writers of that 
 school make a diagnosis of the social disease very similar to 
 his own, but when it comes to the application of the remedy 
 Proudhon differs from them in most essential particulars. 
 
 Proudhon believed that if the state in all its departments 
 were abolished, if authority were eradicated from society, and 
 if the principle of laissez faire were made universal in its 
 operation, every form of social ill would disappear. According 
 to his view men are wicked and ignorant because, either 
 directly or indirectly, they have been forced to be so : it is 
 because they have been subjected to the will of another, or are 
 able to transfer the evil results of their acts to another. If 
 the individual, after reaching the age of discretion, could be 
 freed from repression and compulsion in every form, and know 
 that he alone is responsible for his acts and must bear their 
 consequences, he would become thrifty, prudent, energetic ; in 
 short he would always see and follow his highest interests. 
 He would always respect the rights of others ; that is, act 
 justly. Such individuals could carry on all the great industrial 
 enterprises of to-day either separately or by voluntary associa- 
 tion. No compulsion, however, could be used to force one to 
 fulfil a contract or remain in an association longer than his 
 
 1 What is Property? trans, p. 259. 
 
No. i.] 
 
 SCIENTIFIC ANARCHISM. 
 
 13 
 
 interest dictated. Thus we should have a perfectly free play 
 of enlightened self-interests : equitable competition, the only 
 natural form of social organization. The dream which had 
 floated before the mind of the economist of the Manchester 
 school would be realized. 
 
 Among the different forms of monopoly which afflict society 
 at present, Proudhon considered the money monopoly to be 
 fraught with the greatest evil. 1 By this he meant, in the first 
 place, the selection of two commodities, gold and silver, from 
 among all the rest, to be the standard of value and the inter- 
 mediaries in all exchanges. This gave them sovereign power, 
 established as it were the monarchical regime among com- 
 modities ; for he who possesses money, the universal repre- 
 sentative of value, can command wealth in all its forms. To 
 metallic money, in course of time, the idea and forms of credit 
 were added. This greatly facilitated exchange and made more 
 convenient the form of the circulating medium. But the issue 
 of paper, as well as of metal money, was made a monopoly, 
 in the hands either of the government, or of bankers designated 
 by the government. In all the more important business opera- 
 tions paper has taken the place of metal, and property may 
 now almost be said to exist in the form of credit documents. 
 Those who issue and deal in these virtually control the rate 
 of interest and, through that, rent and prices. Proudhon con- 
 demned usury as strongly as did Aristotle or the mediaeval 
 theologians. To him it was the^-direct result of monopoly, and 
 the taking of it, theft. Its percentage indicated the rapidity 
 with which the borrower was being expropriated. According 
 to his view, if usury or interest could be abolished, monopoly 
 in every other form would fall with it. Rent and profits, con- 
 sidered as the return which the proprietor can exact by virtue 
 of his position as monopolist of land and of the instruments of 
 production, would disappear, and wages or reward for actual 
 service would alone remain. In one of his brochures? written 
 
 1 Proudhon's theory of money and credit may be found in the sixth volume of his 
 Complete Works, and in the second volume of his Economic Contradictions. 
 
 2 Organization du Credit et de la Circulation, CEuvres completes, tome 6, pp. 
 89-131. 
 
14 POLITICAL SCIENCE QUARTERLY. [Vol. IV. 
 
 during the excitement of the revolution of 1848, Proudhon 
 recommended that the state should take the initiative and, first, 
 reduce incomes by a progressive scale, increasing the percent- 
 age of reduction with the size of the income. Then prices 
 should be lowered to an equivalent degree. This should be 
 followed by a corresponding reduction of taxation. By these 
 measures the industrial equilibrium would be maintained, 
 hoarded capital would be brought out, and general prosperity 
 would ensue. He thought, however, that in order to help the 
 peasantry and prevent their migrating to the cities this policy 
 should not be applied to agriculture. Proudhon did not attempt 
 to justify such wholesale confiscation of incomes by the state, 
 but said that it was necessary to resort to it preparatory to the 
 organization of credit. 
 
 This suggests the most important feature of Proudhon's 
 scheme of social reform. His idea was that in the perfect 
 social state services should exchange for services, products for 
 products. To this end money must be abolished; for so long 
 as products and services are exchanged for it, discount, interest, 
 and other forms of tribute to monopoly must be paid. As a sub- 
 stitute for money he would " generalize the bill of exchange." 
 
 Now the whole problem of circulation consists in generalizing the 
 bill of exchange ; that is to say, in making of it an anonymous title, ex- 
 changeable forever, and redeemable at sight, but only in merchandise 
 and services. 1 
 
 In other words, using the language now current in the money 
 market, he would base bank paper upon products. By means 
 of the bill of exchange he would mobilize all products, make all 
 as readily exchangeable as money is now. It was this which 
 Proudhon in company with Coignet tried to do in Paris by 
 means of their banque d ' ecJiange or banque du peuple, established 
 there in 1848. 2 Its operations however were soon brought to 
 
 1 CEuvres completes, tome 6, pp. 114 et seq. 
 
 2 The theory was first stated by one Fulerand-Mozel in 181 8. He founded such an 
 institution at Paris in 1829, and another at Marseilles in 1832. In 1848, John Gray, 
 a Scotchman, tried to carry the same theory into practice in Edinburgh, and published 
 a book upon it, entitled Lectures on the Nature and Use of Money, Edinburgh, 1848. 
 
 See Courcelle-Seneuil, Traite des Operations de Banque, pp. 41 1 et seq. Also, by 
 the same author, Liberte et Socialisme, pp. \oo et seq. 
 
No. i.] 
 
 SCIENTIFIC ANARCHISM. 
 
 an end by the exile of its founder. Let us see what results 
 Proudhon hoped would follow from his plan, if it could have 
 been carried into successful execution. 
 
 "In obedience to the summons of the government, and by 
 simple authentic declaration," as many producers from every 
 department of industry as could be induced to do so, should 
 unite, draw up articles of agreement and promise to abide by 
 them. They would in this way organize the bank. Every sub- 
 scriber should keep an open account at the institution and bind 
 himself to receive its notes at par in all payments whatsoever. 
 The bank would thus do the ordinary business of deposit and 
 issue. " Provisionally and by way of transition, gold and silver 
 coin will be received in exchange for the paper of the bank, and 
 at their nominal value." But as the new institution should 
 grow in popular favor and become universal, gold and silver 
 would go out of use as the exclusive bases of currency. They 
 would be estimated solely as commodities. 
 
 What reason had Proudhon for believing that his bank, if 
 put into open competition with moneyed institutions as they 
 now exist, unsupported by the state, would out-compete them 
 all, force them to close or to change their method of doing busi- 
 ness and, finally, entirely reorganize society ? It was this : the 
 bank would charge no interest or discount on loans and would 
 pay none on deposits. Nothing whatever would be taken or 
 received for the use of capital. The only charge made by the 
 bank would be enough to pay^its running or office expenses. 
 These would never amount to more than one per cent and 
 probably could be reduced as low as one-half of one per cent. 
 "Services should exchange for services, products for products." 
 Reciprocity is the principle at the basis of the plan. The fact 
 that no interest was charged would attract borrowers from the 
 other banks and thereby force capitalists to place their funds 
 with the new bank. 
 
 But this plan may be viewed from another standpoint, which 
 will give it a familiar look to those who are acquainted with the 
 most advanced socialistic schemes. If producers living at differ- 
 ent places could know at the same time their mutual needs, 
 
i6 
 
 POLITICAL SCIENCE QUARTERLY. 
 
 [Vol. IV. 
 
 they could exchange their products without the use of money. 
 The bank could furnish that knowledge and so bring producers 
 and consumers together. What it could do for one community, 
 a network of banks could do for a nation or for the civilized 
 world. This could be effected without the interposition of a 
 government. The bank need not even own warehouses or 
 magazines for the storing of commodities. The producer could, 
 while keeping possession of his product, consign it to the bank 
 by means of a bill of lading, bill of exchange, etc. He would 
 receive in return notes of the bank equal to the value of his 
 consignment, minus a proportional share of the cost of running 
 the establishment. With these he could purchase of other pro- 
 ducers, made known to him if necessary by the bank, such com- 
 modities as he desired. Meantime the bank would find for him 
 and all others who had dealings with it purchasers of their 
 goods. Thus supply would be adapted to demand ; over-pro- 
 duction and crises would be prevented. Every one would be 
 assured of a market for whatever product or obligation he might 
 possess, through the general intermediary, the bank. The bank 
 would deal in credit documents, notes, mortgages, etc., if prop- 
 erly indorsed and secured. 
 
 It will be seen at once that, if this form of exchange should 
 become universal, rent, profits, interest, every form of proprie- 
 tary and capitalistic expropriation would disappear. The bank, 
 if it ever became strong enough, would fix the reward for the 
 use of property of all kinds and for effecting exchanges. The 
 former would be nil, and the latter, as we have seen, would be 
 less than one per cent. For example, Proudhon argued, 1 while 
 the process of transition was going on, capital would flow toward 
 city lots and buildings and reduce their rents till the conditions 
 prevailing in " laborers' cities " should become approximately 
 universal. Rents would only yield enough to make good the 
 capital spent in building, repairs and taxes. Finally, the com- 
 mune could decree the abolition of rent by providing that after 
 a certain time all payments should be carried to the account of 
 the property, which itself should be valued at twenty-five times 
 
 1 CEuvres completes, tome io, p. 203. 
 
No. i.] 
 
 SCIENTIFIC ANARCHISM. 
 
 17 
 
 the yearly rent. When the payments had been made in full, 
 the commune could give to the occupiers a title to perpetual 
 domicile, provided they kept the property in as good condition 
 as it was when the grant was made. Proprietors need not be 
 disturbed in the occupancy of their own estates till they pleased. 
 All changes, after the first mentioned above, must be made by 
 contract between -citizens, and the execution of the contracts 
 should be intrusted to the commune. In this way Proudhon 
 would ultimately extend the capitalization of rent through the 
 agricultural districts of the nation and everywhere transform 
 proprietorship into possession. He claimed that the saving of 
 wealth made possible by the abolition of interest would be so 
 great, and the stimulus thereby given to production so strong, 
 that all public and private debts could be quickly paid off, taxa- 
 tion reduced and finally abolished. The expense of administer- 
 ing government would be correspondingly lessened. But with 
 the permanent and abounding prosperity which would be felt 
 by all classes in the nation, poverty, the cause of crime, would 
 gradually disappear. Courts and police administration would 
 then be no longer necessary. Finally, as the new system ex- 
 tended among the nations, their internal well-being would so 
 increase that wars would be no longer necessary. Hence the 
 army and the navy could be dispensed with and diplomacy would 
 become a lost art. By this process of development the depart- 
 ments of finance, of justice, of police, and of foreign affairs would 
 disappear. There would be no ^rnore use for them. The state 
 itself then would be thrown aside like an old and worn-out gar- 
 ment, and society would enter upon a new period of existence, 
 the period of liberty and of perfect justice. This is what Prou- 
 dhon thought could be accomplished through the organization of 
 credit. Then the perfect individual described above would need 
 only freedom and the equality of conditions insured by freedom 
 to reach the highest development of all his powers. Such is 
 the anarchistic ideal. Proudhon has repeatedly set it forth. I 
 quote one of the passages : 
 
 Capitalistic and proprietary exploitation everywhere stopped, the giving 
 and receiving of wages in its present form abolished, exchange equal and 
 
iS 
 
 POLITICAL SCIENCE QUARTERLY [Vol. IV. 
 
 really guaranteed, value constituted, a market assured, the principle of 
 protection changed, the markets of the globe opened to the producers 
 of all countries j consequently the barriers broken down, old international 
 law replaced by commercial conventions, police, justice, administration 
 put everywhere into the hands of those engaged in industry ; economic 
 organization taking the place of the governmental and military regime in 
 the colonies as well as the mother countries ; finally the free and uni- 
 versal commingling of races under the sole law of contract ; that is the 
 revolution. 1 
 
 II. The Individualistic Anarcliists. 
 
 Proudhon's theory is the sum and substance of scientific 
 anarchism. How closely have the American anarchists adhered 
 to the teachings of their master ? 
 
 One group, with its centre at Boston and with branch asso- 
 ciations in a few other cities, is composed of faithful disciples of 
 Proudhon. They believe that he is the leading thinker among 
 those who have found the source of evil in society and the 
 remedy therefor. They accept his analysis of social phenomena 
 and follow his lead generally, though not implicitly. They call 
 themselves Individualistic Anarchists, and claim to be the only 
 class who are entitled to that name. They do not attempt to 
 organize very much, but rely upon "active individuals, working 
 here and there all over the country." 2 It is supposed that they 
 may number in all some five thousand adherents in the United 
 States. But they measure their strength by the tendency 
 towards greater liberty which exists in society. The progress 
 of liberty everywhere and in all departments of social life they 
 welcome as an added pledge of the future realization of their 
 ideal. So they would reckon the nominal adherents of anarch- 
 ism, the potential anarchists, by the hundreds of thousands. 
 Their views and plans are deductions from the theory of Prou- 
 dhon. They are a commentary on his works, an extension and 
 occasionally a clarifying of his thought. It will be necessary, 
 
 1 Idee generale de la Revolution, p. 297. In Justice dans la Revolution, tome 2, 
 pp. 99-134, may be found one of the best statements of Proudhon's views of the future 
 system of industrial and political federation, and of the method of transition to it. 
 
 2 Letter from Benj. R. Tucker, at present the leader of the Boston anarchists. 
 
No. I.] SCIENTIFIC ANARCHISM. jg 
 
 however, to explain more precisely the attitude of the anarchists 
 toward the political and social institutions of this country. 1 
 
 They, like Proudhon, consider the government of the United 
 States to be as oppressive and worthless as any of the European 
 monarchies. Liberty prevails here no more than there. In 
 some respects the system of majority rule is more obnoxious 
 than that of monarchy. It is quite as tyrannical, and in a 
 republic it is more difficult to reach the source of the despotism 
 and remove it. They regard the entire machinery of elections 
 as worthless and a hindrance to prosperity. They are opposed 
 to political machines of all kinds. They never vote or perform 
 the duties of citizens in any way, if it can be avoided. They 
 would not pay taxes, if there were any means of escaping it. 
 Judges are regarded by them as the hirelings of power, and 
 courts as centres of despotism. They regard the proceedings 
 of legislative assemblies as vain and worthy only of contempt. 
 They would destroy all statute books and judicial decisions. 
 Josiah Warren stated the principle 2 that, in the case of the 
 infliction of injury by one individual upon another, the govern- 
 ment might, with the consent of the injured person, interfere 
 and cause reparation to be made. But the penalty imposed 
 upon the offender should never exceed in amount the damage 
 which he had done. In accordance with this, the anarchists 
 contemplate for a time at least the maintenance of a mild 
 system of penal law, and with it trial by jury, though they do 
 not believe in compulsory jury service. As long as there are 
 individuals so imperfect that they insist upon infringing their 
 neighbor's rights, they must be restrained. 
 
 The anarchists have no words strong enough to express their 
 disgust at the scheming of the politician, the bidding for votes, 
 the studied misrepresentation of facts, the avoidance of serious 
 issues, and all the forms of corruption which stain our political 
 life. Our municipal governments furnish them unlimited mate- 
 
 1 The following statements are taken directly from the columns of Liberty, the 
 paper published by the Boston anarchists; from Lysander Spooner's Letter to Grover 
 Cleveland; William B. Greene's pamphlet on Mutual Banking ; Bakunine's God and 
 the State, and other books and documents recognized by the anarchists as authorita- 
 tive. 2 True Civilization, p. 12. 
 
20 
 
 POLITICAL SCIENCE QUARTERLY. [Vol. IV 
 
 rial for comment. They call attention to the immense labor 
 which it takes to keep the political machinery in motion, and 
 compare with it the little which is accomplished towards the 
 solution of the really important social problems. No good, only 
 evil, can be done by such methods. The influence of money 
 in politics, the wanton disregard of law by corporations and 
 the inability of our legislators and executives to restrain them, 
 the self-seeking which enters into all political contests and the 
 genera] lack of earnestness which characterizes them are to the 
 anarchist proofs that the state is decaying and will soon fall 
 to pieces at a touch. It is of no use, they say, to labor for any 
 of the plans of reform which are now agitating parties. The 
 state is too corrupt to be reformed : abolish it altogether. 1 
 
 Concerning the family relation, the anarchists believe that 
 civil marriage should be abolished and "autonomistic " marriage 
 substituted. This means that the contracting parties should 
 agree to live together as long as it seems best to do so, and 
 that the partnership should be dissolved whenever either one 
 desires it. Still, they would give the freest possible play to 
 love and honor as restraining motives. They claim that ulti- 
 mately, by this policy, the marriage relation would be purified 
 and made much more permanent than it is to-day. They are 
 " free lovers," but not in the sense of favoring promiscuity of 
 the sexes. They hope to idealize the marriage relation by 
 bringing it under the regime of perfect liberty. They would 
 not restrain those who wish to practise polygamy or any social 
 vice. 2 They view with abhorrence all efforts to prevent by 
 
 1 The anarchists believe that universal suffrage is a snare prepared to entrap the 
 unwary. As to the extension of suffrage to women, Lysander Spooner wrote : " They 
 have just as much right to make laws as men have, and no better; and that is just no 
 right at all." " Women want to put us all into the legislative mill and grind us over 
 again into some shape which will suit their taste. Better burn all existing statutes.'* 
 Liberty, vol. ii, no. 22. 
 
 2 Liberty, vol. i, no. 12: "Liberty therefore must defend the right of individuals 
 to make contracts involving usury, rum, marriage, prostitution, and many other things 
 which it believes to be wrong in principle and opposed to human well being." — 
 Some of the anarchists hold to the monogamic ideal ; others reject it, believing in what 
 they term " variety," which they distinguish from promiscuity in the sense that human 
 refinement is distinct from bestial recklessness. One of the most eloquent pleas for 
 the monogamic family ever made is Proudhon's Amour et Mariage. He was utterly 
 opposed to divorce. See (Euvres completes, tome 24. 
 
No. i.] 
 
 SCIENTIFIC ANARCHISM. 
 
 2 I 
 
 legislation and through the interference of the police the traffic 
 in obscene literature. This is not because they wish to uphold 
 vice : on the contrary, they desire the purification of society, 
 but believe that it can be brought about only by the abandon- 
 ment of every form of compulsion. Organize credit, let people 
 know that the individual must endure all the results of his con- 
 duct, and that he will be held responsible for the deeds of no 
 one else, and in process of time vice will disappear. The opera- 
 tion of self-interest will secure its abolition. In no sense do 
 the anarchists advocate community of wives. 1 They desire to 
 preserve the home and to keep the children in it, subject to 
 parental government, till they reach such a degree of maturity 
 that they can assume the responsibilities of life for themselves. 
 Family government should secure its ends by reason and love, 
 rather than by force. Should the parents separate, the young 
 children will go with the mother. While the children remain 
 in the family, there would of course be an opportunity for their 
 education ; but, after they leave parental control, that, like every- 
 thing else, would depend solely upon their own choice. Com- 
 pulsory education is inconsistent with the anarchistic system. 
 
 Proudhon, who wrote the eloquent prayer to the God of 
 liberty and equality which concludes the first part of What is 
 Property ? spurned the God of the bible as the chief antagonist 
 of man and foe of civilization. 2 The problem of human evil 
 drove him to this conclusion. He found a fatal antinomy be- 
 tween God and man. Man's nature involves constant progress 
 and development, while that of God is fixed and unchangeable. 
 Therefore as man advances, God retrogrades. Man was created 
 deformed rather than depraved, and a Providence, called all-wise 
 and beneficent, has therefore condemned him to eternal misery. 
 To Proudhon such a being possessed the worst qualities of man 
 intensified and expanded till they reached the scope of deity. 
 What the state is in politics and property in economics, God is 
 in religion, a source of inequality, oppression and woe. The 
 
 1 See Proudhon's bitter condemnation of this in his chapter on Communism and 
 Population, Contradictions economiques, tome 22, pp. 258 et seq. 
 
 2 See chapter on Providence in Contradictions economiques, tome 1, pp. 351 et seq. 
 
22 POLITICAL SCIENCE QUARTERLY, [Vol. IV. 
 
 idea of authority originates in the conception of God ; there- 
 fore, as Bakunine said : " If God existed, it would be necessary 
 to abolish him." 1 "Who denies his king, denies his God," 
 said Proudhon. Yet, though the anarchists believe that the 
 church is one of the bulwarks of the state and that its spirit is 
 essentially hierarchical, they uphold the doctrine of absolute 
 religious freedom. Those who choose to believe in religion and 
 to worship the Christian God, or any other divinity, should be 
 permitted to do so without molestation. But every form of 
 worship should be self-supporting. " Let the hearer pay the 
 priest." If religion is of any value, let it be shown in open 
 and free competition with all other forms of belief. 2 The 
 anarchists of to-day are wholly atheistic, and will probably 
 remain so, however much their number may be increased. 
 
 It thus appears that the anarchists have a programme which 
 is as simple as it is sweeping. To every social question they 
 answer laissez faire, laissez passer. Throw off all artificial 
 restraint. Leave men to themselves. Liberty is the great, 
 the only educator. Every question will solve itself by the 
 operation of natural laws. All that is needed is equality of 
 conditions. They are anti-monopolists pure and simple. Re- 
 ferring to the contest for the abolition of slavery, they compare 
 themselves to the abolitionists proper 3 and constitutional repub- 
 licans to the colonizationists. The latter are constantly apply- 
 ing palliatives ; there is but one remedy, and that is the destruc- 
 tion of inequality at the source. Therefore the anarchists who 
 are strictly logical, while they sympathize with all criticism 
 unfavorable to existing institutions as tending to weaken confi- 
 dence in the state, refuse to co-operate with any party of social 
 or political reformers. 4 They believe that there is no positive 
 power for good in association ; therefore co-operative schemes 
 
 1 God and the State, trans, p. 17. 
 
 2 Idee generate de la Revolution, p. 261. 
 
 3 Any standard history of the anti-slavery conflict, or the files of the Liberator, 
 will show the close connection between the doctrines of the Garrisonian wing of the 
 abolitionists after about 1840 and those of the anarchists. The appeals of the aboli- 
 tionists to " the higher law " were decidedly anarchistic 
 
 4 See discussion carried on in Liberty, vol. iv, 1886 and 1887, between Tucker 
 and Henry Appleton. 
 
No. i.] 
 
 SCIENTIFIC ANARCHISM. 
 
 have no attraction for them. Attempts to deal with men in 
 the mass, to educate them by united effort, do not awaken their 
 confidence. 
 
 I do not admit [says Tucker] anything except the existence of the 
 individual as the condition of his sovereignty. . . . Anarchy has no 
 side that is affirmative in the sense of constructive. Neither as anar- 
 chists nor as individual sovereigns have we any constructive work to do, 
 though as progressive beings we have plenty of it. 
 
 Again : 
 
 History shows that liberty results in more perfect men, and that 
 greater human perfection in turn makes increased liberty possible. It 
 is a process of growth through action and reaction, and it is impossible 
 to state which is antecedent and which consequent. But the action of 
 propagandism is more effective when brought to bear upon institutions 
 and conditions, than when aimed immediately at human nature. So we 
 do not preach the gospel of goodness, but teach the laws of social life. 
 
 It naturally follows, "from what has been said, that the anar- 
 chists who fully accept the doctrines of Proudhon believe that 
 a long process of evolution is necessary before their programme 
 can be put into successful operation. They are opposed to the 
 use of violence : 
 
 But one thing can justify its exercise on any large scale, viz. the 
 denial of free thought, free speech and a free press. Even then its 
 exercise would be unwise, unless repression were enforced so stringently 
 that all other means of throwing it off had become hopeless. Blood- 
 shed in itself is pure loss. When we must have freedom of agitation, 
 and when nothing but bloodshed will secure it, then bloodshed is wise. 
 But it must be remembered that it can never accomplish the social 
 revolution; that that can never be accomplished except by means of 
 agitation, investigation, experiment and passive resistance ; and that, 
 after all the bloodshed, we shall be exactly where we were before, except 
 in our possession of the power to use these means. . . . The day of 
 armed revolution is gone by. It is too easily put down. 1 
 
 Again : 
 
 What we mean by the abolition of the state is the abolition of a false 
 philosophy, or rather the overthrow of a gigantic fraud, under which 
 
 1 Liberty, vol. iv, no. 3, May 22, 1886, editorial suggested by the bomb-throwing 
 at Chicago. 
 
24 
 
 POLITICAL SCIENCE QUARTERLY. 
 
 [Vol. IV. 
 
 people consent to be coerced and restrained from minding their own 
 business. The philosophy of liberty can be applied everywhere ; and he 
 who successfully applies it in his family, in the place of avenging gods, 
 arbitrary codes, threats, commands and whips, may easily have the sat- 
 isfaction of abolishing at least one state. When we have substituted our 
 philosophy in place of the old, then the palaces, cathedrals and arsenals 
 will naturally fall to pieces through neglect and the rust that is seen to 
 corrupt tenantless and obsolete structures. 1 
 
 Or, stating the anarchistic programme a little more definitely, 
 it is expected that political corruption and capitalistic tyranny, 
 coupled with revolutionary agitation, will after a time so under- 
 mine respect for law and confidence in government that it will 
 be possible for a small but determined body of anarchists to 
 nullify law by passive resistance. When the experiment has 
 once been successfully tried, the masses of men, tired of the 
 old system, will accept the new as a welcome deliverance. 
 Then it will no longer be possible to enforce obedience to law. 
 People will meet in conventions, organize upon the principle of 
 voluntary associations, and choose their natural leaders. 2 These 
 leaders however can exercise no authority, but only use persua- 
 sion and advice coming from a wider practical experience. 
 Those who do not wish to follow, may go their own way. Each 
 individual can take possession of and use what property in land 
 and raw materials he needs, but he must not thereby infringe 
 the equivalent right of every other person. Property, thus, 
 must be so used as to contribute to the highest social weal. 
 Human nature will be so purified from gross selfishness that 
 it is believed that the system of private property can be pre- 
 served formally intact. All the functions of social life, now 
 classed as public and private, will be performed by individuals, 
 either singly or in voluntary association. The system of mutual 
 banking will be established, or, as the American anarchists 
 express it, each man will be allowed to issue his own notes, 
 based upon such property or security as he may command, and 
 make them circulate as far as he is able. 3 In banking, in carry- 
 
 1 Liberty, vol. i, no. 19. 
 
 2 See a description of this process in Liberty, vol. i, no. 5. 
 
 3 See Spooner's Letter to Grover Cleveland. 
 
No. i.] 
 
 SCIENTIFIC ANARCHISM. 
 
 25 
 
 ing of the mail, in railway and telegraph business, as in every- 
 thing else, the fittest institutions and companies will survive. 
 These results — the banishment of crime, the elimination of 
 poverty, prosperity so great and generally diffused that the 
 spectre which Malthus raised will never return to affright 
 society, perfect solidarity combined with perfect individuality, 
 the true harmony of interests, the reign of righteousness, the 
 golden age, the millennium — will be realized and made perma- 
 nent, not by multiplying the bonds which unite society, not by 
 increasing administrative machinery and strengthening the ten- 
 dencies toward centralization, as the socialists propose, but by 
 perfect decentralization, by destroying all political bonds and 
 leaving only the individual, animated and guided by intelligent 
 egoism. In a society thus regenerated the anarchists expect 
 that their system of agitation will culminate. 
 
 III. The Communistic Anarchists. 
 
 The Individualistic Anarchists accordingly profess to have 
 very little in common with the Internationalists. The latter are 
 Communistic Anarchists. They borrow their analysis of ex- 
 isting social conditions from Marx, or more accurately from the 
 " communistic manifesto" issued by Marx and Engels in 1847. 1 
 In the old International Workingman's association they con- 
 stituted the left wing, which, with its leader, Bakunine, was 
 expelled in 1872. Later the followers of Marx, the socialists 
 proper, disbanded, and since ^1883 the International in this 
 country has been controlled wholly by the anarchists. 2 Their 
 views and methods are similar to those which Bakunine wished 
 to carry out by means of his Universal Alliance, and which 
 exist more or less definitely in the minds of Russian Nihilists. 
 Like Bakunine, they desire to organize an international revolu- 
 tionary movement of the laboring classes, to maintain it by 
 means of conspiracy and, as soon as possible, to bring about a 
 
 1 In Freiheit the manifesto is constantly referred to as of the first importance. 
 
 2 See proceedings of Pittsburg Congress, 1883, and the manifesto there issued 
 in Freiheit, Oct. 22 and 27, 1883. Also Ely's Labor Movement in America, p. 228, 
 and appendix. 
 
26 
 
 POLITICAL SCIENCE QUARTERLY. [Vol. IV. 
 
 general insurrection. In this way, with the help of explosives, 
 poisons and murderous weapons of all kinds, they hope to de- 
 stroy all existing institutions, ecclesiastical, civil and economic. 
 Upon the smoking ruins they will erect the new and perfect 
 society. 1 Only a few weeks or months will be necessary to 
 make the transition. During that time the laborers will take 
 possession of all lands, buildings, instruments of production 
 and distribution. With these in their possession, and without 
 the interposition of government, they will organize into associa- 
 tions or groups for the purpose of carrying on the work of 
 society. To Krapotkine and the continental anarchists the 
 commune appears best suited to become the centre of organiza- 
 tion. The idea of the Russian mir, or of the primitive village 
 community, is also very attractive to them. They would carry 
 the principle of local self-government to an extreme. They 
 would have no centralized control beyond that pertaining to the 
 village or city, and, within that, the actual exercise of authority 
 should be restricted as far as possible. A member, if dis- 
 satisfied, would be allowed to retire at any time and join another 
 commune. The members of the commune would jointly con- 
 trol all its property and business. Perfect community of rela- 
 tions would exist within each group. The spirit of enterprise 
 would be kept up by competition between the communes or asso- 
 ciations. The larger ones would contain within themselves 
 productive groups enough for the satisfaction of nearly all the 
 needs of their inhabitants. Where such should not be the case, 
 commodities could be obtained by inter-communal traffic. The 
 industrial bonds thus established would prevent strife and war. 
 Thus universal peace would prevail after the final catastrophe 
 of revolution was passed, and by no possibility could the state, 
 
 1 For full details as to the "propaganda of deed," see the files of Most's Freiheit ; 
 the Chicago Alarm and Arbeiter-Zeitung ; and Most's Science of Revolutionary War- 
 fare, an outline of which was printed as a part of the testimony in the Anarchists' 
 case at Chicago. The testimony in that case is given in outline in Northeastern 
 Reporter, vol. 12. The speeches of the anarchists and a history of the trial (favor- 
 able to the condemned) has been issued by the Socialistic Publishing Society of 
 Chicago. — In book form, the most important statement of the programme of the 
 Communistic Anarchists is Krapotkine's Paroles d'un Revolte, Paris, 1885. See a ^ so 
 Ely's Labor Movement in America, and Laveleye's Socialisme contemporaine. 
 
No. i.] 
 
 SCIENTIFIC ANARCHISM. 
 
 2 7 
 
 the system of force, revive. This is the ideal of the Com- 
 munistic Anarchists. 1 It is the system of economic federalism : 
 the substitution of the free competition of local groups, holding 
 property in common, for the complex social order which now 
 exists. Within this social order, nations and national hate will 
 no longer exist ; a purely economic regime will take their place 
 and make political struggle impossible. It is claimed that this 
 is essentially different from all the older communistic schemes, 
 because with the destruction of the state and of religion the 
 basis upon which authority could rest would be entirely re- 
 moved. The earlier writers and experimenters, like Babceuf, 
 Cabet, Owen, are called state communists, because they pro- 
 posed to establish their system with the aid of government or 
 under its grants and protection. This later plan is purely anar- 
 chistic. The earlier apostles would destroy liberty ; the later 
 would preserve it in a perfect form, make it consistent with a 
 stable society, and harmonize it with the greatest possible 
 equality. 
 
 1 " We desire no property. All that exists upon the earth must serve for the satis- 
 faction of the needs of all. The appropriation of these things, — of land, mines, 
 machines, and in general of all instruments which contribute toward producing the 
 necessities of mankind, which should serve the community, and which can be produced 
 only by the co-operative efforts of all humanity, — the appropriation of these things 
 as the property of individuals or of certain groups is the retaining of them to the 
 exclusion of their rightful possessor, the community, it is robbery committed against 
 the latter. We would see it abolished. If all the instruments of production were 
 once restored to the possession of the community, then would the latter by a rational 
 system of organization care for the satisfaction of human needs, so that all men who 
 are able to work could be supplied with useful occupation, and every one could 
 secure the means necessary to an existence worthy of a human being. . . . But 
 with private property will disappear at once the chief supports of all civil authority. 
 For only upon the gradation of classes which private property produces could that 
 instrument of popular oppression, the state, be erected." Freiheit, Oct. 31, 1883. 
 
 "What we are striving after is simply and clearly: t. The destruction of the 
 existing class rule, and that by the use of all possible means, by energetic, pitiless, 
 international revolution. 2. The establishment of a free society based upon com- 
 munity of goods. 3. Associative organization of production. 4. Free exchange of 
 products of equal value by the productive associations themselves, without middlemen 
 or profits. 5. The organization of education upon an altruistic, scientific, and equal 
 basis for both sexes. 6. Regulation of all public affairs by the free social contracts 
 of autonomous communes and associations resting upon a federalistic basis." 
 Freiheit, Oct. 13, 1883. 
 
 " While communism will form the basis of the future society, anarchy, absence of 
 government, is the future form of public organization." Freiheit, Dec. 15, 1883. 
 
28 
 
 POLITICAL SCIENCE QUARTERLY. [Vol. IV. 
 
 The difference between the ideals of these two bodies of 
 anarchists, when traced back to its source, seems to spring 
 from this. Proudhon, in his search for the root of social evil, 
 hit upon the principle of authority, of monopoly and privilege 
 supported by it and indissolubly connected with it. If that 
 could be eradicated, private property would no longer be fraught 
 with harm and might continue. That was the order of his 
 thought. All socialists, however, from Rodbertus and Marx 
 down, have considered private property and competition to be 
 the cause of poverty and the evil entailed thereby. They have 
 not gone back of property and competition to find the source of 
 their perversion in the legal system which sanctions and up- 
 holds them. Therefore the followers of Proudhon primarily 
 attack the state and proceed from that to their criticism of 
 property right. On the other hand the Communistic Anar- 
 chists direct their chief assaults against private property, and 
 through those are led to seek the entire overthrow of the state. 
 Proudhon really leaves the individual member of his regenerated 
 society with only the right of possession, of usufruct conditioned 
 upon his subordinating his interest to the common weal. What 
 restrictions this would practically lead to, neither he nor any of 
 his followers, so far as I know, have ever shown. 1 On the other 
 hand the Internationalists, though believing that hitherto force 
 has been the instrument of all human progress, yet protest 
 that it will be banished from society when organized according 
 to their ideal. Absence of government, HerrscJiaftslosigkeit, is 
 their ideal, as well as that of the disciples of Proudhon. The 
 declaration of principles issued by the International in 1883 
 stated that the economic functions of society should be per- 
 formed by free associations, and that they should also "by 
 free social contracts " regulate all public affairs. The tend- 
 ency of their writings seems to be in substantial harmony with 
 
 1 In an editorial in Liberty, vol. i, no. 3, are the following statements : " We do 
 not believe that any one can stand alone. We do wish social ties and guarantees. 
 We wish all there are. We believe in human solidarity. We believe that members 
 of society are interdependent. We would preserve these interdependencies untram- 
 melled and inviolate, but we have faith in natural forces. The socialists wish a 
 manufactured solidarity, we are satisfied with a solidarity inherent in the universe." 
 
No. i.] SCIENTIFIC ANARCHISM. 29 
 
 this. 1 The truth seems to be that the one party has been led by 
 its abhorrence of authority to dilute its communism, while the 
 other, to ward off the charge that its theory leads to a be Hum 
 omnium contra omnes, has left the way open for a plentiful 
 infusion of public spirit and humanitarian motives. The result 
 is that, with the perfected individual whom they both contem- 
 plate, the ideal social states of the two anarchistic schools, if 
 ever realized, would be very similar. Both must from the 
 necessities of the case take largely the form of voluntary asso- 
 ciation. 2 If on the other hand the individual remained imper- 
 fect, animated very often by passion, ambition, and the lower 
 forms of self-interest, the system of federalism would neces- 
 sarily degenerate into the strictest communism, while the sys- 
 tem of individual sovereignty would plunge society into the 
 worst evils of unrestricted competition. In either case the 
 restoration of the state in some form would be a necessity. 
 
 Yet, whatever may be true of their ideals, the methods of 
 reaching them which are advocated and practised by the two 
 anarchistic, schools are wholly different. The one expects to 
 attain success through a long process of peaceful evolution 
 culminating in perfect individualism. Although extremely hos- 
 tile to the church, their programme, so far as it concerns human 
 relations, is essentially Christian. 3 Christianity first posited 
 the individual as distinct from society, and began the process 
 of freeing him from the restraints of the ancient political sys- 
 tem. The strongest .historical impulse toward the perfection of 
 the individual has come from Christianity. The Individualistic 
 Anarchists show its influence most clearly, for there is a decided 
 tinge of Quakerism in their attitude toward the state. 4 But 
 
 1 See various articles in Freiheit, 1885 and 1886, containing a discussion with the 
 Individualistic Anarchists. Also Krapotkine's writings, especially two articles by 
 him in The Nineteenth Century for 1887. 
 
 2 Proudhon in Du Principe Federatif, 1863, stated at length his belief that the 
 ultimate social system would be one of voluntary associations for specific ^arposes, 
 each member retaining his independence to the fullest possible extent. He also 
 claimed that local powers would increase as society advanced, so that in the end 
 liberty would win a complete victory over authority. 
 
 3 They must agree with many of the ideas expressed by Tolstoi in My Religion. 
 
 4 See Bancroft's account of the principles of the Quakers, History of the United 
 
30 
 
 POLITICAL SCIENCE QUARTERLY. 
 
 [Vol. IV. 
 
 the Communistic Anarchists arc revolutionists of the most 
 violent sort. They form the extreme left wing of the modern 
 revolutionary movement. They teach materialism and atheism 
 in their most revolting forms. The method which they propose 
 to use for the destruction of society and the institution of the 
 new order is beneath scientific consideration. It is fit only to 
 be dealt with by the police and the courts. It furnishes the 
 strongest possible proof of the necessity of authority and of 
 a government to enforce it. Thus the plots of one body of the 
 anarchists are among the most serious obstacles in the way of 
 society ever being able to assume that form which the other 
 group desires. 
 
 IV. Conclusions. 
 
 Having stated as objectively as possible the theory of an- 
 archism, what is to be said concerning it ? 
 
 In the first place it is useless to claim that it is wholly a for- 
 eign product, and for that reason to clamor for restrictions upon 
 immigration. Newspaper utterances on this phase of the sub- 
 ject have consisted too largely of appeals to ignorance and 
 prejudice. There probably are good reasons why immigration 
 should be restricted, but this should weigh very lightly among 
 them. It provokes a smile when we think that the agitation 
 carried on by a few thousand anarchists — probably not more 
 than ten thousand in all — should force this people to change 
 its policy in so important a matter as that of immigration. Such 
 a suggestion goes to confirm what the socialists say about the 
 cowardice of the bourgeoisie. And then, unless the restrictions 
 were made so severe as to check the peopling of this country, 
 the spread of anarchism would not be prevented. Such crude 
 means do not reach the seat of opinion. Anarchism, so far 
 as it has a scientific basis, is, like socialism, a natural product 
 of our economic and political conditions. It is to be treated as 
 such, both theoretically and practically. Anarchism is a product 
 
 States, vol. ii, pp. 336-355: "Intellectual freedom, the supremacy of mind, universal 
 enfranchisement, — these three points include the whole of Quakerism, as far as it 
 belongs to civil history. 
 
Xo. i.] 
 
 SCIENTIFIC ANARCHISM. 
 
 of democracy. It is as much at home on American soil as on 
 European. The general belief to the contrary is one of the 
 survivals of the notion that Providence has vouchsafed us a 
 peculiar care and an especial enlightenment. If we wished to 
 argue that anarchism is a peculiar and characteristic American 
 product, reasons would not be lacking. Our political system is 
 based on the ideas of liberty and equality. The minds and the 
 writings of our revolutionary heroes were full of the theory of 
 natural rights and social contract. The founder of one of our 
 political parties was a living embodiment of that theory. The 
 anarchists ask for no better statement of their premises than 
 the opening sentences of the Declaration of Independence. 
 From the standpoint of the doctrine of natural rights, it is 
 impossible to overthrow their argument. Theoretically no fault 
 can be found with the way in which Proudhon dealt with 
 Rousseau, nor with his statement of what he considered to be 
 the true doctrine. But Proudhon by his analysis showed the 
 total lack of historical basis for the theory in any form, and at 
 the same, time its practical absurdity. It appears, then, that 
 we might expect theoretical anarchism to originate either in 
 France or in America, because in those countries the notion of 
 social contract has played the greatest role. As a matter of 
 fact, it originated independently and at about the same time 
 in both, in the minds of Proudhon and of Josiah Warren, and, 
 leaving Russia for good reasons out of the account, in these 
 countries it has obtained mo§t of its adherents. Then our 
 economic conditions, in the mining and manufacturing districts 
 and large cities, are so far similar to those of the old world, that 
 they may well occasion, when combined with the more inde- 
 pendent spirit prevailing here, the rise of theories very extreme 
 in their nature. Finally, the faults in our political system, 
 especially in municipal government and in the relations between 
 representatives of the people and corporations, are such as to 
 give a certain amount of justification to the criticisms of the 
 anarchists. These things furnish the food upon which such 
 criticism thrives. If we wish to find the source of anarchism, 
 we should contemplate the extremes of poverty and wealth 
 
32 
 
 POLITICAL SCIENCE QUARTERLY. 
 
 [Vol. IV. 
 
 which face each other in all our centres of population ; weigh 
 the arrogance, brutality and vice, which prevail too much in the 
 employing class, over against the disappointment, hopelessness, 
 and positive suffering so common among the employed ; study, 
 until it is definite and clear, the picture of manipulated caucuses, 
 purchased ballots and falsified returns, of bribery, direct or 
 indirect, in the halls of legislation, of political deals wherein 
 the interests of the locality or the country are sacrificed for 
 party success, of efforts on the part of the great majority of 
 public men to secure party triumph rather than the country's 
 weal ; and consider, finally, the superficial nature of the ques- 
 tions at issue in nearly all political contests. In certain quar- 
 ters of this country, such is the rapidity with which one political 
 scandal follows another, so great the number of crimes of a 
 semi-public nature, so intense and essentially brutal the struggle 
 for wealth and power, that one is at times almost tempted to 
 say with Proudhon that we are living in a state of anarchy. 
 Our civilization at its great centres has a dark side, and an 
 exclusive contemplation of this side will make a pessimist of any 
 man. A profound dissatisfaction with very much that exists 
 in our political and social system is widespread among our most 
 intelligent population. Those who would look to the state for 
 a certain amount of efficient aid in solving the deeper problems 
 that confront us are always met by the thought : if this plan 
 should be carried out, it will enlarge the sphere of political cor- 
 ruption and open another field for partisanship. We had better 
 not increase the domain of state action till we have a better 
 organized state. The prevalent distrust of our legislative bodies 
 finds utterance in all newspapers and periodicals and even in 
 the state constitutions themselves. These are phenomena to 
 which it is useless, nay dangerous, to shut our eyes. The cry 
 of sentimentalism will not brush them aside. They are tangible 
 facts, as real as those celebrated in the song of triumphant 
 democracy. 
 
 But, admitting that our civilization is thus imperfect, does 
 that prove that it is wholly bad or that anarchism has anything 
 better to offer ? It is noticeable that the anarchist, in carrying 
 
No. i.] 
 
 SCIENTIFIC ANARCHISM. 
 
 33 
 
 on his crusade against the state, avails himself of the freedom 
 of the press and assembly, and of the protection which the state 
 gives to his person and property so long as he does not attempt 
 to destroy the life or property of anybody else. He also uses 
 the post office, the telegraph, the railway and all other means 
 at hand for spreading intelligence. He uses the printing press, 
 a good quality of . paper, and movable metal type. In all his 
 daily life he employs commodities and lives in buildings which 
 have been produced or constructed under the capitalistic sys- 
 tem of production, guaranteed by the state. He makes use of 
 knowledge and practical experience, formulates scientific truths, 
 employs arguments and illustrations, appeals to moral ideas and 
 motives, which have been developed in society and have become 
 its common possession since the state came into existence. 
 Really the whole substratum of his work, material, mental, and 
 moral, is furnished by a politically organized society. The 
 vantage ground on which he stands, and from which he works, 
 is not of his own construction, but has been built for him by 
 the labor, of all the preceding generations. These different 
 classes of facts, which we have space only to hint at, represent 
 the progress of civilization hitherto ; they constitute its favor- 
 able side, and should be marshalled over against the wrongs 
 and evils mentioned above. How did the anarchist get the con- 
 ception of the indefinite perfectibility of man, except through a 
 knowledge of what has already been accomplished ? The civil- 
 ized man is so far in advance of, the savage that we can scarcely 
 measure the difference. But all this progress has been made 
 since government originated ; most of it before the dogma of 
 popular sovereignty was ever heard of. It was achieved in 
 ages when the control of the state reached the innermost con- 
 cerns of the individual, when in fact the conception of an indi- 
 vidual apart from the state and the organic whole of society was 
 not known. Shall I not then infer that the state, the principle 
 of authority, is the cause of all good ? Would it not be quite as 
 logical and justifiable as to argue that it is the cause of all evil ? 
 Would not the former conclusion stand the test of historical ex- 
 amination quite as well as the latter ? In the one case the in- 
 duction would be quite as satisfactory as in the other. 
 
34 
 
 POLITICAL SCIENCE QUARTERLY. 
 
 [Vol. IV 
 
 But this whole method of reasoning, whatever the purpose for 
 which it is used, is fallacious. No social or political institution, 
 no form of organization, is in itself responsible for all the evils 
 of society. The alleged cause is not adequate to produce the 
 result. Here is one of the fatal errors in the entire socialistic 
 and anarchistic argument. Our friends of that way of thinking 
 indulge in a great deal of denunciation ; but did they ever show 
 that the existence of the state and of private property makes A 
 cruel, B licentious, C avaricious, when they would not be so to 
 a greater or less degree under any conceivable organization 
 of society ? The source of what we call social evil is in the 
 individual and in the limitations of external nature. Forms of 
 social organization have their influence, but it is wholly sub- 
 ordinate to these cardinal facts. Improvement can be made by 
 civilizing the individual and adapting his social surroundings to 
 his enlarged needs, but progress is inevitably conditioned by the 
 forces of the world within us and the world around us. 
 
 The perfection of the individual is therefore an idle dream. 
 Man has lived for at least six thousand years upon the earth, 
 and, after making allowance for all the changes caused by in- 
 creasing civilization, the fundamental characteristics of human 
 nature remain the same. Man has the animal qualities com- 
 bined with the spiritual. He needs food, shelter and rest. In 
 the struggle to obtain the commodities which will supply these 
 wants, he is often dominated by the worst forms of selfishness 
 and passion. Because the supply of the necessities and comforts 
 of life is at least relatively limited, men monopolize them. Then 
 the development of social inequality begins. The degree of 
 knowledge, foresight, self-control which men possess is limited 
 and exceedingly variable. The results which they achieve differ 
 in proportion. View them as we may, these, and others like 
 them, are primary facts ; they lie beyond the reach of forms of 
 organization. They are always to be taken for granted in dis- 
 cussing any social system, whether real or ideal. Every scheme 
 of reform must adapt itself to them. Therefore no direct prac- 
 tical benefit can be derived from imagining a form of society 
 where perfect justice, liberty, and equality may co-exist, and 
 
Xo. i.] 
 
 SCIENTIFIC ANARCHISM. 
 
 35 
 
 then applying it as a criterion to the existing order. There is 
 so little similarity between the criterion and the system judged, 
 that no satisfactory conclusions can be drawn. We must deal 
 with realities and pursue methods of reform which conserve and 
 promote all the best interests of society. This may be modest 
 and unattractive, but it is the only true or fruitful method. We 
 admit that society is imperfect, but the cause of imperfection 
 lies back of society. If the institution of private property re- 
 sults in unnecessary inequality, it is because it is controlled by 
 imperfect men. So it would be if we lived in voluntary asso- 
 ciations, or under any other imaginable system. Individuals 
 would remain essentially the same, and the old phenomena 
 of inequality would continue. The introduction of Proudhon's 
 system of credit would be accompanied by a great financial 
 crisis, the result of inflation. It would tend to make inflation 
 chronic. The scheme, as conceived by Spooner, would work 
 much as "wild-cat" banking did before the crises of 1819 and 
 1837. After such convulsions in the business world, interest 
 would be. certain to reappear, and it would be the salvation of 
 society if it did. As men are, and are ever likely to be, to 
 throw off restraint would be equivalent to the realization in 
 society of the Darwinian struggle for existence and survival of 
 the fittest. This does not open an attractive prospect in any 
 event. The trouble with us now, especially in the workings of 
 our political system, is that f he purely individualistic motives 
 are given too full swing. TL^ cause of political corruption is 
 the predominance of self-seeking over public spirit. 
 
 For a justification of the state we need not construct any 
 artificial theory, like that of natural rights and social contract. 
 It came into existence with the dawn of society ; it is as old as 
 the individual. The existence of society without it, that is 
 without organization and power in the organism to enforce con- 
 formity to the necessities of life and growth, would not only be 
 contrary to all experience, but is absolutely unthinkable. To 
 conceive society without government, the anarchists have to 
 construct an imaginary individual ; and even in this imaginary 
 individual there is the possibility of lynch law and of the evolu- 
 
36 
 
 POLITICAL SCIENCE QUARTERLY. 
 
 tion of jury trial and state prisons. We see no prospect at 
 present of the lapse of society into the Kleinstaaterei of the old 
 German Empire, or into a state where all public questions will 
 have to be decided by Polish parliaments with the liberum veto 
 in full operation. 
 
 Still, practically the only answer to that which is reasonable 
 and just in the anarchistic argument is the pursuance of vigorous 
 measures of political and social reform, which shall sweep away 
 the evils among us that are degrading to any civilized people. 
 
 Herbert L. Osgood. 
 
 tUSM