Vermont phÅ“nix. [volume] (Brattleboro, Vt.) 1834-1955, 1871-07-28
T.vDUsTREAL CO.u.uU.yys.u.

OuueT tnc hDONe tllle, INC Duedu LOT
the current month contains thoughtful
and curously speculative article upon the
subject of communism In its relations to
society, manufactures and production, and
withal containing a mass of useful infor-
nation in regard to the labor unions Of the
world, and the possibilities and actualities
| of the system of cooperation. We CON
dense from this article the salient points,
regretting the inability to transfer it bodi-
ly to our columns. Nearly a century ago
Charles FOurior-says tho writer in The
| Buredu-advanced n wild, fanciful, but
brilliant and seductive prophecy, or dream,
of the future condition of the world for S0,-
600 years. 1.-THE life of the individual must
be the type of "the life of the race" The
race is as yet in its infancy, and if it has
| lived six, seven or ten thousand years, is
but now entering on its youth, thousand
years of the worlds life being accepted as
..he equivalent of one year in the life Of the
! individual. This being true, we may as
sumo that the race will run its course in
| $4,000 years. As the unit-man's advance
,oward maturity is indicated by an in
creasing power Of and desire for associa-
iion with, his fellows, and interchange of
services and ideas, and especially by n
larger and frecr association in labor and
| production, in government, in amusement,
in the family, in worship, and in the rela-
tions of the sexes, these same tendencies
must characterize the advance of the agere-
gate man-the human raco-from it's in
fancy toward its youth and maturity. The
theory of the mode of this advance he cal
led communism. The Commune" so
called, fighting for equality with the gov
ernmont of France is Il very different COM
munc from the dream of Fourier, ~ most
realzations differ from the ideals of their
J founders. That there is something in hui
man nature which tends toward and de-
sircs communism is clearly evident from
| the fact that all the higher stages of rcligi-
Gus eXaltation culminate in communism.
From the earliest moments of the Christian
church, communism in property, as taught
by the founders, even to the present day,
is enforced by the clerical body as well as
the religious orders of the Roman and
Greek Churches. In the Protestant Church,
the highest manifestation of worship is in
ceptcd uttcrancc Of Protestant preachers
were carried out, all men would regard
themselves only as stewards of their
wealth the church being the representa-
tive as to the mode Of its disposal. Thus,
also, do we find a system of oligarchic
communism based on polygamy and CO.
operation of industry in Mormonism; Il
similar expression of the idea in different
form in the Shakers, and more emphatic
enunciation OF Fourier's views in the free
love communities, where the communal
system is extended to the property, labor
and the sexual relations. So do we find
the theory of communism expressed in the
various forms of religious enthusiasm.
COMMUNISM IN INDUSTRY.
Nearly all of the leading industries of the
Present day in manufactures, transporta-
ton, insurance, banking, publishing and
the like, are conducted by joint stock in
corporations, or financial "communes," in
which the share of capital is the integral
unit considered in the government of the
association, and their owners count accord
ing to their number of shares. Trade or
merchandising and the tilling of the soil
alone remain TO the individual. All other
kinds of business are more proftably car
ried on by the corporation or commune
based on capital. While the efforts to es-
tablish a perfect social commune has never
succeeded on any large scale, except under
the influence Of religious enthusiasm, large
associations have been formed whose aims
were partially communistic upon less
effective basis. Among these may be mem
toned freemasonry, and kindred orders,
trades unions and guilds.
Our modern trades unions are an i'm
porta nj manifestation of the communistic
principle. We find them combining
throughout Europe and America, in the
formation of one vast association, the In
ternational, with powers so extensive IL to
insure cooperation ON the part of working
men in Switzerland to sustain the suppes-
ed rights of men. The leaders in the whole
trade union movement, and especially in
LRteindtioHdle are thorough communists
of Fouriersic type, so far AS his declara-
tors as to capital and labor are concerned.
The session of LintelndtiOndle held in
Nuremberg, in 1865, declared this in the
cl osinG sentences Of its address, as follows:
at is useless for the working people of
our nation TO attempt to remodel society;
there must be IA combination of all the ma
tions, and, meantime, attempts at Il lorci-
bic revolution ought to be discouraged.
The new society ought to be founded on
universal education. Every individual
ought to he developed by all educational
means at the disposal of science and art
into truly humane being.
A society thus prepared for its great task
will best know how to lc2islaie for now
order Of things. One thing, however, is
clear, to wit: That such future legisla-
tion will have to accommodate itself TO the
economical laws of the age. 1t will have
to render production scientific and estab-
lish it on the largest possible scale. All
new inventions and discoveries, instead of
redounding as now to the benefit Of the
few and the enslaving of the many, must
be converted into the means of reducing
the tolls of all, of beautfying life, and en-
nobling humanity. All the great indis-
pensabe means Of existence, as lands,
mines, machines, and means of communi-
cation, must be the common property of
all, and must be made so gradually. Moth
ing can reasonably.be private property but
the product of labor-one's own labor.
This feeling is shared by the labor unions
everywhere, and finds expression in the
war cry of the Paris Commune, property
is robbery" 1t sounds like lunacy, but
our writer in The Bureau thinks that as
their enunciators are not only sane, but
many of them shrewd and sagacious from
their own standpoint, il is better to study
the process by which so large and nfluen-
tlal portion of the working classes of the
civilized world come TO have these singu-
lar views than o dismiss them as "bosh,"
in the high and naughty style In which the
Bourbons of every age treat its revolution
isis and workers