River Falls journal. [volume] (River Falls, Pierce County, Wis.) 1872-2019, 1878-10-03
Socialism,.


In the light of modern investigation,
wha& tutu3e has socialism. as a political
movement. before it2 The Darwinians
have Term which expresses the tenden-
| CIV constantly showing itself in the ami
NAL world toward a return to primitive
types and forms. Long after the struggle
for existanee has produced permanent
modification in a species, individual
members Of it appear of the type as it
! existed before the modification became
/ fixed. Tie same sort of atavism, as it is
/ called. exhibits itself in the mental opera
/ tons of the human race; and it it is now
1 clear that the sociaistiC projects with
! which refarmers have perplexed md dis
/ turh5u a." world for the last hundred
/ years have heir root in this curious ten
/ dency. Oae of the most interesting chap
| tiers in M Laveleye's book is devoted
! to showing that, in the classical world,
utopian speculation of all kinds, was
| based on a.living tradition of the "Satur-
MAN days" when property did not exist,
but when nen lived together as brothers.
This Is now seen not to be mere
| fancy, but a memory of real commu-
nistic state Of society, in which individ-
utl ownership dld not exist, and men
were brothers in literal sense, the fam
| lily being the social unit. The tendency
always exiatin z 10 throw halo about the
past, prodNced feeling that this early
condition 6f society had been much bet
ter than the existing state; and il is easy
TO see how. reinforced by a highly specu-
laiiye philosophy, it might account for
large part Of the Platonic scheme for the
reorganization Of the would. With the
dis ppeatasce OF the classical world, the
tradition Of Punitive communism, as a
lost utopia, died out, aud left nothing
but sbstrect phiosophizing for new
schemes 10 DE based upon. Accordingly,
we find THAI for the last 100 years the so.
cialists have rested their case upon the
abstract 4ense of justice and assumed
equality % rights. Now this basis has
been swept away by the discovery that
the assumed equality Of rights is opposed
to a great economical Law, which in all
ages aud in all countries has been slowly
compelling the substitution of the system
of individual for con- munistic ownership.
There IS lett then, at one extreme. the
modern philosophical socialism of NJ.
Laveleye, re principal objection to which
is that 1t remains TO be proved TO have
any lasting bold upon oppinion; at the
other we discover Justus Schwab and
"Citizen' Maddox plotting over their
beer for d redistribution of the worlds
goods.
To say that there is connection be-
tween Plato and the pot-houJe COM
munism OF Chicago and New York may
seem a gr0iesque fancy. but it is certain
tha. our Gnh@abs' minds, could their
operations he exhi ,ifed, would ia social
speculation betray a much closer resem-
blance 70 The Platonist mental oper-
ations than to those Of most OF their
living iell9w-crcaturcs When they
dream of world in which there shall be
no more property, or in which every man
shall have h5s just share OF H. this mental
operation presents a case of atayism which
carries MS buck to an intellectual condi-
ton 1000 years old Atayism, however.
can never b; living social force. 1t is
opposed by fhe whole weight OF accuniu-
lated civilization and progress attained
since the primitive Schwass wandered
naked through the German forests. To
suppose thar j. is to succeed is to supposs
that the world IS to 90 backward, and
that We arc 30 relapse iRt0 the primcvai
night end chaos out Of which we sprung.
Civilization may be destroyed, but not
reversed ard, if the chain Of reasoning
furnished by modern investigation Is
not altogether wrong, mankind at large
will ID the future be less, and likely to
risk piungs into the bog Of primitive
i'm the hope of overtaking the
glimmer Of SHAT long and weary put-
suit has proved to be asociaI fgais fatuus,
--AtEafaic Monthly.