Workmen's advocate. (New Haven, Conn.) 1883-1891, 1890-07-12

clety. The individual members of this
class, however, are being constantly
hurled down into the proletariat by the
action of competition and as modern
industry developes, they even see the
moment approaching when they will
completely disappear as an independent
section Of modern society to be replaced
in manufactures, agriculture and COM
merce, by overlookers, bailitfs and shop
men.
In countries like France, where the
peasants constitute far more than half
of the population, it was natural that
writers who sided with the proletarat
against the bourgeoisie, should use in
their criticism of the bourgeois regime,
the standard of the peasant and petty
bourgeois, and from the standpoint Of
these intermediate classes should take
up the cudgels for the working class.
Thus arose petty bourgeois Socialism.
Sismondi was the head of this school,
not only in France but also in England.
This school of Socialism dissected with
great acuteness the contradictions in the
conditions of modern production. 1t laid
bare the hypocritical apologies of econ
ohioto' IL pIoNcu, lHCOntloFeltiply
the disastrous effects of machinery and
division of labor; the concentration of
capital and land in a few hands; over
production and crises; it pointed out the
inevitable ruin of the petty bourgeois
and peasant, the misery of the prole-
tariat, the anarchy in production, the
crying inequalities in the distribution of
wealth, the industrial war of exter-
mlnation between nations, the dissolu
ton of old moral bonds, of the old
family relations OF the old nationalities.
In its positive aims, however, this form
of Socialism aspires either to restoring
the old means of production and of
exchange, and with them the old prop.
erty relations and the old society, or to
cramping the modern means of produc.
ton and of exchange, within the frame
work of the old property relations that
have been and were bound to be ex-
ploded by those means. In either case,
it is both reactionary and utopian.
Its last words are: corporate guilds
for manufacture; patriarchal relations
in agriculture.
Ultimately, when stubborn historical
facts had dispersed all intoxicating eff.
fects of self-deception, this form of So
cialism ended in miserable fit of the
blues.
GERMAN OR "TRUE" SOCIALISM.
The Socialist and Communist literature
of France, literature that originated
under the pressure of a bourgeoisie in
power, and that was the expression of
the struggle against this power, was
introduced into Germany at a time
when the bourgeoisie in that country
had just begun its contest with feudal
absolutism.
German philosophers, would phil
osophers and beour esprits, eagerly
seized on this literature, only forgetting
that when these writings immigrated
from France into Germany, French
social conditions had not immigrated
along with them. In contact with Ger.
man social conditions, this French liter
ature lost all its immediate practical
significance, and assumed a purely
literary aspect. Thus, to the German
philosophers of the Eighteenth Century,
the demands of the first French Revolu-
ton were nothing more than the de-
mands of practical Reason" in general
and the utterance of the will of the
revolutionary French bourgeosie signi-
fled in their eyes the laws of pure will,
of will as it was bound to be, of true
human will generally.
The work of the German Rterati con-
sisted solely in bringing the new French
ideas into harmony with their ancient
philosophical conscience, or rather, in
annexing the French ideas without
deserving their own philosophic point of
view.
This annexation took place in the same
way in which foreign language is ap-
propria.ed, namely by translation.
1t is well known how the monks wrote
silly lives of Catholic Saints ouer the
manuscripts on which the classical
works of ancient heathendom had been
written. The German hterdt reversed
this process with the profane French
literature. They wrote their philosophy
cal nonsense beneath the French original.
For instance, beneath the French crit.
cism of the economic functions of
money they wrote Alienation Of
Humanity" and beneath the French
criticism of the bourgeois State they
wrote Dethronement of the Category
of the General" and so forth.
The introduction of these philosophi.
cal phrases at the back of the French
historical criticisms they dubbed "Phi-
losophy of Action "True Socialism, "
German Science of Socialism," "Phi-
losophical Foundation of Socialism, -
and so on.
The French Socialist and Communist
literature was thus completely emas.
culated. And, since it ceased in the
hands of the German to express the
struggle of one class with the other, he
felt conscious of having overcome
French one-sidedness" and of repre-.
senting not true requirements but the
| requirements of truth, not the interests