Samuel Peter Orth - Socialism and Democracy in Europe

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It is becoming more and more evident that democracy has served only the first years of its apprenticeship. Political problems have served only to introduce popular government. The economic problems now rushing upon us will bring the real test of democracy.

The workingman has taken an advanced place in the struggle for the democratization of industry. He has done so, first, through the organization of labor unions; secondly, through the development of political partieslabor parties. The blend of politics and economics which he affects is loosely called Socialism. The term is as indefinite in meaning as it is potent in influence. It has spread its unctuous doctrines over every industrial land, and its representatives sit in every important parliament, including our Congress.

Such a movement requires careful consideration from every point of view.

It is the object of this volume to trace briefly the growth of the movement in four leading European countries, and to attempt to determine the relation of economic and political Socialism to democracya question of peculiar interest to the friends of the American Republic at this time.

In preparing this volume, the author has made extended visits to the countries studied. He has tried to catch the spirit of the movement by personal contact with the Socialist leaders and their antagonists, and by many interviews with laboring men, the rank and file in every country visited.

Everywhere he was received with the greatest cordiality, and he wishes here to express his appreciation of these many kindnesses.

He wishes especially to acknowledge his obligations to the following gentlemen: Mr. Graham Wallas of the University of London; Mr. W.G. Towler of the London Municipal Society; Mr. John Hobson of London, and Mr. J.S. Middleton, assistant secretary of the Labor Party; to Dr. Robert Herz and Prof. Charles Gide of the University of Paris; Dr. Albert Thomas and M. Adolphe Landry of the Chamber of Deputies; M. Jean Longuet, editor of L'Humanit; to Dr. Franz Oppenheimer of the University of Berlin; Dr. Sdekum of the Reichstag; Dr. Hilferding, editor of Vorwrts; Prof. T.H. Norton, American Consul at Chemnitz; M. Camille Huysmans, secretary of the "International," Brussels; as well as to many American friends for providing letters of introduction which opened many useful and congenial doorways.

S.P.O.

January, 1913.

The answer to this question will bring us nearer to the core of the social movement than any attempted definition. The French Socialist program begins with the assertion, "Socialism is a question of class." Class distinction is the generator of Socialism.

The ordinary social triptychupper, middle, and lower classeswill not suffice us in our inquiry. We must distinguish between the functions of the classes. The upper class is a remnant of the feudal days, of the manorial times, when land-holding brought with it social distinction and political prerogative. In this sense we have no upper class in America. The middle class is composed of the business and professional element, and the lower class of the wage-earning element.

There are two words, as yet quite unfamiliar to American readers, which are met with constantly in European works on Socialism and are heard on every hand in political discussionsproletariat and bourgeois. The proletariat are the wage-earning class, the

It will thus be seen that these divisions have a historical basis. The upper class reflect the days of feudalism, of governmental prerogative and aristocracy. The middle class are the representatives of the guild and mercantile systems, when hand labor and later business acumen brought power and wealth to the craftsman and adventurer. The lower class are the homologues of the slaves, the serfs, the toilers, whose reward has constantly been measured by the standard of bare existence. Socialism arises consciously out of the efforts of this class to win for itself a share of the powers of the other classes. It is necessary to understand that while this class distinction is historic in origin it is essentially economic in fact. It is not "social"; a middle-class millionaire may be congenial to the social circles of the high-born. It is not political; a workingman may vote with any party he chooses. He may ally himself with the conservative Center as he sometimes does in Germany, or with the Liberal Party as he sometimes does in England, or with either of the old parties as he does in the United States. On the other hand, a bourgeois may be a Socialist and vote with the proletarians. Indeed, many of the Socialist leaders belong to the well-to-do middle class.

This class distinction, then, is economic. It is a distinction of function, the function of the capitalist and the function of the wage-earner. Let us go one step further; it is a distinction in property. The possessor of private wealth can become a capitalist by investing his money in productive enterprise. He then becomes the employer of labor. There are all grades of capitalists, from the master wagon-maker who works by the side of his one or two workmen, to the "captain" of a vast industry that gives employment to thousands of men and turns out a wagon a minute.

The institution of private property is the basis of Socialism because it is the basis of capitalistic production. It places in one man's hands the power of owning raw material, machinery, land, factory, and finished product; and the power of hiring men to operate the machinery, and to convert the raw material into marketable wares. As long as this power was limited to hand industry the proletarian movement was abortive. When the industrial revolution linked the ingenuity of man to the power of nature it so multiplied the potency of the possessor that the proletarian movement by stress of circumstances became a great factor in industrial life.

While the possession either of wealth or family tradition was always the basis of class distinction, the industrial revolution brought with it the enormously multiplied power of capital and the glorification of riches. The proletarians multiplied rapidly in number, and all the evils of sharp class distinction were heightened. In all lands where capitalistic production spread, the two classes grew farther apart, the distinction between possessor and wage-earner increased.