Part 1 (2/2)
An immense revolution, a wonderful revolution, is opening in the mind of the human race; a new driving force is taking hold of the souls of men--the devotion to the welfare of the whole; a new sense, with all the intensity of a new-born feeling, is emerging in the consciousness of men--the sense that one cannot himself be healthy or happy unless the race is happy and healthy. A hundred theories appearing here and there, a thousand organizations springing up, a million acts of individuals everywhere, attest each day the presence and the growing power of this vast solidarizing movement.
Among these manifestations throughout the world, the most p.r.o.nounced and the most clearly defined is that compact, fiercely vital organization known as the international Socialist party. Yet the Socialist party is not the movement, any more than the cresting billow is the torrent. It is an imperatively necessary element; but the movement itself is vastly broader and deeper than any manifestation of it.
An uncounted mult.i.tude in all lands are gradually becoming conscious of this sweeping tendency and of their own part in it--a mult.i.tude as yet not bearing any specific t.i.tle. Out of these a considerable number are fully conscious of the movement, and are willing partakers. These we might call solidarists, in token of their conviction that the goal ought to be and will be an economic solidarity. But of even these it is only a part who are distinctively to be called Socialists, only those who have perceived two certain mighty facts: first, that men's ma.s.s-relations in the process of making a living are fundamental to their other relations, to their opinions and motives, and to all revolutions; and, second, that the chief agency in bringing about changes in the great affairs of the human race has always been and continues to be the pressure and clash between enduring ma.s.ses of men animated by opposite economic interests. The Socialist is one who sees these social and historic facts and whose action is guided by such sight; the non-Socialist solidarist is one who, though animated by the socializing impulses, has not yet perceived these two most weighty facts.
Now Edmond Kelly, as was natural from his antecedents, was for nearly the whole of his life a non-Socialist solidarist. But, about two years before his death, being at the height of his powers of insight and intellect, he attained the clear vision of the ”cla.s.s-struggle,” and no longer had any doubts where he himself belonged in the army of humanity--he became and remained a comrade--a loyal comrade.
There is a certain bit of doggerel, said to derive from Oxford, which tells us that:
”Every little boy or gal, Who comes into this world alive, Is born a little Radical, Or else a small Conservative.”
And this all-pervading division penetrates even that most radical of bodies, the Socialist party. That party has its own conservative and radical wings--its right and its left--and Edmond Kelly is distinctly of the right.
One who is inclined by instinct to the one wing, and by logic to the other, can realize the indispensableness of both--the special contribution which each makes, and which the other cannot make, to the common cause. The motive of this note is to appeal to the comrades of the left not to shut their eyes to the value of this book, not to forego its special usefulness. For the very att.i.tude of its author, which may be distasteful to them--his making appeals which they no longer make, his using forms of speech which they reject, his making so little use of that which is their main appeal, fit him especially to influence the minds of that numerous fringe of educated persons who must evidently be first made ”rightists” before they can become ”centrists” or ”leftists.” It may even be imagined that the difficult type of working man, he who thinks himself too n.o.ble-minded to respond to cla.s.s appeal, might begin to rouse himself if he could once be brought under the charm of this book.
Aware that he had not long to live, Mr. Kelly hastened to finish the first draft of the book, and indeed he survived that completion only two weeks. He knew that considerable editorial work was needed, and this he entrusted to Mrs. Florence Kelley, author of ”Some Ethical Gains through Legislation” and translator of Marx' ”Discourse on Free Trade,” and of Friedrich Engels' work on the ”Condition of the Working Cla.s.s in England.” She undertook and has fulfilled this trust, and has been aided throughout by the untiring labors of Shaun Kelly, the author's son. Thus this book of Mr. Kelly's is doubly a memorial of love--of his for man, and of ours for him.
RUFUS W. WEEKS.
CONTENTS
INTRODUCTORY NOTES: PAGE By Professor Franklin H. Giddings v By Rufus W. Weeks xii INTRODUCTORY 1
BOOK I
_WHAT SOCIALISM IS NOT_
CHAPTER
I. SUBJECTIVE OBSTACLES TO THE UNDERSTANDING OF SOCIALISM 18 Vested Interests 18
II. ECONOMIC CONDITIONS 23 1. Bourgeois, Revolutionist, and Evolutionist 23 (_a_) The Bourgeois Point of View 23 (_b_) The Revolutionist Point of View 24 (_c_) The Evolutionist Point of View 27
III. MISREPRESENTATION AND IGNORANCE 31 1. Socialism is not Anarchism 31 2. Socialism is not Communism 33 3. Socialism will not Suppress Compet.i.tion 36 4. Socialism will not Destroy the Home 40 5. Socialism will not Abolish Property 42 6. Socialism will not Impair Liberty 46 7. Conclusion 51
BOOK II
_WHAT CAPITALISM IS_
EVILS OF CAPITALISM 53 I. CAPITALISM IS STUPID 57 1. Overproduction 57 2. Unemployment 66 3. Prost.i.tution 79 4. Strikes and Lockouts 86 5. Adulteration 88
II. CAPITALISM IS WASTEFUL 94 1. Getting the Market 95 2. Cross Freights 96
III. CAPITALISM IS DISORDERLY 101 1. Anarchy of Production and Distribution 102 (_a_) Tyranny of the Market 102 (_b_) Tyranny of the Trust 104 (_c_) Tyranny of the Trade Union 106
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