Section V: The Root of Socialism. Relationship of Socialism to Liberalism

From our whole exposition of socialism it is evident that only a very superficial observer could possibly consider it the invention of some designing trickster or the artificial product of political adventurers. We have pointed repeatedly to the remoter origin and deeper sources of socialism. Yet it will be worth our while to review the actual causes of the socialist movement and to present them here arranged in proper order. We are the more willing to undertake this duty, since it will give us the opportunity to shed more light, not only upon the real significance of socialism, but also upon its intimate connection with liberalism.

Socialists themselves acknowledge that they have only drawn the logical conclusions from principles set up by liberals; and liberalism is accused by Catholics generally of having given birth to socialism. The liberals, on their part, with horror and indignation disclaim all connection with socialism. Liberalism does not profess, so say its defenders, to abolish private property: it only makes ownership free. Nor does it profess to advocate a servile industrial organization: it only advocates unrestricted freedom for all.

Notwithstanding all the protestations of the liberals, we cannot but consider socialism as the lineal descendant of liberalism, however much the parent may try to disown its offspring. The question is this, whether the principles set up and defended by liberals logically lead to socialism or not; and this question we believe must be answered in the affirmative.¹

¹ On Feb. 23, 1890, Bebel said in the Reichstag: “You know as well as we that the more faith in a life to come disappears from among the people, the more the people will clamor for having their heaven on earth.” This thought is not quite original with Bebel. Heine had said the same fifty years before. Remarking on the subversive influence of German philosophy on religion he continues: “The overthrow of the old beliefs has also uprooted the former morality. . . . The destruction of a belief in heaven is of consequence not only in morals but also in politics. The common people chafe at their earthly misery and yearn for happiness on earth. Communism is the natural outcome of these changed views, and it is spreading all over Germany. (Heine’s Works, vol. III. Hamburg, 1876, pp. 113-115.)

1. The deepest roots of socialism are atheism and materialism. If it is once admitted that all ends with this life, that man has no higher destiny than the lower animals which wallow in the mud, who, then, can require of the poor and oppressed, whose life is a continued struggle for existence, that they bear their hard lot with patience and resignation, and look on with indifference while their neighbors are clad in purple and fine linen, and daily revel at sumptuous banquets?

Is not the inextinguishable yearning for perfect happiness implanted also in the breast of the workingman? If you despoil him of every hope of a better life to come, what right have you to prevent him from striving to obtain happiness on earth as best he can, and therefore to make imperative demands for his share of earthly goods? Is he not a man as well as his employer, who thrives on the laborer’s exertions? Who can prove to workingmen from the standpoint of atheism that it is meet and just that one should pine in poverty and want, while another enjoys abundance of all things, since all have the same nature, and no reason can be given on atheistic grounds why the goods of this world should belong to one rather than to another? If the atheistic and materialistic theory is true, the demands of socialism are certainly just—that all the goods and enjoyments of this life should be equally divided among all; that it is, therefore, unjust that one should live in a magnificent palace and enjoy all pleasures without labor, while another is living in a squalid cellar or cold garret, and cannot, even with the greatest effort, obtain enough bread to appease his hunger.

Already in 1847, in a speech before the Prussian Diet, BISMARCK expressed this same idea in the following words: “I do not understand how in those states (which are not based on religion) the ideas of the communists, for instance, concerning the immorality of private ownership and the high moral value of theft as of an attempt to restore the inborn rights of men, can rightfully be prevented from asserting themselves if they have the power to do so. For, also these ideas are looked upon by their originators as very humanistic, yea, as the prime flower of humanism. Therefore, gentlemen, let us not curtail the Christian sentiments of our people.”¹

¹ Cf. Busch, Bismarck und seine Leute während des Krieges mit Frankreich, vol. I, p. 210.

Now, who is it that has preached and propagated atheism in all its forms? Who has sought by all ways and means to restrict the influence of Christianity in the school and in public life? Who is it that proclaimed extreme Darwinism as a dogma and popularized it for the ignorant masses? Who is it that even in our own day, in speech and in writing, in the chairs of universities and in public assemblies, preaches the grossest atheism? It is the representatives of liberalism, beginning with the French Encyclopedists down to our own university professors, who combat and decry the faith in God and in Christ the Saviour as stupidity and superstition. More especially Hegel and Feuerbach are the intellectual progenitors of the socialist heroes Marx and Engels (cf. above, p. 37 sqq.). Hence Marx himself utters the sarcastic taunt against the liberals, that atheism seems to them a venial fault compared with the crime of criticising the traditional conditions of property.¹ Wherein they have sinned therein they are punished.

¹ Capital, Introduction, p. ix. Virchow, one of the chief luminaries of liberalism, publicly maintained in the Prussian Diet, May 8, 1891, that he could not understand how a reasonable man could imagine that men are on earth in order to prepare for heaven.

It is especially by its baneful influence on the schools that liberalism has disseminated unbelief in the great mass of the people. For the last century already the universities have been hotbeds of infidelity. A pitifully small minority of university professors still make open profession of Christianity. By far the greater number is indifferent if not hostile to the Christian religion, or at most professes some milk-and-water kind of Christianity.

From the universities the streamlets of infidelity are trickling farther and farther. Wherever liberalism dares to show its true nature it endeavors to banish religious influences from the elementary schools, and, as it is called, to secularize them. And in doing so liberalism is but consistent with its principles.

Lately a liberal university professor—Dodel-Port— published a book which permits us to look behind the scenes perhaps more than is agreeable to some of the professor’s associates. His work is entitled, “ Moses and Darwin.” What, the author asks, is taught at our universities? Darwin and always Darwin. The doctrines of creation, of paradise, of the fall of the first man, the narration of miracles, he tells us, have been cast aside by modern science and relegated into the realm of fables. The representative “scientists” teach that there is no personal God, that man was developed from animality, that there is no immortal soul and no free will, and that in the history of mankind everything is determined by mechanical laws as in the rest of nature, etc. This is the teaching of the universities.

But what is taught in the (German) elementary schools? The very reverse. There the children are imbued with a belief in Moses, in the existence of God, the creation of the world, the fall of man, miracles, etc.

Is this contradiction to go on forever? No, is the verdict of our author. Off with the customary mask of hypocrisy! Let us show our true colors. Eject Moses and his miracles from the elementary school, that not every student of the higher branches may be forced to fight out the hard struggle between two systems which are diametrically opposed.

From the liberal point of view this demand is perfectly justified; but from it we can also perceive to whom is due that infidelity which is infecting all classes of the population and has blessed us with modern socialism and its revolutionary ideas.¹

¹ In the session of the Reichstag of May 23, 1878, Dr. Jörg remarked very aptly: "The most urgent necessity is the regeneration of the school. Personally I fear less the socialism of the present than the socialism of the future which is growing up among our young people. Owing to mistaken political calculations the schools have more and more been withdrawn from religious influences and thereby their doors have unwittingly been opened to socialism. Modern pedagogy, or, I might say, the modern schoolcraze, has become a seminary of socialism. Willy nilly, the effect is to raise the children above their level and thus to sow dissatisfaction broadcast among the people. Thus I wish to be understood, if I tell you openly that a wretched, burdened laborer who does not pray, who has forgotten or never learned it, will fall an easy prey to socialism as soon as it comes to fetch him.” If this be true of German elementary schools, what shall we say of our American public schools with their fads and pretensions?

Socialists are fully aware that their atheism is based on modern infidel science. Engels terms “the German labor movement the inheritor of classical German philosophy.” Bebel has repeatedly acknowledged his indebtedness to modern scientists. On September 16, 1878, he said in the Reichstag: “Gentlemen, you attack our views on religion because they are atheistic and materialistic. I acknowledge the correctness of the impeachment. ... I am firmly convinced that socialism finally leads to atheism. But who has established the scientific and philosophical foundations of those atheistic doctrines which cause you so much anxiety and displeasure? Was that done by socialists? Edgar and Bruno Bauer, Feuerbach, David Strauss, Ernest Renan—were they socialists? They were men of science... . We have adopted our atheistic tenets in accordance with our scientific convictions, and we feel obliged in conscience to spread them among the masses. Why should that be forbidden to one party which is allowed to the other?” The spokesmen of modern science will be at a loss to find a suitable reply; for, even if they do not make open profession of infidelity, they are, at least for the most part, infected with the principles of Strauss and Renan.

2. The second great principle of the revolutionary party is equality. Here again socialism takes the same stand as liberalism, and draws the last consequence from its principles. Who invented the watchword liberty, equality, and fraternity, and thus gave an appearance of right and even of duty to the bloody French Revolution? It was the representatives of liberalism. The worthies of the Revolution—the Jacobins and Girondists—were the true forefathers of the modern liberals, who delight in their principles and phraseology, and continually spout liberty and equality. In virtue of this liberty and equality the ancient order of things was subverted; the privileges of the nobility and the prerogatives of the Church were abolished; every memory of ancient institutions was effaced; the people were declared sovereign; and, finally, the “citizen Capet” was brought to the scaffold. True, when the liberal bourgeoisie had once taken hold of the reins of government, they were eager to put a stop to the further development of their principles. After the Church had been persecuted and, as far as this was possible to human power, suppressed, the heroes of the Revolution— Robespierre at their head—were eager to introduce the worship of a Supreme Being in order to check the masses. After the property of the Church and of the nobility had been seized upon, and individuals had enriched themselves from the wealth of the nation, it was declared in the constitution that private property was sacred and inviolable. After the aristocracy had been removed and the hierarchy of the Church had been suppressed, they determined to establish an aristocracy of genius and wealth. Was such a step consistent? Had they any right to demand of the people to be satisfied with that equality which conferred upon it a semblance of freedom, but left it totally bereft of protection, and finally surrendered it to the power of the capitalists? Was the people not entitled to require that they should redeem their promises, and finally establish perfect equality in real earnest? We consider that demand as logical and just, according to the principles of liberalism.

3. The close relation of socialism to liberalism may be still more clearly shown in reference to the adopted theory of value. He who accepts this modern socialistic theory of value—that the exchange-value of all productions is only the result of labor, or accumulated labor—cannot possibly consider as just the conditions of modern production in which the laborer is always at a disadvantage, but must logically come to the principles of socialism. But who first established the socialistic theory of value? Is this theory the invention of socialism? By no means; it is the traditional doctrine of liberalism. Adam Smith, Ricardo, Say, and all the so-called classical political economists belong to the liberal school; and they have almost without exception laid down the principle that all value is to be credited to labor. Lassalle, as we have already shown, in establishing his theory of value could point to a stately line of liberal social economists. In recent times this theory, however, is either wholly abandoned, or at least essentially modified by liberals. They soon discovered what a dangerous weapon they put into the hands of socialism. But it was too late. The fact cannot be concealed from the world that liberalism forged the most dangerous weapon which socialism is using for the subversion of the existing social order.

4. Not only theoretically, but also practically, did liberalism pave the way for socialism. The way was smoothed chiefly by the introduction and enforcement of unlimited industrial competition, with all the liberties and privileges which it brings in its train. All protecting organizations which, in the course of time, had arisen to counteract unlimited competition, whether in theory or in practice, were, in the name of freedom, violently suppressed. Even the laws against usury were abolished in the interest of freedom. Thus society was disintegrated, the weaker industries were isolated and, owing to unlimited competition, fell victims to the superior power of capital. Moreover, since modern discoveries were made to serve merely the interests of a few capitalists, the solid middle class, which formed the strongest support of the existing social order, began more and more to: disappear, and society was divided into two hostile classes—-the wealthier bourgeoisie, on the one hand, with their inveterate hatred of the Church and the nobility, with their insatiable avarice and reckless oppression of the laborers as of an inferior race; on the other hand, the huge masses of the poor, particularly laborers in factories, filled with hatred and revenge against their capitalist oppressors. Thus a fertile soil was prepared for social democracy. It needed only agitators to make the “disinherited” acquainted with the results of agnostic science, and to fling the firebrand of rebellion into the masses of the laborers—and there stood social democracy fullfledged.

5. Moreover, liberalism endeavored to bring about a centralization in all departments of social economy, not only by utilizing modern discoveries in the field of industry, but still more by its control of education, and even of science, religion, and politics. Now, socialism, according to its very nature, aims at the greatest possible centralization. The means of production, the organization of labor, the distribution of produce, education, instruction—all is to be controlled by the state. The state takes upon itself the duties of the separate community, of the family, and of the individual. Hence Schäffle¹ logically concludes that “all centralization of the liberal state advances the cause of socialism and harmonizes with its principle.”

¹ Quintessence of Socialism. English version edited by B. Bosanquet, London, p. 52.

But who has employed all means to centralize education, Church government, marriage discipline, the care of the poor? Who has abolished the independence of municipalities, churches, and religious orders, and given all into the hands of the state? This is the work of liberalism. Socialism is, therefore, nothing else than the logical development of the liberal idea of the state. The state is the source of all right, say the liberals; to this principle socialism can rightfully appeal against liberalism and in favor of its own entire programme.

Thus it is beyond a doubt that liberalism and socialism are closely related to each other, and that there is, therefore, no possibility of an efficient stand against socialism from the side of liberalism. Liberalism has but one means against socialism—the police. As soon as it tries other remedies its inconsistency and inefficiency against socialism become lamentably evident.