Page:American Historical Review, Volume 12.djvu/500

 490 Providence Meeting of the Ulysses G. Weatherly of Indiana State University on " Babeuf s Place in the History of Socialism." The French Revolution was not entirely a movement of the middle classes. The Jacobins tended towards community of property, and their fall in 1793 replaced the middle classes in power. Babeuf and his fellow-conspirators in 1795 were tried upon political charges and the economic character of their conspiracy remained in the back- ground. Babeuf was released from prison in October, 1795, and immediately set about to establish a communistic system. His news- paper, the Tribim du Peuple, began to attack the existing S}stem of ownership of property, and the capitalistic organization of industry. The Society of the Pantheon was organized to spread communistic principles, and lasted until 1796 when Babeuf was again arrested. Babeuf and his followers were too busy contending for their poli- tical principles to evolve a plan of a social system. The general principles of their plan were outlined in the Analysis of the Doctrine of Babeuf. Needs, not productive power, should determine the distribution of commodities. Babeuf's system, though communistic, was based upon the principles of modern scientific socialism. His belief that socialism was the only proper system justified revolution. Babeufism was the logical result of the principles of Rousseau, Robespierre and Saint Just. Babeuf's death in 1797 marked not only the disappearance of the last of the Jacobins, but that of the leader of revolutionary socialism as well. His movement was the logical predecessor of the revolutionary outbreak of 1830, and his doctrines were largely responsible for the later outbreak. The second paper, by Professor Edwin F. Gay of Harvard Uni- versity, led a discussion of " Some Recent Theories concerning the Stages of Economic Development." He reviewed the discussions of Roscher, Hildebrand, Knies, Marx, Rodbertus, Schmoller, and Biicher, but devoted most attention to Biicher's system, which has practically displaced all of the others. Biicher's system of economic stages is purely static in character, and takes no account of social forces. The system has not been fitted to the facts, but the facts to the system ; it cannot be applied either to European or to Ameri- can economic development. The scheme was developed with refer- ence to Germany, and does not fit other countries. Biicher's sepa- rable generalizations, however, correspond roughly to historical events. Miss Katharine Coman, professor in Wellesley College, criti- cized the existing theories of economic stages as being too narrow, and emphasized the view that any adequate exposition of the