Page:American Journal of Sociology Volume 15.djvu/296

 282 THE AMERICAN JOURNAL OF SOCIOLOGY

of history, the quintessence of all previous experience in relation to social continuity and causality, in relation to social sequence and coexistence, and, to essential social co-ordination and succession. Sociology is the science of the social forces, of statics and dynamics, of latent possibilities of development as well as the science for social understanding ; while history has only to do with the line of development of historic facts. Sociology has more than the right of existence. It is necessary that we have the results of this centralired, systematically rearranged, exactly consolidated science. Sociology is also the science of social values. Anthropology, economics, and the like are twigs of sociology, which in turn is more than social psychology, or the philosophy of history. The sociological conception of history breaks with both the implicit passivity of the idealistic, and the fatalism of the materialistic conception of history. It will lead us to an active world-conception and will make history the great schoolmaster that it should be for all time to mankind. — Rudolf Gold- scheid, Annalen der Naturphilosophie, July, 1908. L. W.

The Present Position of Social Legislation in England. — Without im- plying the acceptance of complete socialism, progress will, for some time to come have to take a socializing direction. Those great services which are necessarily of a local and monopolistic character have been taken over by the municipalities. Old age pensions are provided, hours of adult workers in mines are regulated, etc. Two new and enormous undertakings, the provision of work for the unemployed, and the regulation of wages, are being urged upon the state. A state of affairs in which, as soon as it pays an employer to drop a man, he will be taken care of by the state until it suits an employer to engage him again, will facilitate the alternate expansion and contraction of the labor force, and will remove some of the existing obstacles of ruthless competition. Where the government is the indirect employer a minimum wage ought to be insisted upon for all labors, as is the policy of municipalities and co-operative wholesale societies. There is immediate need of new modern machinery of state control. — W. J. Ashley, Economic Review, October, 1908. L. W.

The Class Struggle of Today. — In the midst of vast natural resources, with plenty of machinery of production and transportation, and with millions of workers willing to work for the welfare of their country, multitudes are idle and therefore forced to live in constant privation. The mighty magnates of industry who control the machinery of production selfishly, propose to crush organized labor, to decrease the wages of the masses, to deprive the workers of economic and social rights. The progressive workers are becoming class- conscious and though misinterpreted by a reactionary press, and harrassed by the policeman, they propose to enter the political field, under the red banner of the brotherhood of man, so as to secure the social ownership of the means of life. Economic evolution brought about industrial concentration and caused the appearance of classes in the human family. It will also inaugurate industrial co-operation and eliminate class distinction. The class struggle is on. A new social order is being born in our national life. Economic forces, reason, and justice force it to the front. — Saul Beaumont, The Arena, November, 1908.

L. W.

Socialist Ideals. — Though socialism has been called materialistic, it is really the most idealistic movement of the centuries. We are living under an industrial absolutism where the masters of the machine may cut off at will the means of life of millions. Socialism proposes to put industry in control of the people so that they may be freed from the tribute of profit to the vested interests. Then, there will be opportunities for productive labor, for education, for home and family life, for freedom of action which shall make the making of a living a simple, easy thing, possible to all ; and beyond this lies the great hope of being able to live, to really live. When the bread-and-butter problem is settled, and all men, women, and children are rendered secure from dread of war and fear of want, then the mind and soul will be free to develop as they never were before. — E. V. Debs, The Arena, November, 1908. L. W.