Page:American Journal of Sociology Volume 4.djvu/787

 NATIONAL-SOCIAL MOVEMENT IN GERMANY 7^7

policy are to be promoted by all means ; and by undiminished sup- port of its armed defense, by suitable increase of the German fleet, and by the enlargement of German colonies are to be pro- tected and supported. This growth of German industry, world commerce, and world power, this policy of power abroad, are on the other hand conditions of the possibility of organic social reforms at home. Social reforms for the benefit of the weaker members of the people are never possible in a state whose development has been arrested. Only as the state as a whole moves upward can its lower strata be elevated. And again, power abroad will be maintained permanently when the people and its parts and members, in themselves sound and strong, per- sistently advance.

In order to maintain such progress, and especially to render the lower classes of the population ever more capable of produc- tion, a consistent social reform is likewise necessary. And there- fore to the policy of foreign power is connected, as the second fundamental principle, the policy of social reform at home.

How, then, shall this social reform, according to the view of the National Socialists, be carried out ? They have on this point placed the following general statement in the fourth paragraph of their program :

We desire an increase of the share which labor, in its different kinds and forms, in city and country, among men and women, enjoys of the total pro- duction of German industry; and we expect this, not from the Utopias and dogmas of a revolutionary communism of the Marxist type, but from con- tinued political, trades-union, and associated effort, upon the basis of existing relations, whose historical development we wish to influence to the benefit of labor.

From this are deduced the following general ideas : The National Socialists plant themselves on the firm ground of the economical reality of the present, from the moderation born of knowledge. This reality, however, is determined by the eco- nomical principle of the free play of forces, the well-known Manchester doctrine. The National Socialists by no means deny the immense economic, social, and political advance which has been gained since this principle has been accepted. But