Page:American Journal of Sociology Volume 5.djvu/418

 REVIEWS.

The Psychology of Socialism. By Gustave Le Bon. New York : The Macmillan Co., 1899.

Those who are familiar with the author's earlier works, The Psy- chology of Peoples and The Crowd, will find little that is new in his latest effort. He belongs to the group of Frenchmen who almost despair of their national and racial civilization, and find in the individualism of the Anglo-Saxon the only healthful and promising force for the future of society. The moral of the present work is that socialism is the legitimate working out of the weakness of the Latin society and can be combated successfully only from the standpoint of Anglo-Saxon individualism. Socialism is defined through the elements which are common, according to M. Le Bon, to all theories :

All would invariably have recourse to the state to repair the injustice of destiny, and to proceed to the redistribution of wealth. Their fundamental propositions have at least the merit of extreme simplicity: confiscation by the state of capital, mines, and property, and the administration and redistri- bution of the public wealth by an immense army of functionaries. The state, or the community, if you will — for the coUecti vists now no longer use the word state — would manufacture everything, and permit no competition. The least signs of initiative, individual liberty, or competition would be suppressed. The country would be nothing else than an immense monastery subjected to strict discipline. The inheritance of property being abolished, no accumula- tion of fortune would be possible. (P. 28.)

Under various rubrics the author shows that all these tendencies are inherent in the Latin nature. The modern Latin is quick of intelligence, spontaneous, but weak of will ; capable of sudden outbursts of energy, but incapable of long-continued expenditures toward distant goals, unless indeed he be under the guidance of some overpowering leader, under which the Latins may accomplish, as they have, the greatest achievements. He feels his weakness and constantly looks for control to the state. The state constantly increases its surveillance, until, if we may believe the author, private enterprise in industry and commerce is almost rooted out in France. Constantly increasing governmental control chokes out the individual effort which is found in England,

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