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 NOTF.S AND ABSTRACTS 565

end to the exploitation of man by man, and of substituting for it the exploitation of nature by man in association with man. The problem is how to raise the estate of man organically, and all together. The junction of the socialistic with the democratic idea gives to the modern solution its point and character. Equality of opportunity, equal- ity of consideration, equality of freedom are the watchwords of democracy and of socialism alike. Socialism, however, contends that democracy remains an illusion so long as a large section of society is dependent on, or controlled by, another. Servi- tude is felt in proportion as the workman has no interest in his work except his wages; for this means that he is used directly for another's ends, and only incidentally for his own. Socialism arises from the perception that our economic arrangements are in contradiction with our social and political theories ; and it aims to adjust the discrep- ancy by making the members of the community less and less dependent for their means of life upon the private ownership of the implements of industry. The movements for the "minimum wage," "cooperative stores," "collective ownership," "state control," etc., are all embodiments, necessarily more or less crude at first, of this one ideal of democracy in industry.

5. Not a little of the theory and practice of socialists, then, whether of the chair or of the street, requires a certain readjustment of view. No one social program is a panacea. Far from it ; the multitude of half-considered programs and mere clamors for reform make the confusion worse confounded. What is wanted is a positive analy- sis of our industrial organization as it actually works. For all of us — either as con- sumer (fundamentally), or as employer, or as workman — are ignorantly affecting the social structure at every moment. Socialism must welcome all research and all earnest democratic endeavorers within its ranks ; for, based on the above ideas, it is just the one creed that cannot afford to be sectarian or exclusive. — Sidney Ball, " The Social- ist Ideal," in Kconomic Review, October 16, 1899.

Selection of Elements of Social Organism. — Investigation of the succes- sive stages of the social development of a given people reveals the existence of certain fundamental characteristics which persist from stage to stage, and which may be con- ceived as together constituting the ethnic character. A constant struggle, resulting from their nature, goes on among the factors of this ethnic character, and upon the issue of this struggle at a given time depends the nature of the social organism at that time and the probable value of any change it may be proposed to make in that organ- ism ; for it may be safely assumed that the evolution of the social organism proceeds in conformity to that of the ethnic character, and that the question as to whether this or that particular development of the social organism will be beneficial or otherwise ilepends solely upon whether it is such as will harmonize with the ethnic character of its day. Thus the primary struggle among the factors of the ethnic character gives rise to a secondary struggle among the different forms of the social organism, and the result of the primary struggle is all-significant for the result of the secondary struggle. A reform not in harmony with the ethnic character of its time must be, from the stand- point of that character, bad ; it will be either Utopian or revolutionary; it will either fail utterly to affect the social life of its time in an enduring manner, or else it will affect it in a manner harmful both to the existing social life and to the new social life by which it is hoped to supplant the old. The lines of social heredity may not be broken with impunity. The new must have regard to the character of the old — must be, in great degree, but the vehicle of the old. The institutions of a given time are not fortui- tously created ; they exist as survivals from a long period of struggle ; they exist because they are the most fitting up to their time; they can be replaced only by others which will be still further adapted to the genius of the ethnic character ; and this adaptation can come only through further struggle. Progress is not controlled by human will ; it is primarily determined by the struggle, inter se, of the factors of the ethnic character. A secondary struggle then ensues by which is determined which one of many possible developments of the social organism is best adapted to this ethnic character. Thus survival through selective struggle becomes the law of progress in the social life.— N. Mihaesco, "The Selection of the Elements of the Social Organ- ism," in Revue internationale de sociologie, August-September, 1899.