Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 22.djvu/225

 SOCIALISM 209 spicuous feature of Louis Blanc's teaching was that he demanded the democratic organization of the state as pre- paratory to social reorganization. His system, therefore, had a positive and practical basis, in so far as it allied itself to a dominant tendency in the existing state. Louis Blanc was an eminent journalist, born at Madrid, where his father had a high post on the finances of King Joseph. His celebrated work on socialism, Organisation du Travail, exerted a very large influence on the thought of France. The formula of progress, says Louis Blanc, is double in its unity, moral and material amelioration of the lot of all by the free co-operation of all and their fraternal associa- tion. He saw, however, that the great end of social re- form could not be attained without political reform. It was not enough to discover the true methods for inaugurat- ing the principle of association and the organization of labour according to the rules of reason, justice, and human- ity. It was necessary to have political power on the side of social reform, political power resting on the chambers, on the tribunals, and on the army ; not to take it as an in- strument was to meet it as an obstacle. For these reasons he wished to see the state constituted on a thoroughly democratic basis as the first condition of success. He demanded that the state thus reformed should establish associations, which he called social workshops, for co-opera- tive production. The money should be provided by the state, which also should draw up the rules. The state should appoint the functionaries for the first year. After that the workmen should elect their own managers. "Though the false and anti-social education given to the present generation makes it difficult to find any other motive of emulation and encouragement than a higher salary, the wages will be equal, as the ideas and character of men will be changed by an absolutely new education." Louis Blanc hoped that private firms would not be able to exist under the competition of such associa- tions, and that the latter would in time absorb all the production of the country. Notwithstanding the influence exerted by Louis Blanc and the working men's party in the provisional Government of 1848, it cannot be said that his plans obtained a fair hearing or a fair trial. His schemes were certainly not carried out in the national workshops of that year. These were really a travesty of Louis Blanc's proposals, instituted expressly to discredit them. They were simply means of finding work for a motley proletariat thrown out of employment during the period of revolutionary disturbance ; and these men were put to unproductive work, whereas of course Louis Blanc contemplated nothing but productive work, and the men he proposed to invite to join his associations were to give guarantees of character. The months following the re- volution of February were, moreover, a period of industrial stagnation and insecurity, when any new project of trade, either on the old or new lines, had very little prospect of success. This remark applies largely also to the private associations for co-operative production subsidized by the republican Government. These were more closely akin to the plans of Louis Blanc ; but to them also the times were unfavourable, and the help given them was both scanty and injudicious. As one of the leaders during this diffi- cult crisis Louis Blanc had neither personal force nor enduring political influence 'sufficient to secure any con- siderable success for his cause. He was an amiable and genial enthusiast, but without weight enough to be a con- troller of men on a wide scale. The labour conferences at the Luxembourg, over which he presided, ended also as his opponents desired, without any tangible result. The proletariat at Paris, incensed at the closing of the national workshops, rose in armed insurrection, which was over- thrown by Cavaignac in the sanguinary days of June (see CAVAIGNAC). Louis Blanc was in no way implicated in the revolt, but he found it necessary to go into exile in England. With the bloodshed of the days of June French socialism ceased for a time to be a considerable force. Socialism in the true acceptation of the word was indeed only partially responsible for the insurrection. It was a rising of a proletariat not particularly versed in theories of social reconstruction, but deeply incensed at the re- actionary measures of their rulers. Inasmuch, however, as it destroyed the most enterprising leaders of the work- men and quelled the spirit of the remainder, it thoroughly repressed the tendency to innovation amongst them for a long time to come, while the false prosperity of the second empire removed their most crying grievances. Under Napoleon III. there was consequently comparative quiet- ness in France. Even the International had very little influence on French soil, though French working men had an important share in starting it. Compared with the parallel movement in France the England, early socialism of England had an uneventful history (see Owen. OWEN). In order to appreciate the significance of Owen's work it is necessary to recall some of the more important features of the social condition of the country in his time. The English worker had no fixed interest in the soil. He had no voice either in local or national government. He had little education or none at all. His dwelling was wretched in the extreme. The right even of combination was denied him till 1824. The wages of the agricultural labourer were miserably low. The workman's share in the benefits of the industrial revolution was doubtful. Great numbers of his class were reduced to utter poverty and ruin by the great changes consequent on the introduction of improved machinery; the tendency to readjustment was slow and continually disturbed by fresh change. The hours of work were mercilessly long. He had to compete against the labour of women, and of children brought fre- quently at the age of five or six from the workhouses. These children had to work the same long hours as the adults, and they were sometimes strapped by the over- seers till the blood came. Destitute as they so often were of parental protection and oversight, with both sexes huddled together under immoral and insanitary conditions, it was only natural that they should fall into the worst habits, and that their offspring should to such a lament- able degree be vicious, improvident, and physically de- generate. In a country where the labourers had neither education nor political or social rights, and where the peasantry were practically landless serfs, the old English poor-law was only a doubtful part of an evil system. All these permanent causes of mischief were aggravated by special causes connected with the cessation of the Napole- onic wars, which are well known. It was in such circum- stances, when English pauperism had become a grave national question, that Owen first brought forward his scheme of socialism (1817). In his communities, which were intended to be self-dependent units, Owen sought to provide the best education and the constant exercise of unselfish intelligence, to unite the advantages of town and country, and to correct the monotonous activity of the factory with the greatest variety of occupation, while utilizing all the latest improvements in industrial technique. The causes of Owen's failure in establishing his communi- ties are obvious enough. Apart from the difficulties in- herent in socialism, he injured the social cause by going out of his way to attack the historic religions and the accepted views on marriage, by his quixotry and tediousness, by refusing to see that for the mass of men measures of transition from an old to a new system must be adopted. If he had been truer to his earlier methods and retained the autocratic guidance of his experiments, the chances of XXII. 27