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 210 SOCIALISM success would have been greater. Above all, Owen had too great faith in human nature, and he did not understand the laws of social evolution. His great doctrine of the influence of circumstances in the formation of character was only a very crude way of expressing the law of social continuity so much emphasized by recent socialism. He thought that he could break the chain of continuity, and as by magic create a new set of circumstances, which would forthwith produce a new generation of rational and unselfish men. The time was too strong for him, and the current of English history swept past him. Even a very brief account of Owen, however, would be incomplete without indicating his relation to Malthus. Against Mal- thus he showed that the wealth of the country had, in con- sequence of mechanical improyement, increased out of all proportion to the population. The problem, therefore, was not to restrict population, but to institute rational social arrangements and to secure a fair distribution of wealth. Whenever the number of inhabitants in any of his communities increased beyond the maximum, new ones should be created, until they extended over the whole world, uniting all in one great republic with one interest. There would be no fear of over-population for a long time to come. Its evils were then felt in Ireland and other coun- tries ; but that condition of things was owing to the total want of the most ordinary common sense on the part of the blinded authorities of the world. The period would prob- ably never arrive when the earth would be full ; but if it should the human race will be good, intelligent, and rational, and would know much better than the present irrational generation how to provide for the occurrence. Such was Owen's socialist treatment of the population problem. In England the reform of 1832 had the same effect as the revolution of July (1830) in France: it brought the middle class into power, and by the exclusion of the work- men emphasized their existence as a separate class. The Chartism, discontent of the workmen now found expression in Chart- ism. As is obvious from the contents of the charter, Chartism was most prominently a demand for political reform ; but both in its origin and in its ultimate aim the movement was more essentially economic. As regards the study of socialism, the interest of this movement lies greatly in the fact that in its organs the doctrine of "sur- plus value " afterwards elaborated by Marx as the basis of his system is broadly and emphatically enunciated. While the worker produces all the wealth, he is obliged to con- tent himself with the meagre share necessary to support his existence and the surplus goes to the capitalist, who, with the king, the priests, lords, esquires, and gentlemen, lives upon the labour of the working man (Pom' Man's Guardian, 1835). Christian After the downfall of Owenism began the Christian ^jism socialist movement in England (1848-52), of which the land" 8 ' l eac l ers were Maurice, Kingsley, and Mr Ludlow. The abortive Chartist demonstration of April 1848 excited in Maurice and his friends the deepest sympathy with the sufferings of the English working class, a feeling which was intensified by the revelations regarding " London Labour and the London Poor " published in the Morning Chronicle (1849). Mr Ludlow, who had in France become acquainted with the theories of Fourier, was the economist of the movement, and it was with him that the idea originated of starting co-operative associations. In Politics for the People, in the Christian Socialist, in the pulpit and on the platform, and in Yeast and Alton Locke, well-known novels of Kingsley, the representatives of the movement exposed the evils of the competitive system, carried on an unsparing warfare against the Manchester school, and maintained that socialism rightly understood was only Christianity applied to social reform. Their labours in insisting on ethical and spiritual principles as the true bonds of society, in promoting associations, and in diffusing a knowledge of co-operation were largely beneficial. In the north of England they joined hands with the co-operative movement inaugurated by the Rochdale pioneers (1844) under the influence of Owenism. Productive co-operation made very little progress, but co-operative distribution has proved a great success. In 1852 the twofold socialist movement in France and England had come to a close, leaving no visible result of any importance. From that date the most prominent leaders of socialism have been German and Russian. To reach the beginnings of German socialism we must go back a little, as it took its rise in the years preceding the revolu- tion of 1848. Its most conspicuous chiefs are Karl Marx, Karl Friedrich Engels, Lassalle, and Rodbertus (for the last Mar x two, see LASSALLE and RODBERTUS). The greatest and most influential of the four was unquestionably Marx, who and his like-minded companion Engels are the acknow- ledged heads of the " scientific and revolutionary " school of socialism, which has its representatives in almost every country of the civilized world, and is generally recognized as the most serious and formidable form of socialism. Karl Marx (1818-1883) was of Jewish extraction. He was born at Treves, and studied at Berlin and Bonn, but neglected the speciality of law, which he nominally adopted, for the more congenial subjects of philosophy and history. He was a zealous student and apparently an adherent of Hegelianism, but soon gave up his intention of following an academic career as a teacher of philosophy and joined the staff of the Rhenish Gazette, published at Cologne as an organ of the extreme democracy. In 1843, after marry ing the sister of the Prussian minister Von Westfalen, he removed to Paris, where he applied himself to the study of economic and social questions and began to publish those youthful writings which must be reckoned among the most powerful expositions of the early form of German socialism. With Arnold Ruge he edited the Deutsch- Franzdsische Jahrbucher. In 1845 he was expelled from Paris and settled in Brussels, where he published his Discours sur le Libre fichange, and his criticism of Proudhon's Philosophic de la Misere, entitled Misere de la Philosophic. In Paris he had already met Friedrich Engels, who was destined to be his lifelong and loyal friend and companion-in-arms, and who in 1845 published his important work Die Lage der arbeitenden Klasse in England, The two friends found that they had arrived at a complete identity of opinion ; and an opportunity soon occurred for an emphatic expres- sion of their common views. A society of socialists, a kind of forerunner of the International, had established itself in London, and had been attracted by the new theories of Marx and the spirit of strong and uncompromising convic- tion with which he advocated them. They entered into re- lation with Marx and Engels ; the society was reorganized under the name of the Communist League ; and a congress was held, which resulted (1847) in the framing of the Mani- festo of tlie Communist Party, which was published in most of the languages of western Europe, and is the first proclamation of that revolutionary socialism armed with all the learning of the 19th century, but expressed with the fire and energy of the agitator, which in the Interna- tional and other movements has so startled the world. During the revolutionary troubles of 1848 Marx returned to Germany, and along with his comrades Engels, Wolff, &c., he supported the most advanced democracy in the New Rhenish Gazette. In 1849 he settled in London, where till his death in 1883 he applied himself to the elaboration of his economic views and to the realization of his revolutionary programme. During this period he published Zur Kritik der politischen Oekonomie (1859),