Page:James Ramsay MacDonald - The Socialist Movement.pdf/233

Rh of the Chicago anarchists in 1885. But in 1897 a new chapter in American Socialism was opened with the founding of the "Social Democracy of America.” In 1901 this united with the majority of the Socialist Labour Party, it assimilated itself to the soil, and it is now the successful fighting force of American Socialism. Up to now it has been inspired mainly by intellectuals, but it is getting into closer and closer touch with the Trade Unions through the American Federation of Labour, and in a few years the alliance will be complete.

Two sections of this survey of the world's Socialist movement remain to be reviewed, the British movement and the International, and that will be done in the next chapter.

To trace the beginnings of the Socialist movement in Great Britain, one has to go very far back into the economic speculation and criticism which assailed the development of commercialism. These speculations and criticisms took two forms. That which has loomed largest in history is the utopian form of Owenism in its various aspects; that which is of most intellectual importance is the economic and juridical work of writers like