Page:The Economic Journal Volume 1.djvu/610

 588 THE ECONOMIC JOURNAL the Anarchists is entirely new. It does not seem to the present reviewer to be one of the nost satisfactory chapters in the book. The opening words, ' The latest offspring of revolutionary opinion - and the lnost misshapen--is Anarchism,' do not prepare the reader for a very sympathetic treatlnent of the subject; and, on the whole, the impression left on the reader's mind is that there is absolutely no raison d'ttre for the existence of such a party, and that' its specific doctrine is one which it is really difcult to get the most ordinary common sense puzzled into accepting.' The only part of the chapter which tends to mitigate this impression is that in which an account-- mainly taken from Stepniak is given of the Russian mir. When, however, Mr. Rae goes on to remark that ' the political philosophy of writers like Bakunin and Prince Krapotkin, who have propagated Anarchism in the West of Europe, is simply the naive suggestion that the form of government which answers not intolerably for the few trivial concerns of a primitive Russian village would answer best for the whole complex business of a great developed modern society,' he seems to forget that if the Anarchist ideal were carried out, a very considerable part of the complex business of a great developed modern society would necessarily cease to exist. It is a pity that Mr. William Morris's Necs from Nowhere came out too late to receive notice in this connection. The chaptel' which follows--on Russian Nihilism is not entirely new, but has been to a great extent re-written. It is one of the most interesting chapters in the volume; but the details with which it is concerned do not seem to demand any special remark. The only other chapter that has any special lovelty is that on ' State Socialism.' It may be remembered that in the Preface to the first edition Mr. Rae stated that he had not'thought it necessals' to bestow any separate treatment on what is called State Socialisn; because that is either a mere general expression for any undue exten- sion of the power of the State for the amelioration of the labouring classes, or it is the specific name of a party in Germany whose pro- gramme is just the ordinary Socialist programme of nationalizing land and the instruments of production, but who seek to carry it out gradually by means of the existing State .... instead of doing so all at once by means of the Social Democratic Republic.' But the recent progress of Socialistic speculation and action has rendered this omission no longer possible. ' The Socialistic controversy of the immediate future will evidently be fought along the lines of State Socialism.' Hence Mr. Rae is led to devote a long chapter to the discussion of this aspect of the subject. There can be no doubt that many readers will find this chapter much the most interesting in the volume; but it is too long to be dealt with here. One of the nost striking passages in it is his defence of the classical English economists from the charge of pure individualism, which is so often brought against them by German and other writers. I think he is successful in showing that this individ-