Page:The International Socialist Review (1900-1918), Vol. 1, Issue 1.pdf/29



Karl Marx, when he comes to discuss the subject of money, shows himself to be a victim of his own philosophy. He was a product of his environment—of the conditions and circumstances under which he lived. Living under an imperfect system of bimetallism, seeing that something was out of gear, and not being able to discover what was wrong, as did Sir Isaac Newton (see "The Silver Pound," by Horton, pp. 91 and 264), he concludes that under bimetallism it is always the predominating metal alone which forms the standard of value. A great many other good men whose names sound authoritative were deceived in the same way. It was not till bimetallism had been destroyed by stopping the free coinage of silver that men's eyes were opened. They then found themselves in a condition similar to that of the Frenchman who had been speaking prose all his life and did not know what prose was. Marx and his contemporaries lived under bimetallism all their lives, and only after this was destroyed were such of them as lived long enough enabled to see that even under imperfect bimetallism one metal alone is not the standard of value.

The weight of Marx's name has carried the whole socialist party off its feet. Engels, Kautsky, Hyndman, Bax, Morris, all swallow Marx's money theories as a material and indipensableindispensable [sic] part of his economic teachings. In America comrades Gronlund, Bersford, Vail, Ladoff, Saxon, Jackson and others keep us well supplied with pamphlets and articles showing the fallacy of a fifty-cent dollar and the necessity of intrinsic value money.

The Socialist Labor Party, in its platform of 1896, declared in favor of government money. In its platform of 1900 it omitted all so-called immediate demands. The Social Democratic Party, in its platform of 1900, speaks of gold mines and public credit, but evades taking any definite stand on the subject of money.

It may be that it is inopportune at the present time, full of so many other troubles, to stir up the money question among socialists; we ourselves have thought so, and were willing to wait a while. It will stir up a good deal of bad blood. Billingsgate will flow freely where arguments are lacking. We know what to expect. We shall be looked upon, by our comrades, if not openly so called, as a silver-plated socialist, a repudiator and an inflationist in the pay of silver mine owners. But we are used to that. We will cheerfully stand the billingsgate if the editor of the International Socialist Review will bear the responsibility of allow-