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Orthodox Socialism, by James Edward Le Rossignol. New York: Thos. Y. Crowell & Co. Cloth, 147pp., $1.00.

Here is a book that is certainly worthy of more attention than the majority of the criticisms of Socialism. The author at least has read the standard writings of Socialists, sufficiently to enable him to use the phrases, although the reader will sometimes wonder if he really grasped the meaning.

He makes much pretense of fairness, yet opens his work with a chapter on "The Creed of Socialism," a covert sneer, and then after asking "If Socialism is a Science, how is it that socialists display so little of that openness of mind, that love for truth, that indifference to contradiction, that sublime patience so characteristic of the true scientific spirit?" He then shows his own true scientific spirit in the next sentence by declaring, without proof, "In fact, Socialism is not a science at all, but a faith, a religion."

He sets out nine articles which he declares are held by the socialists, and while most of these are stated correctly although generally with a bias, more or less distorted, we are somewhat surprised to see that the "iron law of wages" is a part of the Marxian doctrine. He takes up the various fundamental propositions of Socialism and ends by pretending to refute them. On "the labor cost theory of value" he repeats all the long, out-worn objections and insists on confusing prices with value and making it appear that Marx held that the price of everything was fixed by the amount of labor embodied in it.

His chapter on the "iron law of wages" may be passed over, since this is not held by the socialists and certainly not by Marx, who emphatically pointed out that wages could be raised by the associated effort of the workers.

In his description of surplus value, he falls into a most ridiculous error. He says, "A grain dealer buys the crop at 75c a bushel, which he presently sells in a neighboring city for 80c a bushel, thus making a profit of $50.00 upon the transaction. At this point Karl Marx discovered robbery and exploitation." While it is undoubtedly true that some socialists have overworked the idea that the laborer is exploited only in production, it is most certainly true that Marx never claimed that surplus value was produced in any such act of exchange as is here described.

In his reply to the claim that the capitalists are parasitic, he brings forth the old, old argument that some laborers own capital and some capitalists do work, and then justifies interest by saying that it is payment for the use of something. No one denies this, but if a man takes my watch from me and then charges me for using it, it is hardly a justification to say that I get the use of the watch.

The ownership of capital gives the power to extort a return for its use by those who created it, and there is no reason why this property should not be owned co-operatively and used co-operatively and the returns from it enjoyed co-operatively.

His chapter on industrial crises is especially interesting just now since he goes on to show that crises are being eliminated in our present society. He makes a few weak criticisms of the economic interpretation of history, granting its importance but seeking to belittle it with objections, all of which have often been presented and discussed before.

He quotes with approval the statement of Seligman. "There is nothing in common between the economic interpretation of history and the doctrine of surplus value, except the accidental fact that the

originator of both theories happened to be the same man." This argument has been so often destroyed that one is somewhat surprised to see its reproduction by a man as familiar with socialist literature as Prof. Le Rossignol would seem to be. Very properly for one who is fighting socialism, he spends most of his time over the class struggle. Here he repeats the Bernsteinian argument to show that the miseries of the working class are decreasing. This argument rests partly on a misstatement of a socialist position and partly on a misstatement of the fact. No one who has studied the East End of London, the East Side of New York, or the slum section of any of the older cities will deny that there is an ever increasing degradation such as it is doubtful if the world has ever seen.

On the other hand, the socialists all agree that a portion of the working class have fought and secured conditions for themselves better than what were enjoyed by previous generations, and it is upon this fact that socialists depend for a victorious outcome of the class struggle.

His supposition that "the higher paid laborers will necessarily be conservative" is contrary to facts, since the socialist organizations in every country are composed of just these workers. It is the diamond workers of Amsterdam, who are at once the most highly paid, the best organized and most thoroughly socialistic of any workers in Europe and it was most strikingly brought out when a number of voluntary workers were called for to assist in installing the printing plant of the Chicago Daily Socialist, that it was the most effective and best paid workers who were to be found in the socialist locals. He denies the coming of a social revolution, but would substitute instead a scheme of social reform. When it comes to guessing about the future, he is beyond possibility of absolute refutation. Socialists can only point to the fact that their predictions have been fulfilled, while those of professional economists have generally proved false, and claim this assures a probability that the same may hold true in the future. On the whole, the book is a good one to sharpen socialist wits, and it would be a good idea if every socialist speaker would read it and be prepared to answer it before starting out.

PUBLISHERS' DEPARTMENT

NEW BOOKS AND NEW EDITIONS.

Marxian Economics, by Ernest Untermann, long announced and eagerly awaited, was published about the middle of November, and is already delighting hundreds of readers. We shall have to revise all our "first courses" in socialism and lists of small libraries for popular circulation now, for this new book by Ernest Untermann belongs near the beginning of every course and in every socialist library however small. He undertook a work of tremendous difficulty in attempting to give in simple, popular language a statement in one moderate sized volume of the principles established by Marx in all three large volumes of "Capital." And as fast as the comrades read this book, they will readily forgive the author for not finishing it on schedule time.

After a Foreword of twelve pages in which his view-point is clearly explained, the author follows a historical arrangement, as shown by the following table of contents:

I. What is Capital?

II. Labor and Capital.

III. Animal and Human Societies.

IV. Biological and Economic Division of Labor.

V. Societies Without Capital.

VI. The Rise of Commerce.

VII. Commodities and Money.

VIII. The Development of Merchants' Capital.
IX. Merchants' Capital in Phenicia and Greece.
X. Merchants' Capital in Rome.

XI. Merchants' Capital Under Feudalism.
XII. The Rise of Industrial Capitalism.
XIII. From Ancient to Classic Economics.
XIV. The Marxian Theory of Value.

XV. The Marxian Theory of Surplus Value. XVI. Merchants' Capital Under Capitalism. XVII. Ground Rent.

XVIII. Profit, Interest and Rent Under Capitalist Competition. XIX. The Drift of Industrial Capitalism.

XX. Closing Remarks.

This is one of the very few books that we can commend both to the beginner and the advanced student. A careful reader with scarcely any previous knowledge of socialism can enjoy the book and get much out of it, while even the most advanced students will find it suggestive in a high degree. Cloth, $1.00.

When Things Were Doing, by C. A. Steere, is just ready. It is a story of the coming revolution, and in our opinion the most satisfactory book of the kind yet written by an American author. We are constantly asked how it would be possible for socialists to run the industries of the United States if they should get control of them. Just how these things will be done no one knows nor can know, but how they might be done is told in a delightful fashion in this story. It is just the book to give any new inquirer except the few who take orthodox theology seriously. (These will be better suited with McGrady's "Beyond the Black Ocean, cloth, $1.00, paper, 50c.) "When Things Were Doing" is published in cloth only at $1.00, and it is handsomely bound, so as to make an attractive Christmas present.

The Republic, by N. P. Andresen, deals with some of the same questions, but in the form of a long dialogue on the present and future conditions of American society. It is a book to be recommended to new inquirers rather than to socialists, and to inquirers from professional, business and farming circles rather than to wageworkers. It will with these limitations be an admirable book for a Christmas gift. Cloth, $1.00. Now ready.

Anarchism and Socialism, by George Plechanoff, translated by Eleanor Marx Aveling, now ready, is one of the classics of socialism, and ought to have been published in this country long ago, but we have only lately been able to undertake it. The book is especially timely at this time, because the only serious criticism of the socialist party from a working-class point of view is from revolutionary trade unionists who told that no political action is necessary. Robert Rives La Monte has written an American introduction to the book, in which he points out its value for meeting this criticism, and for showing the historic failure of every revolutionary movement that cut itself off from the political activity of the working class. Cloth, 50c.

God And My Neighbor. This is at once the ablest and the most charming of the books by Robert Blatchford, author of "Merrie England." It has already run through several editions in this country and we know not how many in England, but it has never been offered in such attractive form as now. The new edition, just ready, is in the International Library of Social Science, of which this is the

18th volume. It is in green cloth, stamped in dark green ink, uniformly with the other volumes of the series.

This book by Blatchford is not a book on socialism but on religion. While the author is a socialist we do not offer it as a socialist book. We offer it as an able presentation, in charming literary style, of a clear thinker's views about the question of religion. If you are a Catholic or an orthodox Protestant, and do not wish to have your opinions criticised, let the book alone and it will not hurt you. If you take no interest whatever in the question of religion, let the book alone and it will not bore you. But if you have studied science more or less and are interested to learn how the newly discovered facts of modern science bear on the question of religion, you will find the book well worth a careful reading. And if you have been connected with some church that is making war on socialism you may be deeply interested in a calm and courteous examination of the church's claims to authority. Cloth. $1.00.

The Universal Kinship, by J. Howard Moore, the third edition of which has just been published in the International Library of Social Science, is one of the most delightful books on Evolution ever written, and makes the complicated subject interesting to thousands who would get no clear ideas from the books usually recommended. The book is enthusiastically praised by Mark Twain, Eugene V. Debs and Jack London, all of whom read it with intense delight. You will do the same if you send for it. Cloth, $1.00.

Love's Coming-of-Age, by Edward Carpenter, is another volume in the same series of which a new edition is just ready, and this book has run through so many editions that we may have lost count; we believe however that the present one is the seventh, and that seven thousand copies have now been printed in America, to say nothing of English editions. This is another charmingly written book. It deals with that delicate subject the sex question, and radically too, yet with such reserve and good taste that even Anthony Comstock has never questioned our right to send the book through the mails. Carpenter, as we have said before in other words, has the double qualifications needed by one who would write on this subject; he is a man of science and poet in one; otherwise he could not have written so clearly nor so sympathethically. Our sex ethics are already being profoundly modified by changing economic conditions, but those who are alarmed over this may be cheered by Carpenter's healthy optimism. Cloth, $1.00.

The American Esperanto Book, by Arthur Baker, of which two thousand copies were printed a few months ago, is now in its second edition, and the demand for the book is increasing. No wonder, for interest in the new language is growing, especially among socialists, and this manual by Baker is the most practical text-book of the

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