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Karl Kautsky

The Social Revolution

Volume I

The Social Revolution

(Part 2)

The Softening Of Class Antagonisms

Let us turn next to the first objection that the social antagonism between bourgeoisie and proletariat is diminishing. I do not here refer to the question of industrial crises whose amelioration was claimed a few years ago. This idea has been so energetically confuted since then by notorious facts that I only need to refer to it here without attempting to enter upon a discussion which would lead us too far away. I do not wish either to make any further contribution to the debate over the already over-discussed, so-called theory of increasing misery, which, with a sort of cleverness, when one desires, can be endlessly spun out and which with us has more and more tended to, turn on the definition of the word “misery” than on the determination of definite facts. Socialists are all agreed that the capitalist manner of production when unhindered has as a result an increase of physical misery. They are also agreed that in present society the organization of the laboring class and the capture of governmental powers has attained a height where it is able to somewhat ameliorate this misery. Finally they are agreed that the emancipation of the laboring class is not to be expected from its increasing demoralization, but from its increasing strength.

The question of the antagonism between the bourgeoisie and proletariat is a wholly different one. It is primarily a question of increasing exploitation.

That this does increase Marx proved a generation ago, and to my mind no one has yet confuted him. Whoever denies the increasing exploitation of the proletariat must, first of all, set about a refutation of Marx’s Capital.

To be sure it will be at once replied that this is purely theory and that for us nothing is to be held as true and proven that we cannot grasp with the hands. We are not given economical laws, but only statistical figures. These are not so easily to be discovered for, as yet, no one has been pleased to set forth the amounts, not simply of the wages, but also of the profits in a statistical form, because of the fact that the fire-proof safes are a castle which even the cowardly and benevolent bourgeois will defend like a lion against every administrative attack.

Meanwhile, there are calculations upon the growth of wages and other incomes. One of these, the latest that I know of, is given herewith:

Year Total Annual

Wage Income Income Not Arising From Wages Subject to

Income Tax Not Subject to

Income Tax Million

Pounds

Sterling % Total

Social

Income Million

Pounds

Sterling % Total

Social

Income Million

Pounds

Sterling % Total

Social

Income 1860 392 47 376 45½ 64 7 2 / 3 1866 464 45 485 47 81 8 1870 486 44½ 521 48 85 7½ 1874 609 45½ 635 47½ 100 7½ 1877 591 43 652 47½ 130 9½ 1880 567 42 652 48½ 126 9½ 1883 609 42 2 / 3 696 49 122 8½ 1886 605 42 715 49½ 125 8½ 1891 699 43½ 782 48½ 130 8

Many observations can be offered against this presentation. It appears to me too optimistic and gives the appearance of a much greater increase in wages than actually exists. In the reckoning of the total wages the compiler took no notice of the unemployed and besides this he omitted to note a whole list of important variations inside of the laboring class which, if considered, would greatly change the result. As a statistician, to be sure, he undoubtedly has the right to do this, but these are just the factors that change things to the disadvantage of the laboring class. Such are, for example, the relation between male and female labor and between skilled and unskilled labor.

Of still greater consequence is the fact that the calculation confines itself to a few branches of labor, all of which, with the exception of the farm laborers, are extremely well organized economically. The author has then, without further consideration, concluded that the condition of the whole laboring class has risen at the same average rate as that of these organized laborers which, even in England, did not include at the highest calculation more than one-fifth of all laborers. So it is not without interest that we observe the changes in wages in each of these categories of labor:–

1860 1866 1870 1874 1877 1880 1883 1886 1891 Agricultural laborers 100 105 107 130 132 122 117 111 118 Building Trades 100 116 116 126 128 125 123 126 128 Cotton workers 100 125 125 148 148 136 145 155 175 Woolen workers 100 106 112 121 130 123 120 115 113 Iron workers 100 127 127 143 112 112 110 100 124 Machinists 100 108 110 124 123 120 127 120 120 Gas workers 100 115 120 125 128 128 130 130 140 Sailors 100 113 103 129 123 102 118 110 148 Miners 100 ? 100 150 115 100 115 100 150 Average 100 113 113 138 132 124 130 125 140

We see that the increase in wages of 40 per cent from 1860 to 1891 that Bowley calculates for the whole laboring class of England, does not even hold foe the whole aristocracy of labor. With the exception of the cotton workers who have not vainly been the conservatives of England and the model children of all dreamers of “social peace”, the average of 1891 was only exceeded by the gas workers, the sailors and the miners. The gas workers owe their increase, in part, at least, to politicians, for in the larger cities municipalization has brought many improvements. With the gas workers also considerations of competition and exploitation by private capital are of least importance. In part, also, the upward leap of 1891 as well as the sudden appearance of the “new Unionism” which gave rise to such far-reaching hopes has now run into the ground. More even than with the gas workers the rise of wages in 1891 for the sailors and miners appears wholly abnormal and temporary. With the miners the wages of 1888 were the same as those of 1860, but by 1891 they were 50 per cent higher. One cannot consider this as a secure advance. With the wood workers, the woolen workers and the laborers in the iron industry, the increase of wages since 1860 is far less. Bowley would also have us believe that the wages of the unorganized laborers of England had risen 40 per cent during the same time in which the well organized iron workers had only increased 25 per cent.

But let us take the table as it is. What does it really prove? Even by this extraordinarily optimistic presentation wages are becoming an ever smaller portion of the social income. From 1860 to 1874 the average rate of increase was 45 per cent; from 1877 to 1891 only 422/ 3 per cent. If we place in opposition to this, in lack of more reliable figures, the total of the income tax that did not arise from wages but from surplus values then in 1860 this would be eighty million dollars less than the sum of the wages. In 1891 the amount of surplus values exceeded the sum of wages by the significant sum of not less than four hundred million dollars.

This certainly signifies a considerable increase in exploitation. The rate of surplus value, that is to say, the rate of exploitation of the laborer, has accordingly risen during this time from 96 per cent to 112 per cent. Actually, even according to Bowley’s figures, exploitation has at least grown very fast among the best organized laborers. The exploitation of the masses of unorganized must have reached a much higher degree.

We do not lay any great stress upon these figures. But as far as they show anything, they speak for, not against, the claim of the increasing exploitation of labor power, that Marx has proven in another way, by examination of the laws of movements, the capitalist system of production, and which has not yet been disproved. To be sure, one can say: Granted that exploitation increases, but wages increase also, even if not to the same degree as surplus values. How then shall the laborer discover this increasing exploitation if it is not plainly evident, but is only to be discovered by painstaking investigation? The mass of the laborers do not study statistics or think about theories of value and profit.

This may be granted. But there is a way in which the increase of exploitation can be made perceptible to the laborers. In the same degree that the mass of profit rises, the standard of living of the bourgeoisie rises also. But the classes are not divided from one another by impenetrable walls. The rising standard of life of the upperclass oozes down through to those beneath and wakens in them new needs and demands to the satisfaction of which the slowly growing wage is by no means satisfactory. The bourgeoisie whine about the disappearance of modesty in the lower classes and about their increasing enviousness, and forget that the growing demands from below are only the reflex of the rising standard of life above, which furnishes the example and rouses the envy of the lower class.

That the capitalist standard of living grows faster than that of the proletariat is self-evident. The laborer’s dwelling has not been greatly improved in the last fifty years. But the dwelling places of the bourgeoisie are gorgeous in comparison with the average capitalist house of fifty years ago. The third-class railroad carriage of to-day and the one of fifty years ago differ but little in their interior equipments. But when we compare the first-class railroad carriage of the middle of the nineteenth century with the palace car of the modern train! I do not believe that the sailors in the Transatlantic ships are much better cared for to-day than fifty years ago, while the luxuries to be found in the salon of the modern passenger steamer would have been unheard of fifty years ago even in a royal pleasure yacht.

So much for the increasing exploitation of the proletariat. But is not this economic factor counterbalanced by the increasing political approach of the classes? Do not the bourgeoisie more and more recognize the laborer as their political and social equals?

There is no doubt that the proletariat is gaining rapidly in political and social respects.

If its rise in economic relations remains behind that of the bourgeoisie, this gives rise to a continually increasing enviousness and discontent. Perhaps the most striking phenomenon of the last fifty years is the rapid and unbroken rise of the proletariat in moral and intellectual relations.

Not many decades ago the proletariat was so low that there were even socialists that expected the worst results for culture from the conquest of the proletariat. In 1850 Rodbertus wrote:

“The most threatening danger at present is that we shall have a new barbarian invasion, this time coming from the interior of society itself to lay waste custom, civilization and wealth.”

At the same time Heinrich Heine declared that the future belonged to the communist.

“This confession, that the future belongs to the communist, I make in sorrow and greatest anxiety. This is in no way a delusion. In fact; it is only with fear and shuddering that I think of the epoch when these dark iconoclasts come to power; with their callous hands they will destroy all the marble statues of beauty, etc.”

Undeniably it has now become wholly different. It is not by the proletariat that modern civilization is threatened. It is those very communists who to-day constitute the safe refuge of art and science, for which they stand in the most decisive manner.

So it is that the fear is rapidly disappearing, which after the Paris Commune dominated the whole capitalist class; the fear that the conquering proletariat would come into our culture like the Vandals in their race migrations and on its ruins found a government of barbaric ascetics.

It is partially owing to the disappearance of this fear that sympathy with the proletariat and with socialism is on the increase among the bourgeois intellectuals.

Like the proletariat, class intelligence is a peculiarity of the capitalist system of production. I have already shown that this system makes such demands upon the ruling class that they have neither the interest nor the leisure to care for the business of government, or to cultivate art and science, as did the aristocracy of Athens or the clergy of the best days of the Catholic Church. The whole sphere of the higher intellectual activity, that was formerly a privilege of the ruling classes, is now left by these to paid laborers, and the number of these professional scholars, artists, engineers and functionaries is increasing rapidly.

Taken as a whole these constitute the so-called “intellectuals,” the “new middle class,” but they are distinguished from the old middle class above all by the lack of any especial class consciousness. Certain divisions of them have a peculiar caste consciousness, very often a blindness of caste, but the interests of each one of these divisions is too peculiar for any common class consciousness to develop. Its members unite with various classes and parties and furnish the intellectual fighters for each. One portion defends the interests of the ruling class for whom many of the intellectuals serve professionally. Others have championed the cause of the proletariat. The majority, however, have up to the present time remained entangled in the little bourgeois circles of thought. This is not alone because many of them sprung from this class, but also because their social position as “middle class” is like that of the small bourgeois, a midway position between the proletariat and the ruling class.

It is in these divisions of the intellectuals, as remarked above, that a continually increasing sympathy for the proletariat is evident. Because they have no especial class interest, and are most accessible through their professional, scientific point of view, they are easiest won for our party through scientific considerations. The theoretical bankruptcy of bourgeois economics, and the theoretical superiority of Socialism must become clear to them. Through this they must continually discover that the other social classes continuously strive to still further debase art and science. Many others are finally impressed by the fact of the irresistible advance of the Social Democracy, especially when they compare this with the continuous deterioration of Liberalism. So it is that friendship for labor becomes popular among the cultured classes, until there is scarcely a parlor in which one does not stumble over one or more “Socialists.”

If these circles of the cultured class were synonymous with the bourgeoisie, then to be sure we would have won the game, and a social revolution would be superfluous. With this class it is easy to discuss things, and from them a quiet gradual development will meet no forcible hindrance.

Unfortunately, however, they are only a portion of the bourgeoisie, though, to be sure, just those who speak and write in the name of the bourgeoisie, but not those who determine their acts. And men as well as classes must be judged, not by their words, but by their deeds.

It must also be remembered that it is the least effective fighters and least combative portion of the bourgeoisie in which sympathy for the proletariat is developing.

Heretofore, while socialism was branded among all cultured classes as criminal or insane, capitalist elements could only be brought into the Socialist movement by a complete break with the whole capitalist world. Whoever came into the Socialist movement at that time from the capitalist elements had need of great energy, revolutionary passion, and strong proletarian convictions. It was just this element which ordinarily constituted the most radical and revolutionary wing of the Socialist movement.

It is wholly different to-day, when Socialism has become a fad. It no longer demands any especial energy, and no break with capitalist society to assume the name of Socialist. It is no wonder then that more and more these new Socialists remain entangled in their previous manner of thought and feeling.

The fighting tactics of the intellectuals are at any rate wholly different from those of the proletariat. To wealth and power of arms the latter opposes its overwhelming numbers and its thorough organization. The intellectuals are an ever diminishing minority with no class organization whatever. Their only weapon is persuasion through speaking and writing; the battle with “intellectual weapons” and “moral superiority”, and these “parlor Socialists” would settle the proletarian class struggle also with these weapons. They declare themselves ready to grant the proletariat their moral support, but only on condition that it renounces the idea of the application of force, and this not simply where force is hopeless – there the proletariat has already renounced it – but also in those places where it is still full of possibilities. Accordingly they seek to throw discredit on the idea of revolution, and to represent it as a useless means. They seek to separate off a social reform wing from the revolutionary proletariat, and they thereby divide and weaken the proletariat.

Zip to the present time this is practically the only result of the beginnings of the conversion of the “Intellectuals” to Socialism.

At the side of this “new middle class” the old one, the small capitalist class, still vegetates. This portion of the middle class was at one time the back bone of the revolution; eager for battle and full of fight, they arose on slight provocation whenever the conditions were favorable, against every form of servitude and exploitation from above, against the tyranny of bureaucracy and militarism, against feudal and clerical privileges. They constituted the picked troops of the bourgeois democracy. at one time this class, like a portion of the “new middle class” at present, was very sympathetic towards the proletariat, co-operated with it, gave to it and received from it intellectual support and material strength. But old or new the present middle class is a very unreliable ally, and this just because of its intermediate position between the exploited and the exploiting classes. As Marx has already noted, the little capitalist is neither wholly proletarian, nor wholly bourgeois, and considers himself, according to the occasion, first one and then the other.

Out of this contradictory position there comes a division in the class of small property owners. One portion identifies itself with the proletariat, the other with its enemies.

The small industry is doomed to ruin, its ruin is now proceeding uninterruptedly. This shows itself but slowly in the actual diminution of the number of small industries, but rapidly in their demoralization. A portion of their owners are in absolute dependence upon capital, being nothing more than home and wage-workers, who labor for a master in their houses instead of in a factory. Others, especially small merchants and innkeepers, remain independent, but find their customers only in laboring circles, so that their existence is absolutely dependent upon the prosperity or adversity of the laboring classes. They have despaired of ever rising by their own exertions, they expect everything from above, and look only to the upper classes and the government for assistance. And as all progress threatens them they place themselves in opposition to all advance. Servility and dependence upon reaction make: them not simply the willing supporters, but the fanatical defenders of the monarchy, the church and the nobility. With all this they remain democratic, since it is only through democracy that they can exercise any political influence, and obtain the assistance of the public powers.

It is this division of the little property owners that is mainly responsible for the decadence of the bourgeois democracy. One of these divisions turns toward the proletarian Social Democracy; the other toward the reactionary democracy, where it appears under the most diverse colors as anti-semitism, nationalism, Christian democracy – factions of the conservative and central parties, but always with the same social content. This reactionary democracy has taken many of its ideas and arguments from the socialist thought, and many have therefore come to consider these as but beginnings which indicate an especial transition form from liberalism to socialism. The untenableness of this position is clear to-day. Socialism has no bitterer enemy than the reactionary democracy. If the socialists demand any advance in civilization, whether that advance be a direct benefit to proletarian class interests or not, the reactionary democracy is driven by its whole being to oppose it, even if it does not directly threaten the interests of the small property owner. Just as the Socialist party is the most progressive party, so the reactionary democracy is the most retrograde party, in that to the hatred of progress which they share with other reactionary parties they add the most gross ignorance of everything that takes place outside their narrow circle of thought. Another reason for this fact is that the little capitalists can maintain their position as exploiters only by the most inhuman torture of the weakest and most unresisting of the possessors of labor power – the women and children. As a consequence they are naturally the first opponents of the Socialists, when the latter seek by means of organization and compulsory legislation to abolish this brutal destruction of human life.

So it is that the class of small property owners, so far as it does not become Socialist, becomes, instead of an ally, or a conciliatory element midway between the proletariat and the ruling classes, a bitter enemy of the proletariat. In place of a softening of class antagonisms we see here the most harsh climax of class antagonism, and moreover a rapidly increasing one, for it is only within the last few years that it has become clearly noticeable.

What we have said of the class of small property owners applies with but few changes to the farming class. They are also divided into two camps, one the proletarian, composed of small farmers, and the other of capitalist proprietors. It is our task to accelerate this process of division, in order that we may make clear the overwhelming proletarian interests of the first class, and thereby lead them to socialism. The reactionary democracy in the country is as hostile to our existence as is the one in the cities even if this opposition is not always clearly recognized. Those comrades who look upon the agrarian confusion as only a transition state of the farmers from the old parties to the social democracy are as badly deceived as those who expect the same thing from the anti-semitism in the cities. The medium and large farmers hate the Socialists, just because they struggle to secure a shorter work-day and higher wages for the laborers, and thereby furnish the principal cause for the farm laborers moving to the city and leaving the farmer in the lurch.

In the country also the social antagonism between the possessors and the proletariat grows sharper.

This is even more true of the antagonism between the great land owners and the wage-worker than of that between the farmer and the wage-worker.

In the great agricultural industries the wage-worker plays a more important role than in ordinary farming. For the great farmer also, the high price of provisions is much more important than for the farmer who consumes a large portion of his product. The antagonism between the producer and consumer of provisions is, to be sure, not the same as between the laborer and exploiter, but rather like that between the city and country. But in the city the proletariat is to-day the most numerous and the most combative class and consequently the seller of provisions sees in the proletariat his most energetic enemy.

It is therefore no wonder that the great land owner looks at the industrial laborer to-day from a wholly different point of view from what he did. Formerly he was indifferent to the struggle between the industrial capitalist and his laborer and indeed he often followed them with malignant rejoicings at the predicament of the capitalists with which indeed there was often a certain sympathy for the proletariat. It was not the latter that then stood in his road, but rather the capitalist who demanded protection while he needed free trade, and who on the other hand saw in ground rents an invasion of his profits and who sought to take away from the land owners the monopoly of the higher places in the army and bureaucracy.

To-day things are wholly different. The day of the labor friends, such as the Tories and Junkers, of Disraeli, Rodbertus, Vogelsang, is long gone by. Like the class of little property owners and the class of medium and large farmers, the class of land owners is becoming more and more antagonistic to the laborers.

But the capitalist class? They are to-day the deciding class. Are they not at least like the “intellectuals” becoming more and more friendly to labor?

I regret to say that I can see no sign of this friendship.

Certainly the capitalist class also is changing. It does not remain always the same. But what are the most important changes that it has undergone in the last decade?

Upon the one side we find a diminution, indeed, in some places the complete abolition, by means of agreements, cartels and trusts, of the competition which the capitalists had formerly to meet in the individual branches of industry. On the other side me see the intensification of international competition through the rise of new capitalist powers, particularly Germany and the United States.

The agreements abolish competition among capitalists not only as opposed to the buyers of their products, but also as opposed to their laborers. Instead of numerous buyers of labor power they now stand as a unit opposed to the workers. How greatly this increases their superiority and how much it sharpens their antagonism to the laborers needs no further explanation.

According to the last census of the United States the wages of laborers in American industries have absolutely decreased during the ten years from 1890 to 1900. If this is correct it is not too much to say that it is one of the results of the trust.

The sharpening of international competition works in the same direction. Here also we find the laborers suffering together with the consumers from this development. Alongside of the increase in the price of goods through protective tariff, which also aid the formation of trusts and combines, we find an increased exploitation of the laborers by which the capitalists seek to meet foreign competition. The consequence of this is the intensification of their struggle against the fighting organizations of the laborers, both political and economic which stand in the way of such exploitation.

Here also we find not a softening but a sharpening of class antagonism.

A third force working in the same direction is the increasing amalgamation of industrial capital with money capital, or “high finance.” The industrial capitalist is a manager that possesses an industry in the sphere of production, taking this word in its widest sense (including transportation) in which he exploits salaried wage-workers and draws a profit from them. The money capitalist, on the contrary, is the modernized form of the ancient usurer. He draws his income from interest on the money which he loans, not only, as formerly, to indigent private individuals, but also to capitalist managers, institutions, States, etc.

Between the industrial capitalist and the money capitalist a great antagonism exists, similar to that between the first and the land owners. Interest on borrowed capital like ground rent constitutes a reduction from industrial profits. The interests of both forms of capital are here contradictory. Politically also they are in opposition. The great land owner stands to-day for a strong and preferably monarchical form of government because as a part of the nobility he can personally influence the monarch through them and through him the governmental power.

Furthermore he is a military this offers increased opportunities for offers, careers to which the sons of the bourgeois were little inclined. Again, he formerly demanded a forcible policy in both foreign and internal affairs. In this same way, the financier finds militarism and a strong active governmental policy, both external and internal, very agreeable. The kings of finance need not fear a strong governmental power, independent of people and Parliament, because they can rule such a power either directly as bondholders, or else through personal and social influences. In militarism, war and public debts they have a direct interest, not only as creditors, but also as government contractors, since the sphere of their influence, their exploitation, their power and their wealth is thereby increased.

It is wholly different with industrial capital. Militarism, war and public debts signify high taxes which the wealthy must assist in bearing, or else the cost of production is increased. War signifies besides this a stagnation in the production of commodities, a break in trade, economic difficulties and frequently ruin. Where the financier is rash, extravagant and violent the industrial manager is frugal, timid and peace-loving. A strong governmental power arouses anxiety in him and all the more because he cannot directly control it. His interests demand rather a strong parliament than a strong government. In opposition to the great land owner and to the financier, he inclines rather to liberalism, because its half-heartedness accords with his own position. His profits are limited upon the one side by ground rent, interest and taxes, and upon the other side an aspiring proletariat threatens the whole profit system. When the proletariat becomes too threatening, he prefers to adopt the peaceable method of “divide and govern,” of corruption, and of compromise by benevolent establishments, etc., rather than the method of forcible suppression. Where the proletariat has not yet entered the field of independent politics the industrial capitalist willingly serves it as bellwether in order to increase his own political power. To the little bourgeois Socialist the opposition between industrial capital and the proletariat appears less than that between profit upon the one side and ground rent and interest upon the other. For him the solution of the social question consists in the abolition of interest and ground rent.

The opposition between finance and industry continually decreases since with the progressive concentration of capital, finance ever more and more dominates industry. A powerful means to this end is the continuous replacement of private employers by stock companies. Well meaning optimists have seen in this a means of “democratizing” capital so that after a while, in the most peaceable manner without any one noticing it, capital would be transformed into social property. In fact, this movement really means the transformation of all the money of the middle and lower classes, which is not used by them for immediate consumption, into money capital and as such placing it at the disposal of the great financiers for the buying out of industrial managers and thereby assisting in the concentration of industry in the hands of a few financiers. Without the system of stocks the great financiers would only control those businesses which they have bought with their own money. Thanks to stocks, they can make countless industries dependent upon them and thereby accelerate the conquest of those which they have not the necessary money to purchase. The whole fabulous power of Pierpont Morgan & Co., that within the last few years has united in one hand countless railroads, mines, and a majority of the iron works, and now has also monopolized the greatest Transatlantic steamship line – this sudden acquisition of dominion over the industry and commerce of the greatest of civilized worlds would have been impossible without stock companies.

According to the London Economist, five men, John D. Rockefeller, C.H. Harriman, Pierpont Morgan, W.M. Vanderbilt and G.D. Gould together possess seven hundred and fifty million dollars; while the total capital of the banks, railroads and the industrial companies of the United States is seventeen thousand five hundred million dollars. Thanks to the stock system they control half of this capital, upon which in turn the entire economic wealth of the Union depends.

As has always been the case, so again when the inevitable crisis comes in America, the little stockholders will be expropriated and the positions of the great ones enlarged and strengthened.

The greater the power of the financier in industry, the greater the tendency of industrial capital to adopt the methods of finance. For the private business man who lives by the side of his laborers, these are still men to whose welfare he cannot be wholly indifferent unless lie has become utterly callous. For the stockholder, nothing exists but dividends, and the laborers are simply figures in a mathematical calculation in the result of which he is in the highest degree interested, for it can usually bring him increased well being and increased power, or retrenchment and social degradation. The remnant of consideration for the laborer which was still preserved in the private employer is here wholly lost.

Money capital is that form of capital which mostly inclines toward violence, which easiest leads to monopoly and thereby attains boundless power over the laboring class, which is most estranged from the laborer, which most threatens the capital of the private industrial capitalist, and more and more comes to rule the whole capitalist system of production.

The necessary result of this is a sharpening of social antagonisms. But England! it will be at once responded. Do we not find in England a perceptible softening of class antagonisms, and has not Marx said that England is the classic land of capitalist production, which to-day shows what our future will be? Is not the present condition of England the one toward which we are moving?

It is always to England that the fanatics of social peace refer us and it is significant that it is these same people who taunt us orthodox Marxians the loudest on the obstinate tenacity with which we cling to every Marxian sentence and who most frequently throw the above Marxian sentence at us.

As a matter of fact, however, conditions have greatly changed since the writing of Capital. England has ceased to be the classic land of capitalism. Its development comes more and more to a standstill, it is more and more becoming subordinate to other nations, especially Germany and America, and now the conditions begin to be reversed. England ceases to show us our future. On the contrary, our present state rather shows England’s future in capitalist production. The thing which shows that the investigator of actual relations is really an orthodox Marxian is not that he thoughtlessly follows Marx, but that he applies his methods in order to understand facts.

England was the classic ground of capitalism, the one upon which industrial capital first gained the mastery. English capitalism came into power the economic master not only of the upper class of its own land but also of foreign lands. So it was that all of the characteristics that I have above designated as peculiar to it could most freely develop. It gave up violent suppression of the laboring class and depended much more upon peaceful diplomacy, for a while granted political privileges to the powerfully organized, and sought to purchase and corrupt its leaders by friendly advances in which it was too often successful. At the same time it renounced all violence towards the external world. Peace and free trade were its watchwords. It adopted a peaceful attitude toward the Beers, and finally feigned to be about to right the century-long injustice of England towards Ireland by granting it home rule.

Meanwhile foreign competition grows powerful, indeed sometimes overpowering, and this compelled the capitalists to resist all opposition to exploitation within, while the most violent means are used to secure external markets. Hand and hand with this goes the usurious growth of the domination of high finance in the process of production. Since then England has taken on another appearance.

“The spirit of the times,” declare the Webbs in Socialen Praxis for March 20th, 1902, “has during the last ten years been turned against the ‘corporative self-help’ in the relations of employer and employee, that was characteristic of a generation ago. Indeed, the public opinion of the wealthy and professional classes is actually hostile to all that concerns trades-unions and strikes, as was not the case a generation ago.”

As a result of this sudden change the unions are most seriously hindered in their activity by the courts. In place of free trade we see the cost of living enhanced by taxation; the policy of colonial conquest begins anew, together with coercive legislation against Ireland. All that is needed is the establishment of a standing army on the Prussian model and England will be fully launched upon the road of German policy, with the same Polish, commercial, social, foreign and military policy.

Does this not clearly show that England’s future can today be studied in Germany (and also in the United States), and that England’s condition has ceased to represent our future? The stage of “softening of class antagonisms” and the building the road to “social peace” is confined to England, and today is even there a thing of the past. Gladstone was the foremost representative of the policy of concessions for the softening of antagonisms, which corresponded to the industrial capitalism of England at the time when it dominated in an overwhelming manner all other classes and countries. The foremost representative of the domination of the violent, conquering, money capital is Chamberlain. It is one of the strangest ironies of history that the Gladstonian stage should have been looked upon in Germany as foretelling our future and most loudly praised as a firmly acquired conquest, at just the moment when the Gladstonian heritage was being scattered to the minds and Chamberlain was becoming the hero of the English populace.

I will freely grant that I, too, formerly had great hopes of England. While I did not expect that the Gladstonian stage would ever be transported to Germany, still I did hope that because of the peculiarity of English conditions the development from capitalism to Socialism might be peaceably accomplished, not through a social revolution, but by means of a series of progressive concessions by the ruling class to the proletariat. The experience of the last few years has destroyed these hopes for England also. The English internal policy now begins to shape itself on the model of its German competitor. May it have a corresponding reaction upon the English proletariat.

We now see in just how far the acceptance of the idea of a softening of class antagonisms and a drawing together of the bourgeoisie and proletariat is justified. To be sure, it is not wholly built on air, it is supported by certain facts, but its defect consists in having accepted as universal, facts that are really confined to a narrow sphere. It considers a few divisions of the Intellectuals as the whole bourgeoisie, and views a peculiar social tendency of England, which now belongs to a past age, as a universal, ever increasing tendency of the whole capitalist system of production.

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Last updated on 28.1.2004