Socialism and the Social Movement in the 19th Century. Sombart Werner

CHAPTER IToC

       Table of Contents

      WHENCE AND WHITHER

      "Da ist's denn wieder, wie die Sterne wollten:

       Bedingung und Gesetz; und aller Wille

       Ist nur ein Wollen, weil wir eben sollten,

       Und vor dem Willen schweigt die Willkür stille."

      Goethe, Urworte.

      When Karl Marx began a communistic manifesto with the well-known words, "The history of all society thus far is the history of class strife," he uttered, in my opinion, one of the greatest truths that fill our century. But he did not speak the whole truth. For it is not fully true that all history of society consists exclusively in struggle between classes. If we would put "world history" into a single phrase we shall be obliged, I think, to say that there is an antithesis around which the whole history of society turns, as around two poles: social and national—using the word national in the widest meaning. Humanity develops itself into communities, and then these communities fight and compete with each other; but always within the community the individual begins to strive for elevation over others, in order, as Kant once expressed it, to make distinction of rank among his fellows, whom he does not like, from whom, however, he cannot escape. So we see on the one side the exertion of the community for wealth, power, recognition; and on the other side the same exertion, by the individual, after power, wealth, honour. These, as it seems to me, are the two matters which in fact fill all history. For history begins as this antithesis unfolds itself. It is merely a figure of speech, and you must not be shocked by the harsh expression, as I say that human history is a fight either for food division, or for feeding-place, upon our earth. These are both great contradictions which constantly emerge, which invariably control mankind. We stand to-day at the conclusion of an historic period of great national pride, and in the midst of a period of great social contrasts; and the varying views, world-wide in their differences, which obtain day by day in different groups of men, all lead back, as it seems to me, to the alternative, "national or social."

      Before I now proceed with my theme, "Socialism and the Social Movement in the Nineteenth Century,"—that is, to one member of this antithesis, the social—I would first suggest the question: "What is a social movement?" I answer: By a social movement we understand the aggregate of all those endeavours of a social class which are directed to a rational overturning of an existing social order to suit the interests of this class. The essential elements in every social movement are these: First, an existing order in which a certain society lives, and particularly a social order which rests chiefly upon the manner of production and distribution of material goods as the necessary basis of human existence. This specific system of production and distribution is the point of issue for every social movement. Secondly, a social class which is discontented with the existing conditions. By a "social class" I understand a number of similarly interested persons, especially persons who are similarly interested in economic matters—the distinctive point; that is, of men who are interested in a specific system of production and distribution. We must, in understanding any social class, go back to this economic system; and we should not allow ourselves to be blinded or confused by the inbred notions of certain classes. These prepossessions, which frequently control, are only bulwarks of classes differing economically. And, thirdly, an aim which this class, discontented with the existing order of things, holds up to reach; an ideal, which presents compactly all that for which the society will agitate, and which finds its expression in the postulates, demands, programmes of this class. In general, where you can speak of a social movement you find a point of issue, the existing social order; a supporter of the movement, the social class; an aim, the ideal of the new society.

      In what follows I shall attempt to give some points of view for an understanding of a specific—the modern—social movement. But what do we mean by the phrase "to understand a social movement"? This: to comprehend the social movement in its essential historic limitations, in its causal connection with historic facts out of which, of necessity, that is produced which we describe as a social movement. That is, to comprehend why specific social classes are formed, why they present these particular points of opposition, why especially a pushing, aggressive social class has, and must have, that particular ideal for which it reaches. We mean, above all, to see that the movement springs not out of the whim, the choice, the malevolence of individuals; that it is not made, but becomes.

      And now to the modern social movement. How is it to be characterised? If we would hold fast to those elements which constitute every social movement, we must describe the modern social movement on two sides: according to its aim, and according to the class that supports the movement. The modern social movement is, from the standpoint of its aim, a socialistic agitation, because, as will be shown, it is uniformly directed to the establishment of communal ownership, at least of the means of production; that is, to a socialistic, communal order of society in place of the existing method of private ownership. It is characterised, on the other side, in accordance with the adherents of the movement, by the fact that it is a proletarian agitation, or, as we customarily say, it is a working-men's movement. The class which supports it, upon which it rests, which gives to it the initiative, is the proletariat, a class of free wage-workers.

      And now we ask the question: Is it possible to distinguish those circumstances which would make such a movement evidently a necessary historic development? I said that the social movement has, as its supporters, the modern proletariat, a class of free, lifelong wage-workers. The first condition of its existence is the rise of this class itself. Every social class is the result, the expression, of some specific form of production;