Even agricultural production for co-operative societies is at the present time an unsolved problem. The English co-operative stores have done no worse business with any undertakings than with their farms. Nowhere do the peasants gain greater profit from the soil than in Scotland. The figures of profit for wheat, oats, etc., per acre are much higher in Scotland than in England. But a farm of Scottish co-operators furnished with good machines representing a capital of ^12,500 has proved a great failure. For 1894 it made a profit of six-tenths per cent., for 1895 a loss of 8.1 per cent. But how does it stand with the associations of agricultural labourers? Does the productive co-operation of agricultural labourers offer better prospects than the productive co-operation of industrial workers?
The question is all the more difficult to answer because sufficient practical examples are wanting. The classical example of such a co-operative society, the celebrated association of Ralahine, lasted too short a time (1831 — 1833), and whilst it lasted was too much under the influence of its founder Vandeleur and his agent Craig for it to be able to serve as a valid proof of the living power of independent associations of workers on the land. It only shows the great advantages of association under certain circumstances and assumptions.
The experiences of the communistic colonies are the same. These latter succeed in actual or practical isolation for a long time under circumstances one would consider most unfavourable. But as soon as they attained a greater degree of prosperity and entered into more intimate intercourse with the outer world they decayed quickly. Only a strong religious or other bond, a sectarian wall raised between them and the surrounding world, apparently, will keep these colonies together when they have attained wealth. But the fact that it is necessary for men to be limited in their development in some way, in order that such colonies should flourish, proves that they can never be the general type of associated labour. They stand for Socialism at a stage of pure industrial productive association. But they have acted as a glowing proof of the advantages of cooperation.
On the basis of all these facts and of the experiments which intelligent landlords have made with co-operative leases, sharing profits with agricultural labourers, etc., Dr. F. Oppenheimer has developed in the already mentioned volume the idea of an agricultural association which he calls " Siedlungsgenossenschaft " (Colonising Co-operative Association). It is to be an association of agricultural labourers, or, is to begin as such, and is to combine individual with co-operative manage- \ \ ment — that is, small farming with associated work on a large scale, as is the case to-day on large estates where plots on the outskirts are let off in allotments at a more or less high rent, and which are often managed in a more exemplary manner. Oppenheimer conceived of a corresponding division in his Siedlungsgenossenschaft Association, only, that here the intention naturally is not to lower the price of labour for the central farming round which those small holdings are grouped, but really that opportunity shall be given to every single member to enjoy on a sufficiently large piece of land all the material and other charms of a farm of his own and to employ in its culture all the labour power not needed for the central farm of the association, which promises him the best returns or otherwise best suits his individuality. But for the rest the association is to utilise all the advantages of the modern large enterprise and all co-operative and mutual arrangements are to be adopted for the business needs, etc., of the members.
This is not the place to examine more closely the Oppenheimer proposal and the theory on which it is based. But I think I must just observe that they do not seem to me to deserve the contempt which has been their portion in some of the social democratic publications. One can doubt whether the thing can or will be worked out quite exactly in the form developed by Oppenheimer. But the fundamental thoughts which he develops depend greatly on the scientific analysis of the forms of management and agree moreover with all the experiences of co-operative practice, so that one can indeed say that if the co-operative method of farming is ever brought to pass, it can scarcely happen in any form materially different from the one worked out by Oppenheimer.* The expropriation on a larger scale which is mostly thought of in the criticism of such proposals cannot in any case produce organic creations in a night by magic, and therefore the most powerful revolutionary government would be compelled to face the task of looking for a practical theory of co-operative work in agriculture. For such a work Oppenheimer has brought together most abundant materials and has submitted them to a sharp systematic analysis, which by itself made the " Siedlungsgenossenschaft M worth studying.
There is still one more remark to make with regard to agricultural co-operation. As far as the Socialist is a party politician he can only greet with satisfaction the present immigration from the country into the towns. It concentrates the masses of workers, revolutionises * In the congress of the British Co-operative Society (Peterborough, May, 1898) a delegate, Mr. J. C. Gray, of Manchester, read a report on co-operation and agriculture, in which he, after an objective examination of all experiments made in England, finally makes a proposal which is wonderfully like Oppenheimer's project. M The soil is to be common property, the providing of all stock is to be co-operative and so is the sale of all products. But in the cultivation of the soil the individual interests must be attended to with due regard against interference with the interests of the Community." — [Co-operation and Agriculture, Manchestheir minds, and at any rate furthers emancipation. But as a theorist who thinks beyond the present day the Socialist must also say that this migration in the course of time may become too much of a good thing. It is well known to be infinitely easier to draw country people into the towns than to draw dwellers in towns into the country and accustom them to agricultural work. Thus the stream of immigration into the towns and industrial centres does not only increase the problems of the present rulers. Let us take, for example, the case of a victory of the working class democracy which brings the Socialist Party to the helm. According to all experience hitherto its immediate result would presumably be first of all to increase markedly the stream into the great towns, and it is in some measure doubtful whether the M industrial armies for agriculture " would allow themselves to be sent more willingly into the country than in France in 1848. But apart from that, the creation of co-operative associations capable of life and guidance will be under all circumstances a heavy task the further the depopulation of the country has advanced. The advantage of the existence of models of such associations would not be bought so very dearly at the price of a somewhat slower rising of the monstrous towns.* * I see with pleasure that Kari Kautsky in his work on the agricultural question which has just appeared, has taken the problem of co-operation on the land seriously into examination. What he says of the obstacles that hinder the conversion of the peasants' small holdings into large associations for carrying on i3S (c) Democracy and Socialism.
" On February 24th, 1848, broke the first dawn of a new period of history. p * 11 Who speaks of universal suffrage utters a cry of reconciliation. " Lassalle, Workers* Programme.
The trade unions concern themselves with the profit rate in production as the co-operative stores concern themselves with the profit rate on the sale of goods. The fight of the workmen organised in trade unions for the improvement agricultural work, fully agrees with what Oppenheimer works out on the same subject. Kautsky expects the solution of the problem from the influence of industrial developments and the conquest of political power by the proletariat. He says evolution brings the peasants to-day always more and more into dependence on capitalistic enterprises, as distilleries, breweries, sugar factories, flour mills, butter and cheese factories, wine cellarages, etc., and makes them casual or temporary workers in other kinds of capitalist undertakings, such as brickfields, mines, etc., where to-day small cultivators take temporary work in order to make up for the deficit of their holdings. With the socialisation of all these undertakings the peasants would become " cooperative workers," temporary workers of socialistic associated undertakings, whilst on the other side the proletarian revolution would lead to the conversion of large agricultural holdings, on which to-day a great number of the small cultivators are dependent, into co-operative undertakings. Thus the small agricultural holdings would lose their consistency more and more, and their combination into co-operative holdings would meet with fewer difficulties. Nationalisation of mortgages and cessation of militarism would facilitate this evolution.
In all this there is much that is right, only Kautsky appears to me to fall into the error of considerably overestimating the forces working in the direction desired by him. Some of the industrial undertakings which he enumerates are not on the high way to control industrially of their standard of life is from the standpoint of the capitalist a fight between wage rate and profit rate. It is certainly too great an exaggeration to say that the changes in the rates of wages and the hours of labour have no influence at all on prices. If the wages of workers in a certain industry rise, the value of the corresponding products rises in a corresponding ratio as against the value of the product of all industries which experience no such rise in wages, and if the class of employers concerned do not succeed in meeting this rise by an improvement small farms, but to become dependencies of agricultural associations and with others, as, for example, the brewing business, their connection with agricultural holdings is too loose for a change in their nature to exercise a strong reaction on the forms of the latter. It is just the largest sugar factories that belong, in Germany, to associations of big and small cultivators. Further, Kautsky allows himself, in my opinion, to be led away too much by the strong words which he now and then uses, to conclusions which would be correct if those words were true generally; but as they are only partially true, they cannot claim general acceptance. To make this clearer: In Kautsky the life of small farmers appears a sort of a hell. That can be said with justice of a great number of small farmers, but of another large number it is gross exaggeration, just as to-day in many cases one is not now justified in speaking of small farmers as " modern barbarians." It is a similar exaggeration to call the work which the small farmer performs on neighbouring estates, because his holding does not occupy him fully, slaves' work. By the use of such expressions assumptions are maintained which allow feelings and tendencies to be assumed to be general in those classes when, in reality, they are only exceptional.
If I cannot agree with all Kautsky 's conclusions on the probable development of small farming, I am all the more at one with him in the principles of his agrarian political programme to be carried out by social democracy.
of machinery, they must either raise the price of the product concerned or suffer a loss in the profit rate. In this respect the different industries are very differently placed. There are industries which, on account of the nature of their products or of their monopolistic organisation, are fairly independent of the world market, and then a rise in wages is mostly accompanied by a rise in prices also, so that the profit rate does not need to fall but can eveo rise.* /in industries for the world market, as in all other industries where commodities produced under various conditions compete with one another, and only the cheapest command the market, the rise in wages almost always results in a lowering of profit ratej The same result occurs when, by the resistance of organised workers, an attempt fails to neutralise by a proportional lowering of wages, the lowering of prices rendered necessary by the struggle to sell. After all, a fight of the workers for wages can, in fact, be but a fight against the rise in the profit-rate at the cost of the wage-rate, however little the fighters are conscious of it at the moment.
There is no need to prove here that the fight regarding hours of labour is similarly a fight over the profit-rate. If the shorter day of labour does not directly cause a diminution in the amount of work done for the wage given * Amongst others Carey relies on this partial truth in his Doctrine of Harmony. Certain extractive industries — mines, etc. — afford examples of it.
hitherto — in many cases it is known the reverse happens — yet it leads by a side way to an increase in the workers' demands for better conditions of life, and so makes a rise in wages necessary.
A rise in wages leading to an increase in prices does not, under certain circumstances, need to be an injury to the whole community; but is, however, more often harmful than useful in its effect. To the community, for instance, it makes no particular difference whether an industry exacts monopolist prices exclusively for a handful of employers, or whether the workers of that industry receive a certain share in such booty squeezed out of the public in general. The monopoly price is just as much worth fighting against as the cheapness of products which can only be achieved by the lowering of wages below the average minimum rate. But a rise in wages which only touches profit-rate must, under the conditions of the present day, be advantageous for the community in general. I say in general expressly, because there are also cases when the contrary is the case.
Fortunately, such extreme cases are very rare. Usually the workers know quite well how far they can go in their demands. The profit-rate, indeed, will bear a fairly strong pressure. Before the capitalist gives up his undertaking he will rather try every possible means to get a greater output for wages in other ways. The actual great differences of profit-rates in different spheres of production show that the general average profit-rate is constructed more easily in theory than even approximately realised. Instances are also not rare where even new capital that enters the market needing to be utilised does not seek the spot to which the highest profit-rate points, but, like a man in choosing his calling, allows itself to be guided by considerations in which the amount of profit takes a secondary place. Thus, even this most mighty factor for levelling profit-rates works irregularly. But the capital already invested, which greatly preponderates in each case, cannot for purely material reasons follow the movement of the profit-rate from one field of production to another. In short, the result of a rise in the price of human labour is, in by far the largest majority of cases, partly the greater perfection of machinery and the better organisation of industry, partly the more equable division of the surplus product. Both are advantageous to the general well-being. With certain limitations one can for capitalist countries modify Destutt de Tracy's well-known saying to: " Low profitrates indicate a high degree of well-being among the mass of the people. M [The trade unions are the democratic element in industry. Their tendency is to destroy the absolutism of capital, and to procure for the worker a direct influence in the management of an industryjf It is only natural that great differences of opinion should exist on the degree of influence to be desired. To a certain mode of thought it may appear a breach of principle to claim less for the union than an unconditional right of decision in the trade. The knowledge that such a right under present circumstances is just as Utopian as it would be contrary to the nature of a socialist community, has led others to deny trade unions any lasting part in economic life, and to recognise them only temporarily as the lesser of various unavoidable evils. There are socialists in whose eyes the union is only an object lesson to prove the uselessness of any other than political revolutionary action. [As a matter of fact, the union to-day — and in the near future — has very important social tasks to fulfil for the trades, which, however, do not demand, nor are even consistent with, its omnipotence in any wayj The merit of having first grasped the fact that trade unions are indispensable organs of the democracy, and not only passing coalitions, belongs to a group of English writers. This is not wonderful if one considers that trade unions attained importance in England earlier than anywhere else, and that England in the last third of the nineteenth century passed through a change from an oligarchic to an almost democratic state of government. The latest and most thorough work on this subject, the book on the theory and the practice of the British Trade Unions, by Sydney and Beatrice Webb, has been rightly described by the authors as a treatment of Industrial Democracy. Before them the late Thorold Rogers, in his lectures on the Economic Interpretation of History (which, in the passing, has little in common with the materialist conception of history, but only touches it in single points), called the trade union, Labour Partnership — which comes to the same thing in principle, but at the same time points out the limits to which the function of a trade union can extend in a democracy, and beyond which it jias no place in a democratic community. [Independently of whether the state, the community, or capitalists are employers, the trade union as an organisation of all persons occupied in certain trades can only further simultaneously the interests of its members and the general good as long as it is content to remain a partnerj Beyond that it would run into danger of degenerating into a close corporation with all the worst qualities of a monopoly. It is the same as with the co-operative society. The trade union, as mistress of a whole branch of production, the ideal of various older socialists, would really be only a monopolist productive association, and as soon as it relied on its monopoly or worked upon it, it would be antagonistic to socialism and democracy, let its inner constitution be what it may. Why it is contrary to socialism needs no further explanation. Associations against the community are as little socialism as is the oligarchic government of the state. But why should such a trade union not be in keeping with the principles of a democracy?
This question necessitates another. What is the principle of democracy?
The answer to this appears very simple. At first one would think it settled by the definition " government by the people. M But even a little consideration tells us that by that only quite a superficial, purely formal definition is given, whilst nearly all who use the word democracy to-day understand by it more than a mere form of government. We shall come much nearer to the definition if we express ourselves negatively, andj~define democracy as an absence of class government, as the indication of a social condition where a political privilege belongs to no one class as opposed to the whole community By that the explanation is already given as to why a monopolist corporation is in principle anti-democratic. This negative definition has, besides, the advantage that it gives less room than the phrase "government by the people' ' to the idea of the oppression of the individual by the majority which is absolutely repugnant to the modern mind. [To-day we find the oppression of the minority by the majority " undemocratic,' ' although it was originally held to be quite consistent with government by the peopleTj The * The consistent advocates of Blanquism also always conceived of democracy as at first an oppressive force. Thus Hippolyte Castille publishes a preliminary introduction to his History of the Second Republic which culminates in a veritable glorification of the Reign of Terror. " The most perfect community," he says, " would be where tyranny was an affair of the whole community. That proves fundamentally that the most perfect society would be one where there is least freedom in the satanic (i.e., individualistic) meaning of this word...What is called political freedom is only a beautiful name to adorn the justifiable tyranny of the idea of democracy includes, in the conception of the present day, a notion of justice — an equality of rights for all members of the community, and in that principle the rule of the majority, to which in every concrete case the rule of the people extends, finds its limits. The more it is adopted and governs the general consciousness, the more will democracy be equal in meaning to the highest possible degree of freedom for all. [Democracy is in principle the suppression of many. Political freedom is only the sacrifice of the freedom of a number of individuals to the despotic God of human societies, to social reason, to the social contract.' ' "From this epoch (the time from October, 1793, to April, 1794, when Girondists, Hebertists, Dantonists, were beheaded one after the other) dates in truth the re-incarnation of the principle of authority, of this eternal defensive warfare of human societies. Freed from the moderates and the ultras, secured against every conflict of authority, the committee of public safety acquires the form of government necessitated by the given circumstances, the necessary force and unity to maintain its position and to protect France from a threatening anarchy...No, it is not the government that killed the first French Republic, but the Parliamentarians, the traitors of Thermidor. The anarchist and liberal republicans whose swarming hordes covered France, continue in vain the old calumny. Robespierre remains a remarkable man, not on account of his talents and virtues, which are here incidental, but on account of his genius for authority, on account of his strong political instinct."
This worship of Robespierre was not to outlast the second Empire. To the younger generation of the Blanquist socialist revolutionaries who stepped on the stage in the middle of the 'sixties and who were above all anti-clerical, Robespierre was too philistine on account of his Deism. They swore by Hebert and Anacharsis Cloots. But for the rest they reasoned like Castille — i.e., they carried out to extremes, like him, the just idea of the subordination of individual interests to the general interests of the community.
j class government, though it is not yet the actual suppression of classesj They speak of the conservative character of the democracy, and to a certain degree rightly. Absolutism, or semi-absolutism, deceives its supporters as well as its opponents as to the extent of their power. Therefore in countries where it obtains, or where its traditions still exist, we have flitting plans, exaggerated language, zigzag politics, fear of revolution, hope in oppression. In a democracy the parties, and the classes standing behind them, soon learn to know the limits of their power, and to undertake each time only as much as they can reasonably hope to carry through under the existing circumstances. Even if they make their demands rather higher than they seriously mean in order to give way in the unavoidable compromise — and democracy is the high school of compromise— they must still be moderate. [The right to vote in a democracy makes its members virtually partners in the community, and this virtual partnership must in the end lead to real partnership. With a working class undeveloped in numbers and culture the general right to vote may long appear as the right to choose ' ' the butcher ' '; with the growing number and knowledge of the workers it is changed, however, into the implement by which to transform the representatives of the people from masters into real servants of the peoplej Universal suffrage in Germany could serve Bismarck temporarily as a tool, but finally it compelled Bismarck to serve it as a tool. It H5 H5 could be of use for a time to the squires of the East Elbe district, but it has long been the terror of these same squires. In 1878 it could bring Bismarck into a position to forge the weapon of socialistic law, but through it this weapon became blunt and broken, until by the help of it Bismarck was thoroughly beaten. Had Bismarck in 1878, with his then majority, created a politically exceptional law, instead of a police one, a law which would have placed the worker outside the franchise, he would for a time have hit social democracy more sharply than with the former. It is true, he would then have hit other people also. [.Universal franchise is, from two sides, the alternative to a violent revolution But universal suffrage is only a part of democracy, although a part which in time must draw the other parts after it as the magnet attracts to itself the scattered portions of iron. It certainly proceeds more slowly than many would wish, but in spite of that it is at work. And social democracy cannot further this work better than by taking its stand unreservedly on the theory of democracy — on the ground of universal suffrage with all the consequences resulting therefrom to its tactics.
In practice — that is, in its actions — it has in Germany always done so. But in their explanations its literary advocates have often acted otherwise, and still often do so to-day. Phrases which were composed in a time when the political privilege of property ruled all over Europe, and which under these circumstances were explanatory, and to a certain degree also justified, but which to-day are only a dead weight, are treated with such reverence as though the progress of the movement depended on them and not on the understanding of what can be done, and what should be done. Is there any sense, for example, in maintaining the phrase of the " dictatorship of the proletariat n at a time when in all possible places representatives of social democracy have placed themselves practically in the arena of Parliamentary work, have declared for the proportional representation of the people, and for direct legislation — all of which is inconsistent with a dictatorship.
The phrase is to-day so antiquated that it is only to be reconciled with reality by stripping the word dictatorship of its actual meaning and attaching to it some kind of weakened interpretation. [The whole practical activity of social democracy is directed towards creating circumstances and conditions which shall render possible and secure a transition (free from convulsive outbursts) of the modern social order into a higher oneT| From the consciousness of being the pioneers of a higher civilisation, its adherents are ever creating fresh inspiration and zeal. In this rests also, finally, the moral justification of the socialist expropriation towards which they aspire. But the * ' dictatorship of the classes " belongs to a lower civilisation, and apart from the question of the expediency and practicability of the thing, it is only to be looked upon as a reversion, as H7 political atavism, j If the thought is aroused that the transition irom a capitalist to a socialist society must necessarily be accomplished by means of the development of forms of an age which did not know at all, or only in quite an imperfect form, the present methods of the initiating and carrying of laws, and which was without the organs fit for the purpose, reaction will set in. I I say expressly transition from a capitalist to a socialist society, and not from a " civic society," as is so frequently the expression used to-day. This application of the word il civic " is also much more an atavism, or in any case an ambiguous way of speaking, which must be considered an inconvenience in the phraseology of German social democracy, and which forms an excellent bridge for mistakes with friend and foe. The fault lies partly in the German language, which has no special word for the idea of the citizen with equal civic rights separate from the idea of privileged citizens.
What is the struggle against, or the abolition of, a civic society? What does it mean specially in Germany, in whose greatest and leading state, Prussia, we are still constantly concerned with first getting rid of a great part of feudalism which stands in the path of civic development? No man thinks of destroying civic society, as a civilised ordered system of society. K)n the contrary, social democracy does not wish to break up this society and make all its members proletarians together; it labours rather incessantly at raising the worker from the social position of a proletarian to that of a citizen, and thus to make citizenship universal^ It does not want to set up a proletarian society instead of a civic society, but a socialist order of society instead of a capitalist onej It would be well if one, instead of availing himself of the former ambiguous expression, kept to the latter quite clear declaration. Then one would be quite free of a good portion of other contradictions which opponents, not quite without reason, assert do exist between the phraseology and the practice of social democracy. A few socialist newspapers find a pleasure to-day in forced anti-civic language, which at the most would be in place if we lived in a sectarian fashion as anchorites, but which is absurd in an age which declares it to be no offence to the socialist sentiment to order one's private life throughout in a M bourgeois fashion. M* Finally, it is to be recommended that some moderation should be kept iruthe declaration of war against " liberalism." Lit is true that the great liberal movement of modern times arose * In this point Lassalle was much more logical than we are to-day, granted that it was one-sidedness to derive the idea of the bourgeois simply from political privilege instead of at least from his economic position of power also. But for the rest he was sufficient realist to blunt beforehand the point of the above contradiction when he declared in the Workers' Programme: "In the German language the word * bourgeoisie ' had to be translated by * Biirgerthum ' (citizendom). But it has not this meaning w;th me. We are all citizens (' Bürger ') — the workman, the poor citizen, the rich citizen, and so forth. In the course of history the word * bourgeoisie ' has rather acquired a meaning by which for the advantage of the capitalist bourgeoisie first of all, and the parties which assumed the names of liberals were, or became in due course, simple guardians of capitalism?! Naturally, only opposition can reign between these parties and social democracy. \But with respect to liberalism as a great historical movement, socialism is its legitimate heir, not only in chronological sequence, but £lso in its spiritual qualities, as is shown moreover in every question of principle in which social democracy has had to take up an attitud^j Wherever an economic advance of the