The name was thus first applied in England to Owen’s theory of social reconstruction, and in France to those also of Saint-Simon and Fourier. The best usage has always connected it with the views of these men and the cognate opinions which have since appeared. The word, however, is used with a great variety of meaning not only in popular speech and by politicians but even by economists and learned critics of socialism. The general tendency is to regard as socialistic any interference with property undertaken by society on behalf of the poor, the limitation of the principle of laissez-faire in favour of the suffering classes, radical social reform which disturbs the present system of private property as regulated by free competition. It is probable enough that the word will be permanently used to express the tendency indicated in these phrases, as a general name for the strong reaction that has now set in against the overstrained individualism and one-sided freedom which date from the latter half of the 18th century. The application is neither precise nor accurate; but it is use and wont that determine the meaning of words, and this seems to be the tendency of use and wont.

Even economic writers differ greatly in the meaning they attach to the word. The great German economist Roscher defines it as including “those tendencies which demand a greater regard for the common weal than consists with human nature.” Adolf Held says that “we may define as socialistic every tendency which demands the subordination of the individual will to the community.” Janet more precisely defines it as follows :—“We call socialism every doctrine which teaches that the state has a right to correct the inequality of wealth which exists among men and to legally establish the balance by taking from those who have too much in order to give to those who have not enough, and that in a permanent manner, and not in such and such a particular case,—a famine, for instance, a public calamity, &c.” Laveleye explains it thus: “In the first place every socialistic doctrine aims at introducing greater equality in social conditions, and in the second place at realizing those reforms by the law or the state.” Von Scheel simply defines it as the “economic philosophy of the suffering classes.” Of all these definitions it can only be said that they more or less faithfully reflect current opinion as to the nature of socialism. They are either too vague economic anarchy, to the degradation of the working man and his family, to the growth of vice and idleness among the wealthy classes and their dependants, to bad and inartistic workmanship, and to adulteration in all its forms; and that it is tending more and more to separate society into two classes,—wealthy millionaires confronted with an enormous mass of proletarians,—the issue out of which must either be socialism or social ruin. To avoid all these evils and to secure a more equitable distribution of the means and appliances of happiness, the socialists propose that land and capital, which are the requisites of labour and the sources of all wealth and culture, should become the property of society, and be managed by it for the general good. In thus maintaining that society should assume the management of industry and secure an equitable distribution of its fruits socialists are agreed, but in the most important points of detail they differ very greatly.

They differ as to the form society will take in carrying out the socialist programme, as to the relation of local bodies to the central government, and whether there is to be any central government, or any government at all in the ordinary sense of the word, as to the influence of the national idea in the society of the future, &c. They differ also as to what should be regarded as an “equitable” system of distribution. The school of Saint-Simon advocated a social hierarchy in which every man should be placed according to his capacity and rewarded according to his works. In the communities of Fourier the minimum of subsistence was to be guaranteed to each out of the common gain, the remainder to be divided between labour, capital, and talent,—five-twelfths going to the first, four-twelfths to the second, and three-twelfths to the third. At the revolution of 1848 Louis Blanc proposed that remuneration should be equal for all members of his social workshops. In the programme drawn up by the united social democrats of Germany (Gotha, 1875) it is provided that all shall enjoy the results of labour “according to their reasonable wants,” all of course being bound to work. It is needless to say also that the theories of socialism have been held in connexion with the most varying opinions in philosophy and religion. A great deal of the historic socialism has been regarded as a necessary implicate of idealism. Most of the prevailing socialism of the day is based on the frankest and most outspoken revolutionary materialism. On the other hand, many socialists hold that their system is a necessary outcome of Christianity, that socialism and Christianity are essential the one to the other; and it should be said that the ethics of socialism are closely akin to the ethics of Christianity, if not identical with them.

Still it should be insisted that the basis of socialism is economic, involving a fundamental change in the relation of labour to land and capital,—a change which will largely affect production, but will entirely revolutionize the existing system of distribution. But, while its basis is economic, socialism implies and carries with it a change in the political, ethical, technical, and artistic arrangements and institutions of society which would constitute a revolution greater probably than has ever taken place in human history, greater than the transition from the ancient to the mediaeval world, or from the latter to the existing order of society. In the first place, such a change generally assumes as its political complement the most thoroughly democratic organization of society. The early socialism of Owen and Saint-Simon was marked by not a little of the autocratic spirit; but the tendency of the present socialism is more and more to ally itself with the most advanced democracy. Socialism, in fact, claims to be the economic complement of democracy, maintaining that without a fundamental economic change political privilege has neither meaning nor value. In the second place, socialism naturally goes with an unselfish or altruistic system of ethics. The most characteristic feature of the old societies was the exploitation of the weak by the strong under the systems of slavery, serfdom, and wage-labour. Under the socialistic régime it is the privilege and duty of the strong and talented to use their superior force and richer endowments in the service of their fellow-men without distinction of class or nation or creed. In the third place, socialists maintain that under their system and no other can the highest excellence and beauty be realized in industrial production and in art, whereas under the present system beauty and thoroughness are alike sacrificed to cheapness, which is a necessity of successful competition. Lastly, the socialists refuse to admit that individual happiness or freedom or character would be sacrificed under the social arrangements they propose. They believe that under the present system a free and harmonious development of individual capacity and happiness is possible only for the privileged minority, and that socialism alone can open up a fair opportunity for all. They believe, in short, that there is no opposition whatever between socialism and individuality rightly understood, that these two are complements the one of the other, that in socialism alone may every individual have hope of free development and a full realization of himself.

Having seen, then, how wide a social revolution is implied in the socialistic scheme of reconstruction, let us repeat (1) that the essence of the theory consists in this —associated production with a collective capital with the view to an equitable distribution. In the words of Schaffte, “the Alpha and Omega of socialism is the transformation of private competing capitals into a united collective capital” {Quintessenz des Socialismus). A. Wagner’s more elaborate definition of it (in his Grundlegung') is entirely in agreement with that of Schäffle. This is the principle on which all the schools of socialism, however opposed otherwise, are at one. Such a system, while insisting on collective capital (including land), is quite consistent with private property in other forms, and with perfect freedom in the use of one’s own share in the equitable distribution of the produce of the associated labour. A thoroughgoing socialism demands that this principle should be applied to the capital and production of the whole world; only then can it attain to supreme and perfect realization. But a sober-minded socialism will admit that the various intermediate stages in which the principle finds a partial application are so far a true and real development of the socialistic idea. (2) Socialism is both a theory of social evolution and a working force in the history of the 19th century. Some of the most eminent socialists, such as Rodbertus, regard their theory as a prophecy concerning the social development of the future rather than as a subject of agitation. In their view socialism is the next stage in the evolution of society, destined after many generations to supersede capitalism, as capitalism displaced feudalism and feudalism succeeded to slavery. Even the majority of the most active socialists consider the question as still in the stage of agitation and propaganda, their present task being that of enlightening the masses until the consummation of the present social development, and the declared bankruptcy of the present social order, shall have delivered the world into their hands. Socialism, therefore, is for the most part a theory affecting the future, more or less remote, and has only to a limited degree gained a real and practical footing in the life of our time. Yet it should not be forgotten that its theories have most powerfully affected all the ablest recent economic writers of Germany, and have even considerably modified German legislation. Its influence is rapidly growing among the lower and also among the most advanced classes in almost every country dominated by European culture, following as a destroying negation the development of capitalism. (3) In its doctrinal aspects socialism is most interesting as a criticism of the present economic order, of what socialists call the capitalistic system, with which the existing land system is connected. Under the present economic order land and capital (the material and instruments without which industry is impossible) are the property of a class, employing a class of wage-labourers handicapped by their exclusion from land and capital. Competition is the general rule by which the share of the members of those classes in the fruits of production is determined. Against this system critical socialism is a reasoned protest; and it is at issue also with the prevailing political economy, in so far as it assumes or maintains the permanence or righteousness of this economic order. Of the economic optimism implied in the historic doctrine of laissez-faire socialism is an uncompromising rejection. (4) Socialism is usually regarded as a phase of the struggle for the emancipation of labour, for the complete participation of the working classes in the material, intellectual, and spiritual inheritance of the human race. This is certainly the most substantial and most prominent part of the socialist programme, the working classes being the most numerous and the worst sufferers from the present régime. This view, however, is rather one-sided, for socialism claims not less to be in the interest of the small capitalist gradually crushed by the competition of the larger, and in the interest also of the large capitalist, whose position is endangered by the huge unmanageableness of his success, and by the world-wide economic anarchy from which even the greatest are not secure. Still it is the deliverance of the working class that stands in the front of every socialistic theory; and, though the initiative in socialist speculation and action has usually come from the middle and upper classes, yet it is to the working men that they generally appeal.

While recognizing the great confusion in the use of the word “socialism,” we have treated it as properly a phenomenon of the 19th century, beginning in France with Saint-Simon and Fourier, in England with Robert Owen, and most powerfully represented at the present day by the school of Karl Marx. As we have seen, however, there are definitions of the word which would give it a wider range of meaning and a more ancient beginning, compared with which capitalism is but of yesterday,—which would, in fact, make it as old as human society itself. In the early stages of human development, when the tribe or the village community was the social unit, the subordination of the individual to the society in which he dwelt was the rule, and common property was the prevalent form. In the development of the idea of property, especially as regards land, three successive historical stages are broadly recognized,—common property and common enjoyment of it, common property and private enjoyment, private property and private enjoyment. The last form did not attain to full expression till the end of the 18th century, when the principle of individual freedom, which was really a reaction against privileged restriction, was proclaimed as a positive axiom of government and of economics. The free individual struggle for wealth and for the social advantages dependent on wealth is a comparatively recent thing. In all periods of history the state reserved to itself the right to interpose in the arrangements of property,—sometimes in favour of the poor, as in the case of the English poor law, which may thus be regarded as a socialistic measure. Moreover, all through history revolts in favour of a rearrangement of property have been very frequent. And in the societies of the Catholic Church we have a permanent example of common property and a common enjoyment of it.

How are we to distinguish the socialism of the 19th century from these old-world phenomena, and especially from the communism which has played so great a part in history? To this query socialists, especially of the school of Marx, have a clear and precise answer. Socialism is a stage in the evolution of society which could not arrive till the conditions necessary to it had been established. The first and most essential of these was the development of the great industrialism which after a long period of preparation and gradual growth began to reach its culminating point with the inventions and technical improvements, with the application of steam and the rise of the factory system, in England towards the end of the 18th century. Under this system industry was organized into a vast social operation, and was thus already socialized; but it was a system that was exploited by the individual owner of the capital at his own pleasure and for his own behoof. Under the pressure of the competition of the large industry, the small capitalist is gradually crushed out, and the working producers become wage-labourers organized and drilled in immense factories and workshops. The development of this system still continues and is enveloping the 2hole world. Such is the industrial revolution. Parallel with this a revolution in the world of ideas equally great and equally necessary to the rise of socialism has taken place. This change of thought which made its world-historic announcement in the French Revolution made reason the supreme judge and had freedom for its great practical watchword. It was represented in the economic sphere by the school of Adam Smith. Socialism was an outcome of it too, and first of all in Saint-Simon and his school professed to give the positive and constructive corrective to a negative movement which did not see that it was merely negative and therefore temporary. In other words, Saint-Simon may be said to aim at nothing less than the completion of the work of Voltaire, Rousseau, and Adam Smith. Thus socialism professes to be the legitimate child of two great revolutions,—of the industrial revolution which began to establish itself in England towards the end of the 18th century, and of the parallel revolution in thought which about the same time found most prominent expression in France. Robert Owen worked chiefly under the influence of the former; Saint-Simon and Fourier grew up under the latter. The conspiracy of Babeuf is properly to be regarded as a crude revolutionary communism not essentially different from the rude efforts in communism made in earlier periods of history. With Saint-Simon and Owen historic socialism really begins, and is no longer an isolated fact, but has had a continuous and widening development, the succession of socialistic teaching and propaganda being taken up by one country after another throughout the civilized world.

We have seen, then, that the rise of socialism as a new and reasoned theory of society was relative to the industrial revolution and to the ideas proclaimed in the French Revolution, prominent among which, besides the much emphasized idea of freedom and the less easily realized ideals of equality and fraternity, was the conception of the worth and dignity of labour. Though Owen was most largely influenced by the former and Saint-Simon and Fourier by the latter, it is certain that all three were greatly affected by both the new movements. The motive power in Owen’s career was the philanthropy and humanitarianism of the 18th century. He had grown up in the midst of the industrial revolution; he was one of the most successful pioneers in the improvement of the cotton manufacture. No one could be more deeply conscious of the enormous abuses of the factory system; and no one better knew the wonderful services it could render if technical improvement were only made subordinate to human wellbeing. In the career of Owen we see the new spirit of the 18th century seeking to bring the mechanism of the new industrial system under the direction of a nobler principle, in which the good of all should be the great and sole aim. The position of Saint-Simon was considerably different, yet akin. As Owen had before his eyes the evils of a young but gigantic industrialism, Saint-Simon contemplated the hoary abuses of an idle and privileged feudalism, fearfully shaken no doubt by the Revolution, but still strong in Europe, and in France as elsewhere powerfully revived during the period after Waterloo. Saint-Simon saw that a new world, an industrial world resting on labour, had arisen, while the old feudal and theological world— -fainéant courtiers and a clergy steeped in ignorance —still ruled. All this array of parasites, who had no longer any useful function to perform for society, Saint-Simon sought to replace by the industrial chiefs and scientific leaders...