In turning our attention to Germany “we come to the period of classical epoch-making socialism.” It is the only living socialism of world-wide importance; for, with few comparatively unimportant exceptions, all socialism of to-day, whether found in Paris or Berlin, in New York or Vienna, in Chicago or Frankfort-on-the-Main, is through and through German. The German socialists are distinguished by the profundity of their systems. These are not exhausted by a few hours’ study. You can come back to them time and time again, and obtain ever new ideas. A great German economist (Sch?ffle) declares that it took him years to comprehend the full significance of German socialism. It gives no evidence of decreasing power, but, on the contrary, its influence is manifestly spreading and becoming more and more deeply rooted in the minds and hearts of large masses. Its vitality is due, on the one hand, to the logical and philosophical strength of the systems on which it is based; on the other, to the patience and indomitable perseverance of its leaders.
One of its leading characteristics is its thoroughly scientific spirit. Sentimentalism is banished, and a foundation sought in hard, relentless laws, resulting[157] necessarily from the physiological, psychological, and social constitution of man, and his physical environment. Like French socialism, its most prominent side is its negative character, but this is not declamatory. Coldly, passionlessly, laws regulating wages and value are developed, which show that in our present economic society the poverty of laborers and their robbery by capitalists are as inevitable facts as the motions of the planets. Histories, blue books, and statistical journals are searched, and facts are piled on facts, mountain-high, to sustain every separate and individual proposition. Mathematical demonstrations as logical as problems in Euclid take the place of fine periods, perorations, and appeals to the Deity. Political economy is not rejected, but in its strictest and most orthodox form becomes the very corner-stone of the new social structure. No writer is valued so highly as Ricardo, who, in political economy, was the strictest of the strict, a Pharisee of the Pharisees. English political economy is developed to its logical and consistent conclusion with wonderful learning and skill. In the German socialists, says Rudolf Meyer, “we have learned men belonging to the higher mercantile and professional classes, in affluent circumstances, who, out of pure love for the cause, devoted themselves to profound economic investigations, and who united a serious, searching mind with thorough knowledge of history, philology, and law. They are political economists equal to the great English leaders in this study, but having at their command a greater scientific apparatus, especially such as is afforded by statistics.”[155] Roscher, indeed, finds in them alike the[158] strength and the weakness of the English school. He describes them thus in his “History of Political Economy in Germany.” “Some of them seem to be more historical than the Free-trade School, but this is only an appearance, as they apply history so sophistically. As far as doctrinal abstractions are concerned, they are at least equal to the extreme Free-traders.[156] They indulge in the same cosmopolitism, which entirely overlooks real peoples, states, and degrees of culture, in the same na?ve assumption of the equality of all men, ... and in the same mammonistic undervaluation of ideal goods.”[157]
Two of the earliest adherents of this school were Friedrich Engels, who wrote a work on the “Condition of the Laboring Classes in England;”[158] and K. Marlo, who published, in 1849, his “System of World-Economy, or Investigations Concerning the Organization of Labor;”[159] and proposed a federation of socialistic communities. Both of these writers, however, were soon so far surpassed in importance by the three socialists, Rodbertus, Marx, and Lassalle, that they are scarcely noticed in the great current of German socialism. We will consequently at once proceed to the consideration of the life and teachings of Rodbertus, from whom it may be considered as taking its beginning. Its growth from the time he published his doctrines has been unbroken.
[159]
Karl Rodbertus, who lived from 1805 to 1875, was a man of social standing, universally respected alike for learning and character. He was at first a jurist, and afterwards a farmer, having purchased the estate in Pomerania called Jagetzow. On this account he is often called Rodbertus-Jagetzow.[160]
Rodbertus took some part in politics during the stirring events of 1848, and for a short time thereafter. He was member of the National Assembly in 1848, and in 1849 of the Second Chamber of the Prussian Parliament. He was Prussian Minister of Education and Public Worship for a brief period. But he finally abandoned politics and led a quiet life in his country home, devoting himself chiefly to scientific and literary pursuits. His knowledge of some parts of Roman history is considered quite profound.
Rodbertus, one of the ablest socialists who ever lived, is perhaps the best representative of pure theoretical socialism. Professor Wagner of Berlin calls him the Ricardo of socialism. This gives him an important place in the history of political economy, for political[160] economists may be considered as practically unanimous in the opinion that “scientific socialism represents an economic system which no science of political economy can any longer neglect” (Wagner). It is certain that he resembles Ricardo in many respects, and I personally am quite inclined to think he equalled him, though his name has never become very popular, as his life was a quiet, retired one, and he took no part in agitation. His writings are rather difficult reading for laborers, and they are consequently little acquainted with him. His influence on the greatest living economists has been remarkable.[161]
Rodbertus’s principal works are:
1. “Zur Erkenntniss unserer Staatswirthschaftlichen Zust?nde”—“Our Economic Condition” (Neubrandenburg und Friedland, 1842). This contains his leading views, which were not changed thereafter. Out of print.
2. “Sociale Briefe an Von Kirchmann”—“Social Letters to Von Kirchmann” (1850-51). Out of print.
3. “Zur Beleuchtung der Socialen Frage”—“Elucidation of the Social Question” (Berlin, 1875). This contains a second edition of the second and third letters to Von Kirchmann, and, with the two following essays, gives a very good idea of his economic theories.
4. “Der Normal Arbeitstag”—“The Normal Labor Day” (Berlin, 1871). Reprinted in Tübinger Zeitschrift für die gesammte Staatswissenschaft für 1878. Cf. also, in the same volume of the Zeitschrift, an essay on Rodbertus by Adolf Wagner, entitled “Einiges von und über Rodbertus-Jagetzow.”
5. “Offener Brief an das Comité des Deutschen Arbeiter-Vereins”—“Open Letter to the Committee of the German Laborers union” (Leipzig, 1863). Reprinted in Volume I. of Lassalle’s collected writings—F. Lassalle’s “Reden und Schriften” (New York, 1882).
6. “Zur Erkl?rung und Abhülfe der heutigen Creditnoth des Grundbesitzes”—“An Explanation of the Necessity of Credit for Land-owners and Proposal of Measures to Assist Them” (2 vols. 1868-69). Out of print.
[161]
The aim of Rodbertus is naturally to solve the social problem, to abolish the sharp contradiction between the real life of society and the desired and striven-for ideal. But there are two chief evils in the existing economic life of man, which are the cause of most of the others. These evils are pauperism and commercial and financial crises, the latter leading to over-production and a glut in the market. Rodbertus directs his attention principally to the means of abolishing these evils.
The starting-point of Rodbertus’s political economy is his conception of labor expressed in the following sentence: “All economic goods are to be regarded only as the products of labor, and they cost nothing but labor.”[162] This proposition he claims was first introduced into economic science by Adam Smith, and was more firmly established by the school of Ricardo. His whole theory consists of a logical extension of this theory, according to which pauperism and crises result from one and the same circumstance—viz., “that when economic processes are left to themselves in respect to the distribution of goods, certain relations (Verh?ltnisse) connected with the development of society bring it about that as the productivity of social labor[163] increases, the wages of the laboring classes constitute an ever-decreasing portion of the national product.”[164] This does not mean necessarily that what the laborer receives becomes absolutely smaller; only that it decreases relatively. If ten laborers produce now twenty bushels of wheat in a given time, and receive[162] ten bushels as wages, and at a later period the productivity of labor has increased to such an extent that they produce thirty bushels in the same time, but receive only thirteen, their portion, their quota has decreased.[165]
Now let us see how this produces pauperism and crises.
In society we find laborers, capitalists, and landlords. These classes can exist only because there is a division of labor, and laborers produce more than they consume. Landlords and capitalists receive what is called rent, which is any income derived from the fact of possession and not from labor. All the rest is labor’s share. Now how does it happen that rent-receiving classes are able to exist? in other words, how is one man enabled to take from another a part of the fruits of his labor? This is because private property in land and capital exists. Land and capital constitute the instruments of labor, and without them production is impossible. Their possessors refuse to give them up to another’s use unless a share of the produce is guaranteed them therefor, while the laborer’s hunger and the sufferings of his family compel him to assent. Labor is treated as a commodity. It is bought and sold like other commodities, and its value depends on its cost. What is the cost of labor? Manifestly the cost of continuing labor; in other words, such means as will enable the laborer himself to live and to beget children[163] who shall continue to labor after he is gone. What the laborers require to live, and to marry, and beget children in sufficient numbers to supply the labor market, is their standard of life. This they obtain and no more. Labor costs labor, and is measured by labor; but labor produces more than it consumes, and this surplus-value is rent. Does............