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CHAPTER II: The Class War and Political Conditions - Yves Guyot, Socialistic Fallacies [1910]

Edition used:

Socialistic Fallacies (London: Cope and Fenwick, 1910).

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CHAPTER II

The Class War and Political Conditions

  • i. The class war—“The proletariat as the ruling class”—The art to command and the spirit of discipline—Monasteries and barracks with women and children—Electoral rights—Parties—A policy of spoliation—Substitution of political for economic competition—No one will work except on the requisition and for the profit of his opponents.
  • ii. Socialists and the State—Peru and Paraguay—Fierceness of the political struggle.

I.

The class war, says the “Communist Manifesto,” must result in the abolition of classes, but it will establish “the proletariat as the ruling class” (§52). Accordingly, if the proletariat be a ruling class, there will be a class which oppresses and a class which is oppressed. The classes will not have disappeared, they will merely have changed their positions. The “Communist Manifesto” makes it a supreme consideration to “centralise the means of production in the hands of the State.” (§52).

There will be at least two classes, one consisting of officials to distribute the burdens and the results of labour, the other of the drudges to execute their commands. Such a dispensation would not bring with it social peace, for political would take the place of economic competition.

So far only three means of calling human activity into being have been recognised, those of coercion, allurement and remuneration. Coercion is servile labour—work, or strike. The allurement of high office, decorations, rank or a crown may complete the coercion; we see the two employed together in the schools, the Church and the Army. Their success implies two conditions, on the one hand the art to command, and on the other the spirit of discipline. But what are these? They are the conditions which underlie the military spirit, founded upon respect for a hierarchy. Order, in a Communist Society, requires the virtues of convents and of barracks. But establishments of this kind consume without producing, and have furthermore eliminated the question of women and children.

In a collectivist society will there be citizens with electoral rights? Presumably; but the ballot is but an instrument for classifying parties, so that there will be parties, majorities and minorities; parties which will attain to power and others which will be in opposition.

Karl Marx says that he makes no pretension to change human nature. But unless human nature be changed, competition will be the more fierce in proportion as the party in power, disposing of all the resources of life, succeeds in appropriating all the advantages to itself and imposing all the burdens upon its opponents. This means a policy of spoliation in its most aggravated form. The question will be to ascertain who is to work and who is to reap the benefit. There will be a servile class and a class which obtains the benefit of their labour. Economic will give place to political competition, and the best method of acquiring will be, not to produce and to exchange, but to dominate and to extort. Collective ownership will end in a retrogression of productive civilisation towards civilisation on a warlike basis. The party in power will distribute profits in such a manner that no one will work except on the requisition and for the profit of his opponents.

II.

Schoeffle (p.52) is justified in reproaching Socialists with being the enemies of the State. Since Karl Marx' time they have substituted the term “Society” for “the State.” What difference does this make? The object of all their aims, and of all the articles in their programmes is to increase the powers of the State and to entrust it with the care of the national economic life. “When the unified organisation of labour shall have become a reality,” says Schoeffle, “the organs of the Socialist State will be geared up in the high degree which was characteristic of the Middle Ages.” Every centralisation of powers is a supporter of Socialism, and a Socialist Society can only be confined within rigid limits.

A collectivist society could only work on the model of Peru under the domination of the Incas, or of Paraguay under that of the Jesuits.1 The struggle of humanity would be suppressed, except as between the leaders, and these would develop factions in their contentions for power. In this stage of civilisation the existence of parties side by side would be impossible and the struggle could only terminate in the annihilation of the vanquished.

[1]Supra, Book I., pp. 30 and 40.