CHAPTER IV: The Impossibility of Collectivism - Yves Guyot, Socialistic Fallacies [1910]
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Socialistic Fallacies (London: Cope and Fenwick, 1910).
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CHAPTER IV
The Impossibility of Collectivism
Schoeffle—Negation preceded by apology.
In his Gospel of Collectivism, as propagated by the collectivists, Schoeffle concluded by saying: “Socialism must be able and willing to modify, from foundation to coping-stone, its fundamental thesis that value results exclusively from the total amount of labour necessary to production. We think that this is not impossible, but this notion, as it has been hitherto formulated, reduces the current economics of Socialism to a mere Utopia” (p. 78).
Ten years later, he published a pamphlet entitled “Die aufsichstlosigkeit der Socialdemokratie” (Perfection of Social Democracy) in which he demonstrated the impossibility of the collectivist organisation which he had himself expounded.
- (1). Collectivist production is impossible upon a democratic basis. It could only be directed by a hierarchical administration devoid of a democratic character, without liberty, equality or any guarantee against abuses of power.
- (2). It suppresses nature and property: all matters of the same class are concentrated in a great social workshop working upon the principle of equal remuneration for the same time spent in labour, but with a democratic organisation individuals impregnated with perpetual flattery would not submit to the sacrifices requisite to effect the economics necessary for this development of the means of production. Those who possessed them would not be disposed to share their surplus with others.
- (3). Supposing that it were possible to concentrate in one body all the branches of production on the basis of uniform labour and a uniform estimate of the time of labour and to set up complete local factories, that would be to act contrary to all experience in industrial matters.
- (4). An increase of production could only take place subject to the following conditions: (a) strict administration, and (b) an increase in the activity of the workers. Now democracy cannot admit of compulsion and would have nothing with which to replace profits, risks and graduated wages, so that there would be no initiative, no responsibility, no interest and no motive for action.
- (5). Social democracy has not discovered a method of apportioning to each individual the exact value of his social labour.
- (6). If each individual be remunerated in proportion to the social value of his labour, inequality must reappear.
- (7). But collectivists at the same time promise a distribution of products according to requirements. This is contradictory, but only one thing could be more impracticable, that is to declare all requirements to be equal.
- (8). Democratic collectivism claims to abolish “the exploitation of man by man,” but the collectivist dispensation would involve the organisation of the exploitation of labour as distributed by the agents of the party in power, without recourse to any remedy for its abuse than to overthrow it. In proceeding to the control of the hours of labour, in fixing the normal quantities of products, in reducing complex to simple labour by a method of calculation, the triumphant parasites of Socialism would set about their work in a spirit so far removed from one of fraternity as to make Marx' vampire capital assume a highly respectable appearance.
- (9). Collectivism claims to abolish over-production and want, but theorists will not explain how they propose to prevent good or bad harvests in the vineyards, the orchards, the corn-fields, etc.
Schoeffle's conclusion is: “Democratic collectivism is impossible and is unable to realise a single one of its economic promises.”
BOOK VIII
THE ACTUAL CLASS WAR
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