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CHAPTER I: The Programme of the International Association - Yves Guyot, Socialistic Fallacies [1910]

Edition used:

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

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CHAPTER I

The Programme of the International Association

Karl Marx' subtleties—Developments rather than reforms—Set-back to Internationalism—Hervé's logic—Socialists act contrary to their professions.

Herr Werner Sombart1 says of the inaugural address of the International Association of Workmen, “It is a veritable masterpiece of ability, although its scheme is not very clear: but Marx is its author and his obscurity is intentional…. Opposing tendencies had to be reconciled. There is something to satisfy everyone in the address. In its convincing portraiture it exhibits the wretchedness of the working classes under the capitalistic yoke…. It celebrates the advantages of free co-operation, Proudhon, Buchez, the advocates of co-operative production subsidised by the State, Lassalle and Louis Blanc. It contains the common sentimental passages which Marx reluctantly let fall from his pen…. Of the object of the Association there was little question.”

The Socialists continue to carry out this policy; what they desire is developments rather than reforms, and, while courting the mob, they aim, not at the true and the useful, but at the art of exploiting the passions and prejudices of the ignorant and the seekers after chimæras.

The headquarters of the International Association was transferred to New York in 1872. It did not perish in consequence of Government measures taken to destroy it, but was dislocated by the quarrels of Karl Marx and Bakunin, which like those which rage between Guesde, Jaurès and Lagardelle, give us an idea of the harmony which will prevail in the Collectivist Paradise.

Karl Marx concluded his Manifesto of 1847 with the words, “Proletarians of all countries, unite.” Werner Sombart says that Marx had “vainly attempted to introduce the ideals of solidarity and union from without.” They certainly have not radiated from within.

The French Socialists do not display the slightest sympathy for Belgian or Italian workmen who come to France; the English workmen have obtained the passing of the “Aliens' Act,” and the expulsion of the Chinese from the Transvaal; the American workmen have inherited the European immigration difficulties and have prohibited the entry of the Chinese and Japanese.

Socialists nevertheless talk of Society with a big S, of Society with neither frontiers nor nations. When Karl Marx said, “Proletarians of all nations, unite,” he did not say that the proletarians of China were excluded from his appeal. The agrarians of Eastern Prussia have suggested the importation of Chinese coolies. Is the German Socialist Party disposed to welcome them as brothers?

At the Stuttgart Congress, the Germans displayed a strong national sentiment and were very angry with Hervé. Still it is Hervé, and not they, that is logical. Every Socialist who admits the existence of a separate nation, admits individual property; for a nation presupposes the ownership by a group of individuals of a portion of the earth's surface.

Speaking generally, the Socialists act contrary to their professions. They say that they want to place property in the hands of the people, but they will either place it in the hands of bodies of men which, whatever the name by which they may go, are greedier than any Harpagon, or in the hands of the State, which, in its turn, will delegate it to departments of administration; and these will exploit it for their own benefit, not for that of the public.

They talk of liberty, but all their proposed legislation is the legislation of tyranny and police, and we have seen them reassimilate free to the type of servile labour.

They talk of an ideal of government, and instead of limiting its attributes, they endow it with powers as vague and indeterminate as those of Oriental or African potentates.

They say nothing of liberty, for they understand it in the same sense as the maid-servant of Frankfort who, on the day after the Revolution of 1848, said to her mistress, “Now that we are equal, you shall carry the coal-box and I will wear the diamonds.”1

[1]Loc. cit. pp. 118-127.

[1]Quoted by M. Georg Simmel, “Philosophie de la Souverainete” Fournal des Economistes, 15 juillet, 1907.