CHAPTER II.EARLY SOCIALISTIC AND COMMUNISTIC THEORISTS

MUCH OF THE COMMUNISTIC and Socialistic literature which was published in Germany during the first half of this century has been lost sight of and forgotten, owing to the perfect inundation of works which has followed since Socialism became a great power in the State. In order, however, to a proper comprehension of this subject, and to a right estimation of latter-day Socialists, it is necessary to learn something of the theories advanced and the work done by the early champions of Socialism in Germany. Passing over Fichte, who, though a philosophical Socialist of revolutionary views, can hardly be said to have exerted great influence as such upon the thought of his day, the leading authors of this school during the first half of the century are found to be Karl Rodbertus, Karl Marx, Friedrich Engels, Heinrich von Thunen, and Karl Mario (Professor Winkelblech), to whom may be added one of the early captains in the camp of Communism, Wilhelm Weitling, a German refugee, who lived long in Switzerland. As the first two of these writers will require extensive notice, it will be convenient to overlook them for the present.

JOHANN HEINRICH VON THUNEN

Taking the other authors in chronological sequence, the first to be noticed is Johann Heinrich von Thunen, of Jeverland, who lived 1783-1850. He was the son of a landed proprietor, and became himself the owner of a large estate near Rostock. He was early intended for the pursuit of agriculture, and his studies at home and at Gottingen University were directed to that end. Political economy became his favorite study, and in 1826 he published the first volume of his classical work, “Der isolirte Staat.” It is still a matter of debate how far Von Thunen was a Socialist, but many of the opinions to which he gives expression are of a decidedly advanced nature. Thus, over sixty years ago, he complains that the remuneration of every industrial undertaker is far too high in proportion to the share of profits which falls to the laborer; and writing at a time when constitutional government could not be said to exist in Germany, he pleads earnestly for the representation of the working-classes in the Legislature.

In a letter written to a relative in 1830 Von Thunen tells how, during a recent conversation on social questions, the future seemed suddenly to open out to him, and “I saw in the coming centuries another frightful struggle begin, which required for its completion perhaps five hundred years of ruin and misery. I mean the struggle between the educated middle-class and the common people, or more properly between the capitalist and the artisan. In the present crisis all is certainly done through the people, but nothing/or the people. Only the middle-class has acquired rights, and can defend these rights in the future, while the artisan has nowhere obtained admission to the Legislature, and thus he cannot even maintain his present degree of culture.” An interesting passage in one of his private letters shows, too, how earnestly he studied social questions. Writing in 1830 he says:

“All writers on political economy are agreed that the sum of the means of subsistence necessary to the maintenance of life is the natural wages of labor. Science necessarily governs the opinion of all men, and so we find that all Governments and all legislative representatives embrace this principle, and every endeavor after higher wages is regarded and punished as sedition. Man is never more terrible than when he is in error : he can then be unjust and cruel, and his conscience is quiet because he believes he is doing his duty. But will the people ever share the view of the political economists? Will they become convinced that the frightful inequality in the remuneration of mental and physical work, and of the services of capital, is founded in the nature of the case? Excited by such considerations, and regarding the subject as from this point of view one of the greatest importance, I was driven with such force back to my former investigations, continued for some years, into the relation between interest and wages, that for four weeks I could think of nothing else, though my health suffered seriously as a consequence. At last the longed for light broke on me, and great was the reward of my exertions.”

Writing on August 20th, 1846, he tells how he endeavored to do something practical for the working class: “On August 4th we left Marienbad. The afternoon previously we paid a visit to Privy Councilor of Justice von Voss. I felt it a sacred duty to lay my views on the lot of the working class before this opulent man. At first it was impossible to give the conversation this turn, and when Minister von Uhden and a Privy Councilor entered the room every prospect seemed to have disappeared. I then felt suddenly filled with a holy anger: putting modesty aside I spoke up and said what I had to say.”

More than all, Von Thunen proved his own faith in his precepts by adopting upon his fellow estate the system of profit-sharing, which was a great benefit to his laborers. He died September 22nd, 1850. He writes: “If the maintenance of a laboring family during a year = A bushels of rye, and the yearly produce of the family’s labor = P bushels of rye, then the naturgemasser Arbeitslohn (the wages that are according to nature) = KAP. Here man appears as the lord of creation what he can win from nature by his labor is his property. Capital itself is a product of labor, and the remuneration which the capitalist receives is only wages from earlier performed labor.” Von Thunen thinks that the only way to raise the wages of labor is to increase the cost of bringing up the laborer, and thus he advocates the better education and training of the workman’s children, the requisite cost being regarded as an indispensable need. At the same time he imposes the condition that the laborer shall not marry until he possesses the means of bringing up a family. The result of this arrangement will be a diminished supply of laborers and higher wages. He seeks, in fact, to hasten the era of reason. The laboring classes must learn that the

remedy for their unfortunate condition lies largely with themselves, for it is at bottom a question of population. “The Isolated State” was greatly valued by Karl Rodbertus, who wrote on September 29th, 1840, that the oftener he read it the more invaluable it became to him. The work continues to be regarded as a classical hand-book to the study of questions connected with the cultivation of the land.

WILHELM WEITLING

A very noteworthy figure in the early history of German Communism was that of Wilhelm Weitling, born in 1808 at Magdeburg, the son of a soldier. Weitling, who was poorly educated, but possessed considerable natural gifts, was apprenticed to a tailor, and as a journeyman he travelled through Germany during six or seven years. Living at Leipzig in 1830 he entered heartily into the political movements of the time, and attempted to gain entrance for his advanced views in a local newspaper, but his advances were generally Deceived with coldness. He next went to Vienna, and finally removed in 1837 to Paris, Germany having become too warm for him. Before this he had once visited the French capital for a short time, and he now remained in France nearly four years. At this time the theories and systems of Fourier and Cabet were exciting much interest, and it is only natural that the current controversies should have set Weitling thinking. His thinking led to writing, and in 1838 he published his first work with the title, “Die Menschheit wie sieistundwiesie seinsollte” ("Mankind as it is and as it should be"), the cost being borne by ;he German Socialists in Paris. In the summer of 1841 Weitling proceeded to Geneva for the purpose of carrying on an agitation which might produce more results than any efforts exerted in Paris could do, and in the September following he issued the first number of a Communistic magazine, “Hulferuf der deutschen Jugend” ("Cry for help of German youth"). The motto of this monthly print was “Against the interest of individuals in so far as it injures the interest of all, and for the interest of all without excluding one individual,” and the theories advanced were, as might be expected, very far-going. Not only did Weitling agitate by means of the Press, but he formed Communist Associations in various parts of Switzerland, in spite of the opposition of the Government, which from the first kept a vigilant eye upon him. In 1842 appeared his “Garantien der Harmonie und Freiheit"("Guarantees of Harmony and Freedom"), the tone of which is revolutionary, and three years later he published “Das Evangelium eines armen Siinders,” ("The Gospel of a Poor Sinner"). In the latter work no fewer than a hundred passages are quoted from Scripture as furnishing justification for radical proposals of social reform.

Weitling, whose Communism is mainly based on the theories of Fourier and Cabet, looks for social harmony to a labor society, having no State, no church, no personal property, no distinction of nationality or class. In this society all men are to be laborers, and all are to share equally in the produce of labor. Every member of society will be secured a comfortable existence, and none will have power to injure the welfare of another. Knowledge will be the supreme authority, and progress will be the vital principle of this society. Complete harmony will reign, and both police and laws will be superfluous. “A perfect society,” he says, “has no government but an administration, no laws but duties, no punishments but...