Socialism and Democracy in EuropeOrth, Samuel Peter
History
Socialism and Democracy in Europe
Orth, Samuel Peter
Democracy; Socialism
Finally, all Socialists agree in the instrument of change. It lies at
hand as the greatest co-operative achievement of our race, the state.
It is the common possession of all, and it is the one power that can
lay its hands upon property and compel its obedience. The power of the
state is to be the dynamo of change. This state is naturally to be
democratic. The people shall hold the reins of power in their own
hands.
It must be remembered that every year sees a shifting in the
Socialist's attitude. As he has left the sphere of mere fault-finding
and of dreaming, and has entered politics, entered the labor war
through unions, and the business war through co-operative societies,
he has been compelled to adapt himself to the necessities of things as
they are.
I have tried briefly to show that Socialism originated as a class
movement, a proletarian movement; that the classes, wage-earner and
capitalist, are the natural outcome of machine production; that
Socialism is one of the natural products of the antagonistic relations
that these two classes at present occupy; that Socialism intends to
eliminate this antagonism by eliminating the private employer. I have
tried to show also that Socialism is a criticism of the present social
order placing the blame for the miseries of society upon the shoulders
of private property and competition; that it is optimistic in spirit,
buoyant in hope; and that its program of reconstruction is confused
and immature.
Stripped of its glamour, our society is in a neck-to-neck race for
things, for property. Its hideousness has shocked the sensibilities of
dreamers and humanitarians. Our machine industry has produced a
civilization that is ugly. It is natural that the esthetic and
philanthropic members of this society should raise their protest.
Ruskin and Anatole France and Maeterlinck and Carlyle and Robert
Morris and Emerson and Grierson are read with increasing satisfaction.
It is natural that the participants in this death race should utter
their cries of alternate despair and hope. Socialism is the cry of the
toiler. It is not to be ignored. We in America have no conception of
its potency. There are millions of hearts in Europe hanging upon its
precepts for the hope that makes life worth the fight.
Their Utopia may be only a rainbow, a mirage in the mists on the
horizon. But the energy which it has inspired is a reality. It has
organized the largest body of human beings that the world has known.
Its international Socialist movement has but one rival for homogeneity
and zeal, the Church, whose organization at one time embraced all
kingdoms and enlisted the faithful service of princes and paupers.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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