Two questions are raised by Marx's work: First, Are his laws of historical development true? Second, Is Socialism desirable? The second of these questions is quite independent of the first.Marx professes to prove that Socialism must come, but scarcely concerns himself to argue that when it comes it will be a good thing.It may be, however, that if it comes, it will be a good thing, even though all Marx's arguments to provethat it must come should be at fault.In actual fact, time has shown many flaws in Marx's theories.The development of the world has been sufficiently like his prophecy to prove him a man of very unusual penetration, but has not been sufficiently like to make either political or economic history exactly such as he predicted that it would be.Nationalism, so far from diminishing, has increased, and has failed to be conquered by the cosmopolitan tendencies which Marx rightly discerned in finance.Although big businesses have grown bigger and have over a great area reached the stage of monopoly, yet the number of shareholders in such enterprises is so large that the actual number of individuals interested in the capitalist system has continually increased.Moreover, though large firms have grown larger, there has been a simultaneous increase in firms of medium size.Meanwhile the wage-earners, who were, according to Marx, to have remained at the bare level of subsistence at which they were in the England of the first half of the nineteenth century, have instead profited by the general increase of wealth, though in a lesser degree than the capitalists.The supposed iron law of wages has been proved untrue, so far as labor in civilized countries is concerned.If we wish now to find examples of capitalist cruelty analogous to those with which Marx's book is filled, we shall have to go for most of our material to the Tropics, or at any rate to regions where there are men of inferior races to exploit.Again: the skilled worker of the present day is an aristocrat in the world of labor.It is a question with him whether he shall ally himself with the unskilled worker against the capitalist, or with the capitalist against the unskilled worker.Very often he is himself a capitalist in a small way, and if he is not so individually, his trade union or his friendly society is pretty sure to be so.Hence the sharpness of the class war has not been maintained.There are gradations, intermediate ranks between rich and poor, instead of the clear-cut logical antithesis between the workers who have nothing and the capitalists who have all.Even in Germany, which became the home of orthodox Marxianism and developed a powerful Social-Democratic party, nominally accepting the doctrine of``Das Kapital'' as all but verbally inspired, even there the enormous increase of wealth in all classes in the years preceding the war ledSocialists to revise their beliefs and to adopt an evolutionary rather than a revolutionary attitude.Bernstein, a German Socialist who lived long in England, inaugurated the ``Revisionist'' movement which at last conquered the bulk of the party.His criticisms of Marxian orthodoxy are set forth in his ``Evolutionary Socialism.''[9] Bernstein's work, as is common in Broad Church writers, consists largely in showing that the Founders did not hold their doctrines so rigidly as their followers have done.There is much in the writings of Marx and Engels that cannot be fitted into the rigid orthodoxy which grew up among their disciples.Bernstein's main criticisms of these disciples, apart from such as we have already mentioned, consist in a defense of piecemeal action as against revolution.He protests against the attitude of undue hostility to Liberalism which is common among Socialists, and he blunts the edge of the Internationalism which undoubtedly is part of the teachings of Marx.The workers, he says, have a Fatherland as soon as they become citizens, and on this basis he defends that degree of nationalism which the war has since shown to be prevalent in the ranks of Socialists.He even goes so far as to maintain that European nations have a right to tropical territory owing to their higher civilization.Such doctrines diminish revolutionary ardor and tend to transform Socialists into a left wing of the Liberal Party.But the increasing prosperity of wage-earners before the war made these developments inevitable.Whether the war will have altered conditions in this respect, it is as yet impossible to know.Bernstein concludes with the wise remark that: ``We have to take working men as they are.And they are neither so universally paupers as was set out in the Communist Manifesto, nor so free from prejudices and weaknesses as their courtiers wish to make us believe.''
同类推荐
热门推荐
绝地血蔷薇之天堂有雨
草根变巨富父亲的抛弃,滋生了她的仇恨。由平凡少女化作复仇天使的韩紫在母亲离世后走向父亲的新家,却被没有血缘的哥哥劫持,成为利益纷争的筹码,又被他看了个精光……是厌恶,是仇恨,还是少女的懵懂?其实,这并不重要。浴火重生后的她更为一段纯白的恋情刻骨铭心,究竟怎样才能抹去心底漆黑的痕迹?而黑的诱惑与白的惬意之间,少女韩紫究竟将走向何方?中国人易读错的字,说错的话
《中国人易读错的字、说错的话》正是基于这样的目标,将我们在日常生活中经常会读错的字、说错的话分门别类地罗列出来。读者朋友们既可以在闲暇时集中阅读,也可以在出现疑问的时候进行查阅。财迷萌妃:邪魅王爷有点宠
在一次车祸过后,米离睁开眼睛,发现自己来到一个自己从未听说的朝代。穿就穿了,还没有前身的记忆;没有记忆就算了,还毁容;毁容就算了,还没有所谓的便宜爹爹来收养自己。怎么遇到自己就这么倒霉呢?等自己赚了小钱,眼前的男人又是怎么回事?威胁自己,讨好自己,捉弄自己······当自己是宠物猫啊~“这位帅哥,麻烦让让,我还准备在这里摆擂台招亲呢!”米离不客气地对着眼前的男子说道。“想带着我的孩子嫁给别人,你以为我是吃素的么?”于是,那人一把抱起米离,往自家府邸走去。女主爱财,却不贱卖自己。男主腹黑,为她钟情。综漫之这是个卖节操的小店
真书名在封面上,书内有十万节操(也许)。喜欢二次元的点进来看一看。无敌流但不是四处装逼(可能)。作者认真写文,不凑数字(你就当真的看)、不太监、不滥尾。(也许)最后,没事的读者朋友请留下你的书评(这个是必须的)