I
THE SOCIAL
QUESTION
AS A CULTURAL QUESTION, A QUESTION OF EQUITY,
AND A QUESTION OF ECONOMICS.
[New English edition, translation completely revised
by Henry B. Monges.]
THE social question
should not be regarded as a mere party matter or as a problem
resulting from the personal demands of a few individuals. It has
arisen in the course of social evolution and belongs to the facts of
history. One of these facts is the proletarian socialist movement
which has been growing steadily for more than half a century.
According to our own
views of life or our circumstances, we may regard the conceptions
coming to light in this socialist proletarian movement, either
critically or approvingly. But whatever be our attitude towards it we
can only accept it as an historic fact which must be dealt with as
such. And whoever reflects on the terrible years of the so-called
World-War, (World-War I) even though one may feel compelled to see
causes and motives of different kinds for these horrors, must
acknowledge that it is the social demands, the social contrasts which
have to a great extent caused them. Especially now that we are at the
end, at least for the present, of those terrible events, it must be
clearly evident to everyone that over a great part of the civilized
world the social question has sprung to life as a result of the
World-War. If the social question has sprung to life as a result of
the World War there is little doubt that it was already concealed
within it.
Now it will be
impossible for anyone to judge this question rightly who regards it
from his own narrow, often personal standpoint as is so frequently
done to-day. No one who cannot widen his horizon to take in the
events of human life as a whole is able to take an impartial view of
the social question, and it is just that widening of our horizon
which is aimed at in my book, The Threefold Commonwealth (Die
Kernpunkte der Sozialen Frage).
We must remember, too,
that most people who speak on the social question to-day quite
naturally regard it in the first place as a question of economics; it
is even looked upon purely as a question of food, or, at best, as
facts plainly demonstrate, as one of labor — a question of food
and labor. If we are to regard this question merely in the light of a
food and labor question, we must remember that the human being is
supplied with bread because it is produced for him by the community
at large, and that bread can only be produced by labor. But the
manner in which that labor should and must be carried on depends in
every respect upon the manner in which human society or any separate
part of it, for instance a country, is organized. And to anyone who
has acquired a wider outlook on life it will be clear that there can
be no rise or fall in the price of a piece of bread without the
occurrence of great, of immense changes in the whole structure of the
social organism. To anyone who observes attentively the manner in
which the individual worker plays his part in the social organism, it
becomes evident that when a man works but a quarter of an hour more
or less, this fact is expressed in the way in which the society of
any economic region procures bread and money for the individual. You
see from this, that even if we regard the social question merely as
one of bread and labor, we at once enlarge our horizon, and it is of
this wider horizon in its most varied aspects that I should like to
speak to you in these six lectures. To-day, before going further, I
should like to make a few introductory remarks.
When we survey the
later and very latest history of the evolution of the human race, we
soon find confirmation of what has been so impressively stated by
discriminating observers of social life; of course, this applies only
to discriminating observers. There is a publication of the year 1910
which contains, it may be said, the best that has been written on
this subject and which is the outcome of a real insight into social
conditions. It is the work of Hartley Withers, Money and
Credit, 1910. The author acknowledges pretty frankly that
everyone who professes to deal with the social question at all at the
present day should keep in mind that the manner in which credit,
property, and money conditions figure in the social organism is so
complicated as to have a bewildering effect. If we try logically to
analyze the functions of credit, money, labor, etc., Withers tells us
that it is an absolute impossibility to collect the material
necessary to follow with understanding the things which arise within
the social organism. What has been here stated with so much insight
is confirmed by the whole volume of historical thought in modern
times on the social problem, and especially on the social and
economic cooperation of human beings.
What, then, is really
the conclusion at which we have arrived? Since the time when the
economic life of a country ceased, as one might say, to have
institutions of an instinctively patriarchal character, ever since
the economic life began to assume a more complicated form, under the
influence of modern technical science and modern capitalism, the
necessity has been felt to consider the economic side of life
scientifically, and to form such ideas with regard to it as are
usually applied in scientific research or study. And we have seen how
in modern times views have arisen regarding national, or political,
economy, (Volkswirtschaft) as it is called, to which the words
‘mercantilistic’ or ‘physiocratic’ have been
applied, views such as those of Adam Smith, etc., down to Marx,
Engels, Blanc, Fourier, Saint-Simon, and on to the present day. What
has come to light in the course of this national-economic thought?
Let us look at the school of thought known as the mercantilistic, or
at the physiocratic school of national economy, and let us examine
what Ricardo, the teacher of Karl Marx, has contributed to the study
of national economy. We may also examine what many other economists
have said and we shall always find that these men turn their
attention to one or another particular line of thought in the
phenomena of economics. From this one-sided stand-point they endeavor
to arrive at certain laws according to which the economic life of a
nation can be molded. The result has always shown that laws which
have thus been discovered, according to the methods of scientific
thought, can be adapted to some facts of national economy, but that
other facts are found to be too far-reaching for comprehension within
these laws. It has always been demonstrated that the views of those
who, in the seventeenth, eighteenth, and the beginning of the
nineteenth century, claimed to have discovered laws, according to
which, the economic life of a nation can be constituted, were
one-sided. And then something extremely remarkable came to pass.
It may be said that
national, or political, economy has grown to the status of a science.
It has taken its place among the sciences in our universities, and
the whole armor of scientific thought has been brought to bear on the
investigation of the economic aspect of social life. With what
result? What is the answer of Roscher, of Wagner, or others, to this
question? They have arrived at a consideration of economic laws in
which they do not dare to formulate maxims or give expression to
impulses capable of actually grappling with and forming the economic
life. We might say that the role which national economy has taken is
that of a contemplative spectator; it has retreated more or less
before the activity of social life. It has not discovered laws
capable of molding human life within the social organism.
The very same thing is
seen in another way. We have seen that men have arisen,
large-hearted, benevolent, humanitarian, with fraternal feelings
towards their fellow-men. We need only mention Fourier and
Saint-Simon. There are others like them. Model forms of society have
been thought out by these distinguished thinkers, the realization of
which, they believe, would bring about desirable social conditions in
human life.
Now we know how those
at the present day think concerning such social ideas who feel the
social question to be one of vital importance. If we ask those who
may be said to hold really modern socialistic views for their opinion
of the social ideals of a Fourier, or a Louis Blanc, or a
Saint-Simon, they would say: ‘These are Utopias, pictures of
social life through which an appeal to the governing classes is made:
if they would act in accordance with these pictures, many evils of
social misery would disappear. But all such imaginary Utopias,’
it is said, ‘are wanting in the force needed to inspire the
human will, they can never be anything but Utopias. However beautiful
may be the theories put forward, human instincts — for
instance, those of the wealthy classes — will never alter so as
to put those theories into practice. Other forces are needed to bring
that about.’ In short, an absolute unbelief has arisen in the
social ideals born of feeling, sentiment and modern learning which
have been presented to humanity.
This again hangs
together with the general course of events in the cultured life of
humanity, as seen in the development of modern history. It has often
been expressly stated that what we now recognize as the social
question is connected in all essentials with the modern capitalistic
organization of economic life, and this, again, in its present
special form, is the outcome of the preponderance of modern technical
science, and so forth. But there are many points to be considered in
this connection and we shall never be able to deal with these unless
we take into account that with the capitalist regime, and with the
modern application of technical science, an entirely new attitude of
mind has arisen among modern civilized humanity. This new conception
of the world has produced great, epoch-making results, especially in
the fields of technical and natural science. But there is another
side to it, of which something must be said.
Those of you who are
acquainted with my books will not have failed to observe that I am
ready to do full justice to, and in no wise deny or criticize
unfavorably the discoveries of modern times through scientific
methods of research. I fully recognize what has been done for the
progress of humanity by the Copernican world-conception, by the
science of Galileo, the widening of the horizon of mankind by
Giordano Bruno, and much besides. But side by side with modern
technical science, with modern capitalism, a gradual change has come
about in the old world conception. The new conception of the world
has taken on a decidedly intellectual, above all a scientific,
character. It is true that some people find it hard to look facts
straight in the face, but we need only recall the fact that the
scientific world-conception which we now regard with pride has
gradually developed, as we can show, out of old religious, artistic,
aesthetic, moral conceptions of the world. These views possessed a
certain impelling force applicable to life. One truth, especially,
was peculiar to them all. They led man to the consciousness of the
spirituality of his own nature. However we may regard those old
views, we must agree that they spoke to man of the spirit, so that he
felt within himself the living spiritual being as a part of the
cosmic spiritual being pulsating throughout the world, weaving the
web of the universe. In the place of this old conception, with its
impelling social force, giving an impulse to life, another appeared,
new and more scientific in its orientation. This new conception was
concerned with more or less abstract laws of nature, and facts of the
senses, outside man himself, abstract ideas and facts. Without
detracting in the smallest degree from the value of natural science,
we may ask: what does it bestow on humanity, especially what does it
bestow on man in order to help him solve the riddle of his own
existence? Natural science tells us much about the interdependence of
the phenomena of nature, it reveals much regarding the physical
constitution of the human being. But when it attempts to tell us
anything about man's innermost being, science overreaches itself. It
can give no answer to this question, and it shows ignorance of itself
when it even attempts to answer it.
I do not by any means
wish to assert that the common consciousness of humanity already has
its source in the teachings of modern science. But it is profoundly
true that the scientific mode of thought itself proceeds from a
certain definite attitude of the modern human soul. He who can
penetrate below the surface of life knows that, since the middle of
the fifteenth century, something in the attitude of the human soul
has changed. when we compare it with former times, and is still
changing more and more, and he also knows that the conception of the
world which we find typically expressed in scientific thought has
been diffused increasingly over the whole human race, first over the
cities, then all over the land. It is, therefore, no mere achievement
of theoretic natural science of which we are speaking, but an inner
attitude of the soul which has gradually taken possession of humanity
as a whole since the dawn of modern times. It is a significant
coincidence that this scientific world-conception made its appearance
at the same time as capitalism and modern technical culture. Men were
called away from their old handiwork and placed at a machine, crowded
together in a factory. The machine at which they stand, the factory
in which they are crowded together with their fellows, these,
governed only by mechanical laws, have nothing to give a man that has
any direct relationship to himself as a man. Out of his old
handicraft something flowed to him which gave answer to his query
regarding human worth and human dignity. The dead machine gives no
answer. Modern industrialism is like a mechanical network spun about
the man, in the midst of which he stands; it has nothing to give him
in which he can joyfully share, as did the work at his old
handicraft.
In this way an abyss
opened between the industrial working-class and the employers of
labor, between the capitalist and the working-man of modern times at
his machine in the factory. The worker surrounded by machinery, could
no longer rise to the old faith, the old world-conception with its
impulse for life. He had broken away from it because he could not
reconcile it with the actualities of life. He held to that, and to
that only, which had become a part of modern thought, viz. the
scientific conception of the world.
And this scientific
conception of the world, what was its effect on industrial
working-men? It made them feel more and more strongly that what could
be presented to them as a true world conception was mere thought,
possessing only the reality of thought. Anyone who has lived among
modern working-men and knows the direction taken by social feelings
in later times also knows the meaning of a word which occurs
repeatedly in proletarian socialist circles — the word
‘ideology.’
Under the influences
which I have just described, intellectual life has come to be
regarded by the modern working-classes as ideology. They look upon
the natural-scientific view of the world as offering food for
thoughts only. The old conception had not only thoughts to give; it
gave them something which showed them that their own inmost being was
one with the whole spiritual world, it confronted them, spirit with
spirit. The modern conception had only thoughts to give and above
all, it contained no answer to the question regarding man's real
nature. It was felt to be ideology. In this way a division arose
between the proletariat and the upper classes who had kept the
ancient tradition of the time-honored world-conceptions of the
aesthetic, artistic, religious, moral beliefs of former times. All
this the upper classes retained for the satisfaction of their whole
nature., while with their heads they accepted the scientific
explanation of the world.
The masses of the
people, however, had no inclination for the old tradition or sympathy
with it. For them the only reasonable conception of the world was the
scientific, and this they accepted as ideology; it was to them a mere
thought-structure. To them the economic life was the only
reality-production, distribution of products, consumption, the manner
of acquiring or bequeathing property, etc. Everything else in human
life-equity, ethics, science, art, religion, these are all as vapor
rising in the form of ideology out of the only reality: the economic
life. Thus among the masses, intellectual and spiritual life came to
be looked upon as ideology. This was the case especially because the
leading classes, while they watched the development of the modern
economic life and familiarized themselves with it, did not understand
how to bring intellectual and spiritual life into the growing
complexity of the economic system. They kept to the old tradition of
the intellectual and spiritual life of former days. The masses of the
people adopted the new cultural life, but it gave them no comfort or
nourishment for heart and soul.
A world-conception
such as this, felt as an ideology which gives rise to the thought
that justice, morality, religion, art, science, are a mere
superstructure, a phantom hovering over the only reality, over the
conditions of production, the economic order of things, may form a
subject for thought, but it gives no support in life. However
splendid a world-conception such as this may be in the contemplation
of Nature, it leaves the human soul empty and cold. The fruits of the
scientific conception of the world are showing themselves in the
events of social life in our time.
These social facts
cannot be understood, if we only take into account the content of
human consciousness. People may think consciously: “Why speak
to us of the social question as being of a spiritual nature? The
truth is that commodities are unevenly distributed. We want equal
distribution.” People think like this with the brain. But in
the unconscious depths of the soul something very different is
stirring. In those depths is stirring that which develops
unconsciously, because from the consciousness nothing can flow which
could fill the soul with a real spiritual content, for from that
source can come only what leaves it dead, only what is felt to be
ideology. The emptiness of modern intellectual life is the first
aspect of the social question which we have to recognize; the social
question is in its first aspect a spiritual question.
Since this is true,
since an intellectual life has developed which, for instance, in the
science of economics as taught in the universities, has reached a
merely contemplative stage, and of itself does not evolve principles
of social will; since it is true that the greatest philanthropists,
such as Saint-Simon, Louis Blanc, Fourier, have conceived social
ideas in which no one believes; since everything without exception
that arises out of the mind is regarded as Utopian, that is, as mere
ideology; since it is a historical fact that a life of thought
prevails, which gives the impression of a mere superstructure on top
of the economic actuality, which does not really penetrate to the
facts and is therefore felt to be ideology — for this reason
the social question must in its first aspect be treated as a
spiritual-cultural question. One question, above all, stands out
before us to-day in letters of flame. How must the human mind be
changed, in order that it may learn to master the social
question?
We have seen that
science has applied its best methods to the study of political
economy, and that the result is mere observation without power to
reach the social will. On the soil of modern intellectual life a type
of mind has arisen, powerless to develop national economy as a
groundwork for practical social will. How must the mind be
constituted from which a kind of national economy can proceed,
capable of forming the groundwork of a truly social will?
We have seen that the
great majority of people, when they hear of the social ideals of
well-meaning philanthropists, exclaim ‘Utopia!’ and they
cannot believe that the human intelligence is strong enough to master
social facts. How must the cultural life of a nation be constituted
in order that people may learn again to believe that the mind can
grasp ideas capable of creating social institutions which will remove
certain evils of social life? We have seen that the scientific view
of the world is regarded in wide circles as ideology. But ideology
alone empties the soul, and generates in its subconscious depths all
that we now observe in the bewildering chaotic facts of the social
problem. What new form can we give to cultural life, so that it may
cease to appear as ideology, so that it may fill the human soul with
strength enabling men to work side by side with their fellowmen in a
really social manner?
We thus see why the
social question must be called a cultural question, we see that the
modern intellect has not been able to inspire faith in itself, that
it has not been able to fill the soul with a satisfying content, but
that, on the contrary, as ideology it has desolated the souls of men.
In this introduction, treating the subject historically, I should
like to show how out of the circumstances of modern life, the social
question must he felt in its three aspects as cultural,
legal-political, and economic.
Take, for example,
what was said not long ago and has often been repeated by a personage
actively concerned in the political life, in the statesmanship of our
day, himself a product of the intellectual life of the present
day.
With a deep feeling
for the social conditions of America in their development since the
War of Secession in the sixties of last century, Woodrow Wilson
perceived the relationship between the political and legal conditions
and those of the economic life. With a considerable amount of
unbiased judgment he watched how the great accumulations of capital
have grown in consequence of the complication of modern economic
life. He saw the formation of trusts and of the great financial
companies. He saw how, even in a democratic state, the principle of
democracy has tended more and more to disappear before the secret
operations of those companies whose interest was served by secrecy,
those companies which with their massed capital acquired great power
and obtained influence over enormous numbers of people. He always
used his eloquence on the side of freedom in face of the growth of
power arising out of economic conditions. He knew from a sentiment of
true humanity — this must be said how every single human being
has an influence upon the facts of social life, how the social life
of the community depends upon the manner in which each individual
matures for the duties of social life. He showed how important it is
for the health of the social body that in the breast of every human
being a freedom-loving heart should beat. He pointed out over and
over again that political life must become democratic, that power and
the means of power must be taken away from the various trusts, that
the individual capacities and powers of every human being who
possesses such must have free access to the economic, social and
political life as a whole. He emphatically declared that his own
Government, which he evidently regarded as the most advanced, was
suffering from the prevailing conditions. Why was this? Because the
economic conditions were there: — great accumulations of
capital, development of economic power, surpassing everything in this
domain that had ever existed, even a short time ago. Perfectly new
forms of human social life had been brought about by economic
changes. An altogether new form of economic life had suddenly been
brought into being.
These views are not
the outcome of any leaning towards a theory of my own; they are the
words of this statesman, one may say of this ‘world
statesman.’ He has declared that the fundamental evil of modern
development lies in the fact that, notwithstanding the progress in
economic matters, the latter have been controlled by the secret
machinations of certain persons, and the idea of justice, of the
political life of the community, has not kept pace with economic
progress, but has lingered behind at an earlier stage. Woodrow Wilson
has clearly stated: “We carry on business under new conditions.
We think and legislate for the economic life of the nation from a
point of view long out of date, an antiquated standpoint. Nothing new
has been developed in our political life, in our laws. These have
stood still. We live in an entirely new economic order, while
retaining the out-of-date legal and political ideas.” These are
the words, or nearly so, spoken by Woodrow Wilson himself. In earnest
words he demands that the individual shall work for the benefit of
the community, not for his own. He points out that, as long as the
incongruity between the political and the economic life continues to
exist, the requirements of human evolution at the present epoch in
history cannot be satisfied, and he subjects the life of society
around him to a severe criticism.
I have taken great
pains to examine Woodrow Wilson's criticism of modern social
conditions, especially those he has in view, the American, and to
compare it with other criticisms. (I am going to say something very
paradoxical, but present conditions often urgently demand a paradox,
in order to do justice to the realities of our day.) I have tried
both as to the outer form and the inner impulses to compare Woodrow
Wilson's criticism of society, in the first place as criticism, with
that exercised by advanced thinkers and those holding radical, social
democratic opinions. Indeed, one may even extend this comparison to
the opinions of the most extreme radicals of the Socialist Party in
thought and action. If we go no further than the opinions of such
men, it may be said that Woodrow Wilson's criticism of the present
social order agrees almost word for word with the sentiments
expressed even by Lenin and Trotsky, the gravediggers of modern
civilization, of whom it may be said that, if their rule continues
too long, even in a few places, it will signify the death of modern
civilization and must of necessity lead to the destruction of all the
attainments of modern civilization. In spite of this we must give
expression to the paradox: Woodrow Wilson, who certainly imagined a
very different reconstruction of social conditions from that of these
destroyers of society, directs almost literally the same criticism
against the present order as these others, and he comes to the same
conclusion that legal and political conceptions in their present form
are obsolete, and are no longer fitted to deal with the economic
system. And, strange to say, when we try to find something positive
and to test what Woodrow Wilson has produced in order to construct a
new social organism, we find hardly any answer, only a few measures
here and there, which have even been proposed elsewhere by someone
much less scathing in his criticism. But he gives no answer to the
question relative to the changes necessary in legal matters, in
political conceptions and impulses, in order that these may control
the demands of modern economic life and render it possible for them
to intervene in its activities.
Here we find that out
of modern life itself emerges the second aspect of the social
question, that of law and equity. A foundation must first be sought
for the necessary legal and political conditions for the State which
must exist in order to be able to grapple with and dominate modern
economic organizations. We ask: how can we attain to a state of
rights, to political impulses, which can meet the great demands of
the problem? This is the second aspect of the social question.
If we contemplate life
itself we shall find that the social life of man is threefold. Three
aspects are clearly distinguished in him when we consider him as a
member of human society. If he is to contribute his share, as he
certainly must, to the well-being of the social order in modern
society, if he is to add to the welfare of the community by
cooperation, in the production of values, of commodities, he must
first of all possess individual capacity, individual talent, ability.
In the second place, he must be able to live at peace with his
fellow-men and to work harmoniously with them. Thirdly, he must be
able to find his proper place, from which he can further the
interests of the community by his work, by his activity, by his
achievements.
With respect to the
first of these the individual is dependent on human society for the
development of his capacities and talents, for the training of his
intellect, so that the educated intelligence in him may become at the
same time his guide in his physical work.
For the second, the
individual is dependent on the existence of a social edifice in which
he can live in peace and harmony with his fellow-men. The first has
to do with the cultural side of life. In the following lectures we
shall see the dependence of the intellectual life on the first
aspect. The second leads us into the domain of equity, and this can
only develop in accordance with its own nature, if a social structure
has been established which enables people to work together peacefully
and labor for one another. And the economic aspect, this modern
economic organization is compared, as I have described it, by Woodrow
Wilson to a man who has outgrown his clothes, so that his limbs
protrude on all sides. These outgrown garments represent to Woodrow
Wilson the old legal and political conceptions which the economic
body has long since outgrown. The growth of the economic organization
beyond the old cultural and political organizations was always
strongly felt by socialist thinkers, and we need only look at one
thing in order to find the forces at work there.
As we know (we shall
go into all these matters more minutely afterwards), the modern
proletariat is completely under the influence of Marxism, as it is
called. Marxism, or the Marxist doctrine of the conversion of the
private ownership of means of production into public ownership, has
been much modified by followers and opponents of Karl Marx, but
Marxism has, nevertheless, a strong influence on the minds, the views
of life, of great masses of people at the present day, and it shows
itself distinctly in the chaotic social events of our time. If we
take up the undoubtedly remarkable and interesting little book by
Friedrich Engels, the friend and collaborator of Karl Marx, Socialism
in its Evolution from Utopia to Science, and acquaint ourselves with
the whole train of thought in this book, we shall see how a socialist
thinker regards economics in its relationship to the political and
cultural life of modern times. We must fully understand one sentence,
for instance, which occurs in a summary in Engels's little book:
‘In future there must be no more governments over men, over
individuals, but only leadership by the branches of economic life and
control of production.’
These are weighty
words. They mean that the holders of such views desire that something
in the economic life should cease, something which, following the
modern evolutionary impulses, has become a part of the economic life.
The economic aspect of life has to a great extent over-spread
everything, because it has outgrown both political and cultural life,
and it has acted like a suggestion on the thoughts, feelings, also on
the passions of men. And thus it becomes ever more evident that the
manner in which the business of a nation is carried on determines, in
reality, the cultural and political life of the people. It becomes
ever more evident that the commercial and industrial magnates, by
their position alone, have acquired the monopoly of culture. The
economically weak remain the uneducated. A certain connection has
become apparent between the economic and the cultural, and between
the cultural and the political organization. The cultural life has
become more and more one which does not evolve out of its own inner
needs and does not follow its own impulses, but which, especially
when it is under public administration, as in schools and educational
institutions, receives the form most useful to the political
authority. The human being can no longer be judged according to his
capacities; he can no longer be developed as his inborn talents
demand. But it is asked: ‘What does the State want? What
talents are needed for business? How many men are wanted with a
particular training?’ The teaching, the schools, the
examinations are all directed to this end. The cultural life cannot
follow its own laws of development; it is adapted to the political
and the economic life.
The immediate effect
of this tendency, which we have seen especially of late, has been to
make the economic system dependent on the political system. Men like
Marx and Engels saw this union of economics, politics, and culture;
they saw that the new economic life was no longer compatible with the
old political form, nor with the old form of culture. They came to
the conclusion that the life of rights, the old life of rights, and
the cultural life must be excluded from the economic life. But they
were led into a singular error of judgment, of which we shall have
much to say in. these lectures. They regarded the economic life,
which they could see with their own eyes, as. the sole reality. The
cultural life and the life of equity they saw as ideology, and they
believed that the economic life could bring forth out of itself the
new political, and the new cultural conditions. So the belief arose
— the most fatal of errors — that the economic system
must be carried on in a definitely ordered manner. If this were done,
they thought, then out of that economic system the cultural life,
laws, state-life and politics must come of themselves.
How was it possible
for this error of judgment to arise? Only because the real structure
of human economy, actual labor in the economic system, was concealed
behind what is usually called finance. The financial system made its
appearance in Europe as an accompaniment of certain events. If we
look more deeply into history we shall see that about the time when
the Reformation and the Renaissance brought a new spirit into
European civilization, treasures of gold and silver were opened up in
America, and caused an influx of gold and silver, especially from
Central and South America, into Europe. What was formerly an exchange
of natural products was gradually replaced by the financial system.
The natural system of economics could be directed to that which the
soil yielded, that is to say, to actuality. Under this system the
capacity of the individual with his productive powers could be taken
into account; that is, his value as a worker and that of the actual
substance of the commodity could be seen in proper relationship. We
shall see in these lectures how, with the circulation of money, the
importance attached to the essential elements in economics gradually
disappeared; with the substitution of finance for the system of
natural economy, a veil has, as it were, been drawn over the whole
economic life; its actual requirements could no longer be perceived.
With what does the economic system provide us? With commodities for
our consumption. We need not pause to-day to distinguish between
mental and physical commodities, for the former may also be included
in the economic system and used for human consumption. The economic
system, then, provides commodities and these commodities are values,
because the individual needs them, because he desires them. The
individual must attach a certain value to a commodity, and in this
way the latter acquires an objective value within the social body,
and this value is closely connected with the subjective valuation
resulting from the individual's private judgment. But how is the
value of commodities expressed which may be said to represent the
importance of these commodities in the social and economic life? It
is expressed by the price. We shall have more to say later about
value and price; to-day I will only say that in economic intercourse,
indeed, in social intercourse generally, in so far as the buying and
selling of products is concerned, the value of the products for the
consumer is expressed by the price. It is a great error to confound
the value of commodities with the money price, and people will find
out by degrees, not by theoretical deliberations, but in practice,
that the value of commodities produced by the economic body and that
which is the result of human, subjective judgment, or of certain
social and political conditions, is very different from all that is
expressed in the price and in the conditions created by money. But
the value of commodities has been concealed in recent times by the
conditions governing prices.
This lies at the basis
of modern social conditions as the third aspect of the social
question. People will learn to recognize the social question as an
economic question, when they again begin to give due weight to that
which fixes the actual value of commodities, as compared with all
that finds expression in the mere prices. Price standards cannot be
maintained, especially in moments of crisis, except when the State,
i.e. the domain of law, guarantees the value of money, that is, the
value of a single commodity. Without entering into any theoretical
consideration regarding the result of misunderstanding the difference
between price and value, we can cite something which has actually
taken place of late. We read in the literature of political economy
that long ago in Central Europe and until the end of the Middle Ages
the old system of natural economy was in use. This was built up on
the mere exchange of commodities, and its place was taken by the
financial system, in which current coin represents commodities and in
which only the commodity value is actually exchanged for money. But
there is something new making its appearance in social life which
seems likely to take the place of the financial system. This new
element is everywhere at work, but it passes unnoticed as yet. Anyone
who can see through the mere figures in his cashbook and ledger, and
can read the language of these figures, will find that they do not
merely represent the value of commodities, but that the figures often
express what we may call the conditions of credit in the newest sense
of the word. What a man can do, because someone believes him to be
capable of it, that which can awaken confidence in the man's
capacity, this, strange as it may seem, begins to appear more and
more frequently in our dull, dry, business life. Look into business
books and you will find that as against the mere money values, mutual
confidence, belief in human capacity is beginning to be evident. In
modern business books, when we know how to read them, a great change
is expressed, a social metamorphosis. When it is said that the old
natural economy has given place to the financial system, it must now
be added that, in the third place, finance is giving way to
credit.
With this change the
place of an old institution has again been taken by something new.
Thereby a new element appears in social life, the value of the human
being. The economic body itself, as far as the production of values
is concerned, is on the verge of a transformation. It is faced by a
problem. This is the third aspect of the social question.
In these lectures we
shall have to learn to look at the social question (a) as a cultural
question, (b) as one of law, of the State or politics, and (c) as an
economic question.
The spirit must give
the answer to the following: How can men be made strong and capable,
so that a social structure may arise without the present evils, which
are unjustifiable?
The second question
is: Under the advanced conditions of the present economic life, what
is the political system or system of equity which can lead men to
live in peace again?
The third is: What
social structure will enable each individual to find the place from
which he can work for the human community and its welfare, as well as
his nature, his talents and capacities permit? We shall be led to the
answer by the question: What credit can be attached to the personal
value of a human being? Here we see the transformation of the
economic system out of new conditions.
A cultural, a
political, and an economic problem are all contained in the social
question, and we shall see that the smallest detail of that question
can only appear in its true light when we look at it as a whole,
fundamentally, in these three aspects cultural, legal-political, and
economic.
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