[881] Zur Erkenntniss unserer staatswirtschaftlichen Zustände (New Brandenburg, 1842). The work was to consist of three parts, only the first of which was published, and that has not been reissued since.
[882] The first three Soziale Briefe, as well as the Forderungen, have been republished in Schriften von Dr. Karl Rodbertus-Jagetsow (Berlin, 1899, 3 vols.). This is the edition we quote. The fourth Brief, entitled Das Kapital, was written in 1852, but was not published until after Rodbertus’s death. It was translated into French in 1904 by M. Chatelain, and published by Messrs. Giard and Brière. Our references in the succeeding pages are to this edition. Two other articles written by Rodbertus have been published, one by R. Meyer under the title Briefe u. Sozialpolitische Aufsätze (Berlin, 1882), the other by Moritz Wirth under the title of Kleine Schriften (Berlin, 1890). For a complete bibliography of Rodbertus’s work see Andler’s Le Socialisme d’État en Allemagne (Paris, 1897). Professor Gonner has written an illuminating study of his political philosophy.
[883] In his introduction to the Briefe von Lassalle an Rodbertus, p. 8 (Berlin, 1878).
[884] On the other hand, as Menger shows, the sources of Marx’s theory are English rather than French—another point of difference between the two socialists.
[885] He was for a short time Minister of Public Worship. Appointed on July 4, he resigned at the end of a fortnight because his colleagues refused to recognise quite as fully as he wished the rights of the Parliament of Frankfort.
[886] A characteristic sign of this evolution is the substitution throughout the second edition of the Sociale Briefe of the word Staatswille (“the will of the State”) for the word Volkswille (“the people’s will”). This second edition, comprising the second and third letters, was published by him in 1875 under the title Zur Beleuchtung der sozialen Frage.
[887] Letter to R. Meyer, November 29, 1871. This point of view is developed at length in his “Open Letter to the Committee of the Association of German Workmen at Leipzig,” April 10, 1863, published by Moritz Wirth in the Kleine Schriften.
[888] Letter to R. Meyer, March 12, 1872. Cf. the letters of January 23 and February 3, 1871.
[889] Ibid., November 30, 1871. In 1874 he proposes to offer himself as a socialist candidate for the Reichstag, but recognises that the State must first of all be strengthened on the military side as well as on the religious.
[890] Ibid., October 17, 1872.
[891] Ibid., January 6, 1873.
[892] Ibid., March 10, 1872, and Physiokratie u. Anthropokratie, in Briefe u. Sozialpolitische Aufsätze, pp. 521, 522.
[893] He protests vigorously against the title of Katheder Sozialist in a letter of August 26, 1872. A vigorous criticism of the Socialism of the Chair, written in a private letter of Rodbertus, is quoted at length by Rudolf Meyer in his Emancipationskampf des 4ten Standes, pp. 60-63 (Berlin, 1874).
[894] “Communion or community of labour would be a better term than division of labour” (Kapital, p. 74); and in another connection: “The only real division of labour is territorial division of labour” (ibid.). Elsewhere (p. 87) he warns his readers against confusing the terms “social” and “national.” Adopting the Saint-Simonian philosophy of history, he declares history to be a process of unification which brings gradually widening circles into closer unity with one another (Zur Geschichte der römischen Tributsteuer, in the Jahrbücher für Nationalökonomie u. Statistik, 1865, vol. v, p. 2). “The course of history is just the expansion of communism.” (Kapital, p. 85, note.)
[895] Physiokratie u. Anthropokratie, in Briefe u. Sozialpolitische Aufsätze, p. 519.
[896] Schriften, vol. iii, p. 216.
[897] “In a social State of this description people produce, not with a view to satisfying the needs of labour, but the needs of possession; in other words, they produce for those who possess.” (Kapital, p. 161. Cf. also p. 51.)
[898] “Provided we knew the time that a person could afford to devote to the work of production, we could easily determine the quantity that would be sufficient to satisfy the needs of everybody.” (Kapital, p. 109.)
[899] Ibid., p. 108.
[900] Kapital, p. 143.
[901] The question of the net and gross product was one of the outstanding problems of this period. Vidal (Répartition des Richesses, p. 219, Paris, 1846) and Ott (Traité d’Économie sociale, p. 95, 1851) lay stress upon it. Since then Cournot, Dühring, and more recently Effertz and Landry, have handled the problem anew. But each of them when he comes to define the word “productivity” defines it in his own fashion, so that they do not really discuss the same question. Rodbertus, as we shall have occasion to point out in the text, uses the word in a very vague fashion indeed, but still it is the basis of his whole discussion. It seems to us that under a régime of division of labour rentability should be the one criterion. But it would be a mistake to imagine that when dwindling profits make a change in the methods of production imperative, that change will be welcomed with equal enthusiasm by everybody, by both master and worker alike.
[902] He is dealing merely with individual wants. Rentability is not the only guide. Many collective wants must be satisfied, but the process is not always a profitable one. The problem is to determine which are those wants. Rodbertus is speaking of private wants; he has taken good care to leave the public needs aside, so that his argument applies only to the former.
[903] Kapital, pp. 164-166.
[904] Rodbertus further adds that a portion of everybody’s income should be expended in supplying such public needs. (Kapital, pp. 132-133.)
[905] Kapital, pp. 150-160.
[906] Cf. Zur Erkenntniss, pp. 7-10: “Every economic good costs labour and only labour.” In the third of the Soziale Briefe he expresses this idea in a slightly different form: “All economic goods are the product of labour” (Schriften, vol. ii, pp. 105-106). Developing the same thought, he declares that this formula means: (1) that “only those goods which have involved labour should figure in the category of economic goods”; (2) that, “economically speaking, goods are regarded, not as the product of nature or of any other force, but simply as the product of labour”; (3) that “goods economically considered are just the product of labour, carried out by means of the material operations which are necessary for production.” The work of industrial direction and its remuneration are regarded in the same light. Cf. Schriften, vol. ii, p. 219.
[907] On this point see Rist’s Le Capital provient-il uniquement du Travail? in the Revue d’Économie politique, February 1906.
[908] Rodbertus expressly declares that to say that goods are the product of labour is not to imply that the value of the product is always equal to what it cost in the way of labour, or, in other words, that the labour spent on it does not always measure its value (Schriften, vol. ii, pp. 104, 105). A similar statement is made in the Forderungen (1837). In the Zur Erkenntniss (1842) (pp. 129-131) he gives some of the reasons why he thinks that the value of a product is not equal to the labour it has cost: (1) There is the necessity for equalising the gains of capital; (2) the price of a unit of any commodity is fixed by the price of the unit which costs most to reproduce. In the second of the Soziale Briefe he repeats the statement that the labour value theory is nothing better than an ideal (Kapital, Appendix, p. 279). In a letter written to R. Meyer on January 7, 1872, he affirms the demonstration which he had already given, “that goods do not and cannot exchange merely in proportion to the quantity of labour which has been absorbed by them simply because of the existence of capital”; and he adds the significant words: “a demonstration that might in case of need be employed against Marx.”
[909] “The coincidence between the value of the products and the quantity of labour involved in their production is simply the most ambitious ideal that economics has ever formulated.” (Second Sozial Brief.)
[910] Occasionally Rodbertus admits for the sake of hypothesis or demonstration that prices do coincide with the labour cost; but his essential theory has no need of any such hypothesis, and it really plays quite an auxiliary or subordinate rôle. It is in the course of his exposition of the theory concerning the distribution of unearned income between landed proprietors and capitalists (quite an erroneous theory, by the way) that he is driven to admit that “the exchange value of each completed product, as well as of each portion of the product, is equal to its labour value.” (Third Sozial Brief, Schriften, vol. ii, p. 101.)
[911] Kapital, p. 105.
[912] “Whenever exchange is allowed to take its own course in the matter of distributing the national dividend, certain circumstances connected with the development of society and with the growing productivity of social labour cause the wages of the working classes to diminish so as to constitute a decreasing fraction of the national product.” (Second Sozial Brief, Schriften, vol. ii, p. 37.)
[913] Kapital, p. 153.
[914] The idea that entrepreneurs base their production upon the demand of the higher classes is a somewhat novel one, but it is quite definitely stated by Rodbertus. “The classes can only influence the market in proportion to the quantity of the social product which is given them. But the entrepreneurs must determine the quantities which they will produce, according to the size of their demands.” (Kapital, pp. 51-52. Cf. also pp. 170-171.) It is quite obvious, on the contrary, that the entrepreneurs base their production solely upon the demand for the particular goods which they manufacture, and that they are quite indifferent to the share which goes to the higher classes.
[915] Kapital, p. 53.
[916] We shall soon be convinced of the similarity that exists between the two theories if we read the passage in the article on Balance des Consommations avec les Productions, published by Sismondi as an appendix to the second edition of the Nouveaux Principes, vol. ii, p. 430. Rodbertus agrees with Sismondi that equilibrium will be re-established in the long run, but that in the meantime a crisis may have to intervene. (Kapital, p. 171, note; cf. p. 190, supra.)
[917] Such, as we have already seen, is Colson’s conclusion (Cours, vol. iii, p. 366), and such is the verdict of M. Chatelain after studying the United States census returns. According to Chatelain (Questions pratiques de Législation ouvrière, June and July, 1908), the American metal-workers’ share in the product fell from 71 to 68 per cent. between the years 1890 and 1905, while capital’s share increased from 28 to 32 per cent. The men’s wages during the same period rose from 551 dollars to 626, while the rate of interest fell from 9 to 8 per cent. Despite this diminution in labour’s share of the total product it is impossible to say whether the remuneration of labour in general is moving upward or downward, for the working classes do not depend solely upon the wages of their labour. Some of them have a little capital—a very small amount, perhaps, but there is no reason for thinking that it will not grow in future.
It is quite clear that this complicated question must be carefully defined. Three different factors must be distinguished: (1) The individual’s wage; (2) labour’s share in the product; (3) the income of the working class. On this problem see Edwin Cannan’s article in the Quarterly Journal of Economics, 1905, and his statements in his Theory of Production and Distribution, 1776-1848.
[918] Kapital, p. 176.
[919] Ibid., p. 187.
[920] “And so I believe that just as history is nothing but a series of compromises, the first problem that awaits economic science at the present moment is that of effecting some kind of a working compromise between labour, capital, and property.” (Kapital, p. 187.) In a letter written on September 18, 1873, to R. Meyer, he declares that the great problem “is to help us to pass by a peaceful evolution from our present system, which is based upon private property in land and capital, to that superior social order which must succeed it in the natural course of history, which will be based upon desert and the mere ownership of income, and which is already showing itself in various aspects of social life, as if it were already on the point of coming into operation.”
[921] Cf. Kapital, pp. 109 et seq., and especially his article Der Normalarbeitstag, which appeared in 1871 and was republished in Briefe u. Sozialpolitische Aufsätze, p. 552 et seq. The idea of determining value in the way Rodbertus intended was criticised by Marx in his Misère de la Philosophie, à propos of Proudhon’s attempt in 1847. The socialisation of production involves the socialisation of exchange as well. This is another point upon which Marx and Rodbertus differ.
[922] Cf. Kapital, p. 188, note.
[923] Zur Geschichte der römischen Tributsteuer, in Jahrbücher für Nationalökonomie u. Statistik, vol. viii, pp. 446-447, note.
[924] “Extreme socialism,” says Wagner, “is simply an exaggeration of that partial socialism which has long been a feature of the economic and social evolution of all nations, especially the most civilised.” (Grundlegung, 3rd ed., p. 756.)
[925] George Meredith in his Tragic Comedians weaves his story round this tragic adventure, giving us an admirable study of Lassalle’s psychology. Cf. also Lassalle, by Georges Brandes, and Oncken’s Lassalle (Stuttgart, 1904).
[926] Théorie systématique des Droits acquis, vol. i, p. 274, note (Paris, 1904).
[927] Briefe von Lassalle an Rodbertus, p. 46 (Berlin, 1878).
[928] Ibid., p. 44.
[929] Freilich darf man das dem Mob heut noch nicht sagen. (Ibid., p. 46.)
[930] “No workman will ever forget that property whenever legally acquired is absolutely inviolable and just,” says he in an address delivered to the workers of Berlin on April 12, 1862, and published under the title of Arbeiterprogramm (Schriften, vol. i, p. 197). Elsewhere he defends himself against the charge of inciting the proletariat by claiming that his agitation was of a purely democratic character, and intended to facilitate the fusion of classes (ibid., vol. ii, pp. 126-127). (Our quotations are taken from Pfau’s edition. We were unable to obtain the latest and by far the best edition of Lassalle’s works, published by Bernstein.)
[931] Wagner’s introduction to Briefe von Lassalle an Rodbertus, p. 5. Lassalle has himself defined this somewhat Machiavellian attitude in a letter written to Marx in 1859, in which he speaks of a drama which he had just written dealing with Franz von Sickingen. “It looks like the triumph of superior realistic ability when the leader of a rebellion takes account of the limited means at his disposal and attempts to hide from other men the real object which he has in view. But the success achieved by deceiving the ruling classes in this way puts him in possession of new forces which enable him to employ this partial triumph for carrying out his real object.” (Aus dem litterarischen Nachlass von K. Marx, F. Engels, und Lassalle, vol. iv, p. 133; published by F. Mehring, Stuttgart, 1902.)
[932] Schriften, vol. ii, p. 99. This address has been published under the title of Arbeiterlesebuch. This is just the attitude of which Marx disapproved. In a letter written to Schweitzer on October 13, 1868, quoted by Mehring (Aus dem litterarischen Nachlass, etc., vol. iv, p. 362), he expresses himself as follows: “He is too liable to be influenced by the immediate circumstances of the moment. He exaggerates the trivial difference between himself and a nonentity like Schulze-Delitzsch, until the issue between them, governmental intervention as against private initiative, becomes the central point of his agitation.”
[933] Schriften, vol. i, p. 213.
[934] See, among others, the chapter entitled Hegel et la Théorie de l’État, in Lévy-Brühl’s L’Allemagne depuis Liebnitz, especially p. 398 (Paris, 1890). The State, according to Hegel, is an expression of the spirit realising itself in the conscience of the world, while nature is an expression of the same spirit without the conscience, an alter ego—a spirit in bondage. God moving in the world has made the State possible. Its foundation is in the might of reason realising itself in will. It is necessary to think of it not merely as a given State or a particular institution, but of its essence or idea as a real manifestation of the mind of God. Every State, of whatever kind it may be, partakes of this divine essence. For full information concerning the philosophical origin of State Socialism see Andler’s Le Socialisme d’État en Allemagne (1897).
[935] Fichte issued a very curious work in 1800 entitled Der geschlossene Handelsstaat, published in vol. iii of his complete works (Berlin, 1845), and containing ideas with many points of resemblance to those of State Socialism. Fichte thought that the State should not merely guarantee to every citizen his property, but should first of all rear its citizens, let them build their property, and then defend it. In order to do this everyone should be given the necessary means of livelihood, for the one aim of all human activity is to live, and everyone here has an equal right to live (p. 402)—a declaration of the right of existence. Until all are so provided for no luxuries should be allowed. No one should decorate his house until he feels certain that everyone has a house, and everyone should be comfortably and warmly clad before anyone is elegantly dressed (p. 400). “Nor is it enough to say that I can afford to pay for it, for it is unjust that one individual should be able to buy luxuries while his fellow citizens have not enough to procure the necessaries of life. The money with which the former purchases his luxuries would in a rational State not be his at all.” Adopting this as his guiding principle, Fichte proposes to organise a State in which the members of every profession, agriculturists, artisans, merchants, etc., would make a collective contract with one another, in which they would promise not to encroach upon one another’s labour, but would guarantee to everyone a sufficient number of the goods which each has made for his own use. The State would also undertake to see that the number of persons in every profession was neither too few nor too many. It would also fix the price of goods. Lastly, in view of the fact that foreign trade would naturally upset the equilibrium established by the contract which guaranteed security of existence to each individual, the commercial State would have to be entirely hemmed in by tariff walls. The whole work is original and interesting. A. Menger, who gives a brief résumé of it in his second chapter of The Right to the Whole Produce of Labour, thinks that Fichte was influenced by what he saw of the Convention during the Reign of Terror, by the issue of assignats, and perhaps by Babeuf. Fichte, on the other hand, takes care to point out that his commercial State is not realisable as such, but that a book like his is not less useful in view of the general hints which it affords a statesman.
[936] It is remarkable that the majority of the commercial and financial measures introduced in Germany between 1866 and 1875, such as a uniform system of weights and measures, the reform of the monetary system, banks, the tariffs, etc., were directly inspired by the principles of economic Liberalism.
[937] A copy of the text translated into French appeared in the Revue d’Économie politique, 1892. The translation was the work of our regretted colleague Saint-Marc.
[938] In addition to Wagner we might mention Albert Schaeffle, who has shown considerable literary activity, but who is more of a sociologist than an economist. His great work, Bau und Leben des sozialen Körpers (1875-78), contains an organic and biological theory of society, but his best known book is the Quintessenz des Sozialismus.
[939] Wagner’s principal works, which contain an exposition both of the ideas and programme of State Socialism, are Grundlegung (1st ed. 1876), translated into French in 1900 under the title Fondements de l’Économie politique; Finanzwissenschaft; his article Staat in the Handwörterbuch der Staatswissenschaften; and especially two articles entitled Finanzwissenschaft and Staatssozialismus, published in the Zeitschrift für die gesammte Staatswissenschaft, 1887, pp. 37-122, 675-746. One might profitably consult two addresses, the one of March 29, 1895, Sozialismus, Sozialdemokratie, Katheder u. Staatssozialismus, the other of April 21, 1892, Das neue sozialdemokratische Programm.
[940] It is a curious fact that Wagner’s definition of the province and functions of the State is not very different from Smith’s, though differing considerably from Bastiat’s. “As a general rule,” says he, “the State should take charge of those operations which are intended to satisfy the wants of the citizens, but which private enterprise or voluntary associations acting for the community either cannot undertake or cannot perform as well or as cheaply.” (Grundlegung, 3rd ed., 1893, 1st part, p. 916.)
[941] “Liberalism only recognises one task which the State can perform, namely, the production of security.” (Quoted by Schönberg, Handbuch der politischen Oekonomie, 3rd ed., vol. i, p. 61. The quotation is taken from Rentzsch’s dictionary, articles on Freihandel and Handelsfreiheit.)
[942] “Kultur und Wohlfahrtzweck” (Wagner, Grundlegung, p. 885.)
[943] Wagner, Grundlegung, 3rd ed., pp. 811 et seq.; 839 et seq. The State Socialists have a habit of wrongfully using the two expressions “free competition” and “economic liberty” as if they were synonymous terms. See Grundlegung, p. 97.
[944] Dupont-White, L’Individu et l’État, 5th ed., p. 9.
[945] Ibid., p. 267.
[946] Preface to Stuart Mill’s Liberty.
[947] Wagner, Grundlegung, 3rd ed., pp. 892 et seq.
[948] Finanzwissenschaft und Staatssozialismus, p. 106.
[950] Dupont-White, Capital et Travail, p. 353 (1847); L’Individu et L’État, p. 81.
[951] L’Individu et l’État, p. 65.
[952] Ibid., pp. 163, 164.
[953] “No means has as yet been suggested which will help to delimit the functions of the State from those of the individual. But that is not a consideration of any great moment, for we can always arrange matters so as to make them balance roughly when it comes to a particular case.” (L’Individu et l’État, pp. 298 and 301.) Elsewhere (in his preface to Mill’s Liberty) he gives it as his opinion that such a delimitation is impossible, and that when we are speaking of the State and the individual we are speaking of two distinct powers, such as life and law (p. vii). Law has to follow in the footsteps of life, reproving its excesses and correcting its faults (p. xiii).
[954] Wagner, Grundlegung, p. 887.
[955] State enterprise is to be recommended wherever possible, “not only for specific reasons which make the State ownership of certain industries highly desirable, but also for reasons of social policy, such as the advisability of helping industry to pass from a régime of individual ownership to that of communal control.” (Finanzwissenschaft und Staatssozialismus, p. 115.)
[956] Dupont-White’s individualism is as unimpeachable as Wagner’s, which proves that an individualist need not always be a Liberal. “The author of Liberty,” says he in his preface to Mill’s Liberty, p. lxxxix, “has a keen sympathy for individualism, which I share to the full, though without any misgivings as to the future destiny of this unalterable element. Individualism is life. In that sense individualism is imperishable.”
[957] Cf., for example, Schmoller’s open letter to von Treitschke (1874-75), translated in his Politique sociale et Économie politique (Paris, 1902). To the objection that the civil list of European monarchs is condemned in principle Schmoller replies that he is “speaking of the average man,” but that “the Hohenzollerns, when considered in this light, have no more than they deserve” (p. 92). We suspect that this argument will not carry much weight outside Germany.
[958] Wagner recognises the arbitrary nature of his suggestions. Theoretically, he says, this method of procedure is quite legitimate, but practically it is not so simple, “for the object, in short, is to employ the principles of equity and of social utility, which are by no means difficult to formulate, and to transmute those principles into legislative enactments, so as to put a check upon the arbitrary and excessive accumulation of wealth in the hands of a few individuals, such as is the case under a régime of free competition.” (Finanzwissenschaft und Staatssozialismus, p. 719.)
[959] P. 398.
[960] Finanzwissenschaft und Staatssozialismus, p. 718.
[961] The imperial message of November 17, 1881, announcing the celebrated series of Insurance Acts admits the necessity for a more marked policy of State intervention: “To lay hold of the ways and means whereby the working classes may best be helped is by no means an easy task, but it is one of the highest which a moral and Christian community can set its heart upon.” Bismarck, in his speech of May 9, 1884, said: “I unhesitatingly recognise the rights of labour, and so long as I occupy this place I shall uphold them. In so doing I base my plea, not upon socialism, but upon the Prussian Landrecht.” Section 2 of Art. XIX of the second part of the Prussian Landrecht (February 5, 1794) reads as follows: “To such as have neither the means nor the opportunity of earning their own livelihood or that of their family, work shall be given, adapted to their strength and capacity.” Despite its general tone, it did not contemplate giving relief.
[962] Speech delivered on March 18, 1889, quoted by Brodnitz, Bismarcks Nationalökonomische Ansichten, p. 141 (Jena, 1902).
[963] The well-known German economist Professor Lexis has unfortunately not been mentioned in this chapter, for the Göttingen professor has the misfortune of being neither a State Socialist nor a member of the Historical school. His works, dealing with various topics—money, the population theory, and general economic theory—are scattered through a number of reviews and other publications, especially the Jahrbücher für Nationalökonomie und Statistik, Schönberg’s Handbuch, and the great Handwörterbuch der Staatswissenschaften. His writings are distinguished not only by a definitely scientific method of treatment, but also by a remarkable clearness of thought. While appearing to continue the tradition of the Classical school, he takes care to reject the optimistic conclusions which are too often regarded as an inseparable element of that tradition. In 1900 Lexis gave us a general résumé of his teaching in the Allgemeine Volkswirtschaftslehre, where he treats of the economic world as concerned merely with the circulation of goods. In addition to an interesting theory of crises, upon which we cannot dwell just now, the most original part of the work consists of a theory concerning the method of distributing the social product between workers and capitalists. Lexis thinks that all material goods are produced by labour and measurable in terms of labour. The problem then is to determine where the capitalist gets his income. The capitalist’s profit is not the result of exploitation, as Marx thought, but is simply what is added to the sale price—a sum corresponding to the capitalist’s interest is added to the sum representing the workmen’s wages. Profit originates in the sphere of circulation. But how will this increased sale price benefit the capitalists, seeing that under existing conditions the workers can only buy the equivalent of the products which they have already helped to produce? We need to remember, however, that they produce for the capitalist as well as for themselves, and with the money thus obtained the working classes are enabled to buy whatever they need at market prices, i.e. at a price that includes interest, which constitutes the capitalist’s profit. Whenever the capitalists themselves purchase goods made by themselves they are reciprocally benefiting one another. Their class position is not modified by such procedure, for each entrepreneur simply draws profits in proportion to his capital. And so we avoid the most serious objection which can be raised to Marx’s theory. This explanation of the surplus value received by the capitalists is at least very ingenious. Lexis has been mostly influenced by Marx and Rodbertus, and has attempted a fusion of their more vigorous conceptions. Despite the objections that might be raised to it, the work is certainly one of the most original of recent years.
[964] Karl Marx, generally spoken of as a Jew, was born on May 5, 1818, of Jewish parents who had been converted to Protestantism. Born of a respectable bourgeois family and wedded to the daughter of a German baron, few would have predicted for him the career of a militant socialist. Such was to be his lot, however. In 1843, at the age of twenty-five, the authorities having suppressed a newspaper which he was conducting, he fled to Paris, and thence to Brussels. Returning to Germany during the Revolution of 1848, in which he took an active part, he was again expelled, and this time took refuge in London (1849). Here he spent the rest of his life (about thirty years), leaving for France a short time before his death in 1883. He died at London on March 14 in that year.
Although Marx was one of the founders and directors of the famous association known as the “International,” which was the terror of every European Government between 1863 and 1872, he was not a mere revolutionary like his rival Bakunin, nor was he a famous tribune of the people like Lassalle. He was essentially a student, an affectionate father, like Proudhon, an indefatigable traveller, and a man of great intellectual culture.
The best known of his works, which is frequently quoted but seldom read, is Das Kapital, of which the first volume—the only one published during his lifetime—appeared in 1867. The other two volumes were issued after his death, in 1885 and 1894, through the efforts of his collaborator Engels.
This book has exercised a great influence upon nineteenth-century thought, and probably no work, with the exception of the Bible and the Pandects, has given rise to such a host of commentators and apologists. Marx’s other writings, though much less frequently quoted, are also exceedingly important, especially La Misère de la Philosophie, published in 1847 in answer to Proudhon’s Les Contradictions Économiques; Zur Kritik der politischen Oekonomie (1859); and particularly the Communist Manifesto, published in January 1848. The Manifesto is merely a pamphlet, and at first it attracted scarcely any attention, but Labriola goes so far as to say—not without some exaggeration, perhaps—that “the date of its publication marks the beginning of a new era” (Essai sur la Conception matérialiste de l’Histoire, p. 81). At any rate, it is the breviary of modern socialism. There is scarcely a single one of its phrases, each of which stings like a dart, that has not been invoked a thousand times. The Programme of the Communist Manifesto is included in Ensor’s Modern Socialism.
It is a much-debated question as to whether Karl Marx was influenced by French socialists, and if so to what extent. On the question of his indebtedness to Pecqueur and Proudhon see Bourguin’s article in La Revue d’Économie politique, 1892, on Des Rapports entre Proudhon et K. Marx. Proudhon’s work, at any rate, was known to him, for one of his books was a refutation of the doctrines of the petit bourgeois, as he called him. Certain analogies between the works of these two writers to which we shall have to call attention will help us to appreciate the extent to which Marx is indebted to Proudhon. But, as Anton Menger has pointed out, we must seek Marx’s antecedents among English socialists, in the works of writers like Thompson especially. Nor must we forget his friend and collaborator Friedrich Engels, who for the sake of his master has been content to remain in the background. Engels collaborated in the publication of the famous Manifesto in 1848, and it was he who piously collected and edited Karl Marx’s posthumous work. It is difficult to know exactly what part he played in the development of Marx’s ideas, but it is highly probable that it was considerable.