value and property is labor. Hence he argues that all surplus product over the necessary subsistence of the laborer belongs to the laborer, but he declares that as a fact this goes to the capitalist. This theory found an important result in the formation of The International, a league of workmen of the continent which lasted from 1864 to 1872, and in the gradual growth of trade unions. One of the first organizers of modern trade unions in Germany was Ferdinand Lassalle, but at his death in 1864 his general workingmen's union numbered only 4,610 members. In a great congress at Eisenach in 1869 representatives of the many outside unions founded the social democratic workingmen's party and a combination was made with the Lassalle party in 1875. The two together by this time numbered 25,000 members. Since this time the socialists have been an important power in German politics. In England from 1799 to 1824 there had grown up a mass of laws against restriction of trade, as a reaction against the mercantile theory of the eighteenth century. Until 1824 it was a crime to belong to a union. Such restrictions were partly removed in that year and more. fully in 1871. In the United States there were many local unions early in the century, but the first union including all the main trades of a city seems to have been in 1833 in New York. In 1861 a number of trades had a national organization. After the war organization was again begun. and spread rapidly until the panic of '73. From 1877 to 1893 the labor unions seem to have had a rapid growth and the decrease in the panic of '93 was only about 12 per cent., not as great as during previous depressions. To-day practically all general trades are well organized, especially in cities of some size. The necessity of a city water supply, the general spread of lighting by gas, the invention of the railroad in 1814, of the telegraph in 1835, of the telephone in 1878, of the incandescent electric light in 1879, and the introduction of electric street railways all created a class of industries which have been called "natural monopolies." They are all public utilities, and only one is essential in a given field; that is, each plays an important part in present day civilization, has in fact, become a public necessity, and as each is practically unlimited in possible capacity, it is vastly more economical to have one industry than two or more of the same kind in the same field. Since 1882 another class of partial monopolies has sprung up. In 1882 the Standard Oil Company was organized, which was able to control about 85 per cent. of the total output of refined oil in the United States. Since then a vast number of such combinations have been formed, all aiming to control the most of the output and the prices in their lines. Vast capital, enabling them to wait for returns, better freight rates, which their greater volume of business has enabled them to procure, the cutting off of routine expenses and the expense of competitive selling, have all given them an advantage over the small competitor. These are real economic advantages. The evils result chiefly from an ability to charge too high where there is a virtual monopoly ; special rates from public utilities such as railroads; and undue influence in city councils and other legislative bodies. The question of the control of such monopolies is one that is sure to be of the greatest importance in the near future. It involves a direct opposition between the idea of government as made up of individuals with the consequent laissez-faire principles of economy, and the idea of it as a social organism where the whole should supervise all its parts. Most of our ideas of government ownership or control come, though bereft of its most radical features, from the socialism of Marx and Engels. This in a far less extreme form is also the basis of the socialist party of Germany-the strongest single party in numbers in the empire -and of the state socialism represented by the Fabian Society, for example, in England. KARL MARX KARL MARX was born of Jewish parents at Treves, in the province of the Rhine, May 5, 1818. He studied at Bonn and Berlin, and began the practice of law, then gave it up, and became editor of a radical newspaper that was suppressed because of its attacks on the Prussian gov ernment. He moved to Paris, but was expelled in 1845, and went to Brussels, where he founded a German workingman's association, and issued (with Engels) his famous “Manifesto" given below. He again became editor of the Rheinische Zeitung at Cologne, but it was again suppressed, and he went to England, where were his headquarters for the rest of his life. The International Workingmen's Association was founded in 1864. The first volume of Das Kapital was issued in 1867. Marx starts in with Locke's idea that the basis of property is labor, and works out a theory that in the evolution of society, the employing class has come to appropriate the surplus earnings of labor. This, with his consideration. of society as an evolution, are the two most important and influential ideas of the book. The "Manifesto" was much more radical and heated than this later exposition of his ideas, but he believes in the inevitable assumption by the laboring class of the means of production. His theories are a part of almost all socialistic writings, and, without his radical and unnecessary features, the idea that society is an organism which should control what concerns all for the good of all is playing a prominent part in all present day social thought. Marx died in London, March 14, 1883. |