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The Socialist Tradition, March 2, 2010
This book is a history of unorthodox economic ideas, a companion volume to the Gray's acclaimed and authoritative "Development of Economic Doctrine" which covers the thought of the "orthodox and respectable" professional "economists." At the outset Gray raises this question: What writers are properly included in a survey of socialist thinkers? Because "there is . . . no agreement among the experts as to what socialism is supposed to mean . . . we shall guide ourselves . . . by accepting somewhat unquestioningly those whom the general consensus . . . has agreed to designate as 'the great socialist.' " Gray therefore postpones to the final chapter his distillation of the "essence of socialism."
The first two chapters consider the contributions to socialist thought of those dual influences from the ancient and medieval world which have been the principals in shaping modern thinking, the Jewish tradition, modified and supplemented by Christianity, and the Greek tradition. Gray concludes that Spartan communism is not the romantic historical remnant of primitive agricultural communism but the inevitable result of a State perpetually organized for war. The communist views of Plato are presented together with a "cold douche of individualist criticism" from Aristotle. Study of the main body of Christian doctrine shows that Christianity assumes or defends the correctness of private property, although "wealth is a trust held for the public good." The minor line of Christian thought which tends toward communism, owes its inspiration to the ancient woman-less Jewish sect, the Essenes.
The transition from the medieval to the modern periods is accomplished by treatment of that "curious and fascinating . . . sideline in the literature of socialism," the Utopias. Gray emphasizes the Utopian doctrine of the perfectibility of man and the incorporation in the Utopias of an astonishing number of modern totalitarian devices. Modern socialism finds its immediate forerunners in the French egalitarians and in the remarkable, though neglected, English pre-Marxian group, as well as in the so-called "fathers" of socialism, those interesting eccentrics, Saint-Simon, Fourier, Owen and Blanc. The "fathers" are described as associationists, only Blanc foreseeing the importance of the role of the State.
Modern or "scientific," socialism means Marx and Engels primarily, but Rodbertus and Lassalle are also so classified. Gray need not have included his apologetic explanation that "much as a sensitive typewriter may rebel against being called upon to perform so hackneyed a task," it is necessary to understand the place of Marx among the great socialists, for he presents an excellent essay on Marxian fundamentals. Gray observes that the labor theory of value, the core of the Marxian system, has "frayed . . . irretrievably"; that common terms such as "value" and "capital" are employed by Marx without specific definition, consequently making possible the horde of confused interpretations of "What Marx Really Meant." "Yet despite his prosy and interminable dullness, despite the confusions and inherent contradictions of his theories, despite his manifold defects in temperament and disposition . . . the indubitable fact remains that Marx has proved the most influential figure of the nineteenth century." Why? Because Marx became the cult of an anemic intelligentsia unable to face reality and because he supplied a body of myths, a social religion, by which men could explain away their unhappiness. (Lenin is described in a later chapter as the one-sided restater of Marx, extending with "damnable emphasis" the theory of the strategy and tactics of the proletarian revolution and dictatorship.)
The failure of the world to fulfill the Marxian prophecies led to the development of Revisionism. Bernstein, the prime begetter of Revisionism, finally came round in substance to "old-fashioned, mid-Victorian liberalism," even declaring that "'one need be no anarchist in order to find the eternal heaping of duties on the State too much of a good thing.'" Fabianism, the other major development in Evolutionary Socialism, unlike Revisionism, was not a reaction to Marx. Fabian Socialism found its original inspiration in Henry George's principle of the unearned increment. But Gray quite properly sets George apart from the ranks of the socialists. George's doctrines, such as his principles of distribution, his clean-cut distinction between land and capital, his statement of the advantages of free trade, are incompatible with the socialist position. The Fabian Socialists improperly extended the principle of rent on land as an unearned increment to capital and labor. Thus Fabian theorists have gone so far as to describe wage differentials as the "rent of ability," individually unearned, and therefore to advocate wage equalization! Socialist Thought, Ancient and Modern
The anarchists are represented by Godwin, Proudhon, Bakunin, Kropotkin and Bertrand Russell. Gray admits that although anarchism theoretically "is the complete antithesis of most forms of socialism." its inclusion is justified because "in practice anarchism works out as an extreme form of socialism." The trade-union relatives of the anarchists are considered in chapters on continental syndicalism and English guild socialism.
In his final chapter, Gray concludes that socialism and individualism are complementary, involving varying proportions of the social and the individual. After considering the proportions in which present-day society should be mixed, Gray decides that "the great need of the day is for a prophet of liberalism" standing for the "pre-eminent worth of the individual." "The danger involved in the drift or urge in the direction of an ever more actively controlling and intervening State, is that at the end of that path-however it may be disguised-lies totalitarianism, with the individual even less than the Guild Socialist's manure, even less than a thing of naught. The very great and deserved welcome accorded to Dr. Hayek's warnings regarding 'The Road to Serfdom' may perhaps be interpreted as an indication that the public mind and conscience are not wholly at ease on the question." Few books in economics are a comparably sound combination of the sprightly and the scholarly. Particularly rare is a history of economic doctrine which can be said to be exciting. But competence of treatment has in no way yielded to entertainment. Richness of reference, evidence of familiarity with the complete works (and biographies) of the great socialists and their critics, meaty, brevity, good-natured humor commend "The Socialist Tradition."
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