Socialism: Utopian and Scientific

The way of thinking of the Utopians has long dominated the socialist ideas of the 19th century, and it still does so in part. Until very recently, all French and English socialists paid homage to it, and the earlier German communism, including that of Weitling, also belongs to it. For them all, socialism is the expression of absolute truth, reason, and justice, and only needs to be discovered to conquer the world by its own power. Since absolute truth is independent of time, space, and human historical development, it is a mere coincidence when and where it is discovered. Moreover, the absolute truth, reason, and justice are different for each school-founder. Since the particular version of absolute truth, reason, and justice in each case is conditioned by the founder’s subjective intellect, life conditions, and level of knowledge and mental training, no solution is possible in this conflict of absolute truths other than that they wear each other down. Nothing else could result from this but a kind of eclectic, average socialism, such as actually reigns to this day in the minds of most socialist workers in France and England—a mixture, allowing for extremely varied shades, of the less offensive critical statements, economic tenets, and future social visions of the various sect-founders. This mixture is all the easier to produce the more the sharp edges of definiteness of the individual components are worn down in the stream of debate, like round pebbles in a brook. To make a science out of socialism, it first had to be placed on a real foundation.