ABSTRACT
An elementary text-book in socialism written by a socialist and primarily for the instruction of adherents of the socialist creed is not altogether a new departure in literature, but there are few efforts of the kind which are on the whole as acceptable and effective a presentation of their subject as this. The immediate aim of the book is to combat the spirit of petty personal and local interest which is becoming a hindrance to effective co-operation for the larger and remoter ends of the socialist movement in Germany. At the same time it is not a controversial work. Its purpose is sought to be accomplished by so explaining the meaning and trend of the socialist movement as to leave no legitimate ground for the tendency which it deprecates. That the author is a Marxian goes almost without saying; but his
Marxism is of a greatly modernized, softened, conciliatory kind. It is a doctrine of economic evolution, or perhaps better of social evolution primarily on an economic basis, but a doctrine in which the “materialistic theory of history” is no longer obtrusively present in the crude form at every step, although it still remains the fundamental premise. There is no hint of the catastrophic method of reform, nor is there any urging of revolutionary measures. The industrial evolution, we are told, is visibly furthering the socialization of industry day by day. And this not only at certain points, – in certain salient features to which socialistic writers have been in the habit of pointing as evidence of the approach to socialism, – but in all branches of industry, including agriculture, which most socialist teachers have hitherto been content to pass over as a “backward” industry somewhat doubtfully to be included in the scheme for immediate socialization. A characteristic instance of Mr. Calwer’s ingenious use of everyday facts in support of this thesis is his pointing out (p. 71) that all statistical determination of industrial methods and of the extent and range of the production and consumption of industrial products contributes to make an eventual collective control of these branches of industry easier. Not only the collective organization of industry under the direction of trusts and syndicates, therefore, but all canvassing of the markets and the industrial situation, by trade journals as well as by students of practical economics, is labor in the service of the socialist movement.
