Excerpt from Principles of Scientific Socialism
The Socialism of to-day is distinguished from the Utopian theories of the past by the fact that it is scientific. All great movements inevitably pass through a Utopian phase and Socialism is no exception to the general rule.
Socialism is evolutionary in character. There have been the John the Baptists of the new order, proclaiming the way of peace in the industrial wilderness. As alchemy and astrology preceded chemistry and astronomy, so the Utopias of Owenism, Fourierism and Simonism had to precede the full development of Scientific Socialism.
These precursors of social democracy aimed to run ill society into a special mould. In the absence of a thorough knowledge of economic laws they conceived that an industrial system was something society could put on, as a man puts on a suit of clothes, ready made. They thought a perfect system could be invented and superimposed upon society through propaganda. Their crude theories corresponded, as Fredrick Engels has pointed out, to the crude state of capitalist production and to the crude state of the classes. Nevertheless, these men had a far-sighted historic penetration and sagacity.
About the Publisher
Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com
This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works. Это и многое другое вы найдете в книге Principles of Scientific Socialism (Classic Reprint) (Charles H. Vail)