412 Lord Beay []\fay 14^ 



WEEKLY EVENING MEETING, 

 Friday, May 14, 1880. 



Warken De La Eue, Esq. M.A. D.C.L. F.R.S. Secretary and 

 Vice-President, in the Chair. 



Lord Eeat. 



Certain Aspects of Social Democracy in Germany, 



The idea of socialism is to substitute collective capital and collective 

 labour for individual capital and for individual labour. Individual 

 labour and capital disappear. The results of this combination of 

 capital and labour are put at the disposal of the individuals according 

 to the measure of their labour. By these means it is contemplated 

 to put a stop to the anarchy of competition. The division of labour 

 is of course left to the settlement of public officers. Income from any 

 other source than labour ceases to exist. 



The object is said by its apostles to be no other than to correct 

 the evils resulting from the present agglomeration of capital which 

 has destroyed the small peasant and the small artificer, who were the 

 real representatives of combined capital and labour. They could not 

 stand against the power of a free and better organised association of 

 capital and labour. They cannot be revived. But what can be done 

 is to make the association which ruined them, not their antagonist, but 

 their best friend by absorbing them into it. As the number of great 

 capitalists grows smaller and smaller, and the number of those de- 

 pendent on them larger, the hour draws near, when the great capitalist 

 himself must become a unit in a larger combination of labourers. It 

 will be easier to force ?i few great capitalists into the one great central 

 productive and distributive co-operative association, than to deal with 

 the existing number. It follows that the ju-esent tendency of con- 

 centrating capital in a few hands is most welcome to the socialists, 

 because it will make their task lighter in having to deal in the future 

 with a more limited number. Whether the actual owner of capital 

 acquired it in his own person or in the person of a predecessor, 

 through honest or dishonest means, is of no great consequence. 



Socialists do not attack individuals, regarding their deeds as simply 

 a result of the social organisation of which they form part; they 

 attack that social organisation itself. In that existing organisation 

 labour does not get its due, and capital gets more than its due. 

 Wages are too low, profits too high. Labour always finds itself in 



