Thorstein Veblen
Review author to: 'Socialism'. By ROBERT FLINT. London: Isbister & Co.; 
Philadelphia: J. B. Lippincott & Co., 1895. 8vo. pp. 512.
The Journal of Political Economy, Vol. 3, No. 2. (Mar., 1895), pp. 247-252.
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[247] The first eight chapters (298 pages out of 498) of this volume are, for 
the greater part, rewritten from lectures delivered "before an audience chiefly 
of workingmen," and afterward published as a series of papers in Good Words. 
Still it is a work which aspires to some scientific standing, as will appear 
from a glance at its table of contents. There are chapters on the History of 
Socialism, Socialism and Labor, Socialism and Capital, the Nationalization of 
Land, the Collectivisation of Capital, Socialism and Social Organization. The 
two hundred pages not based on the author's lectures are still more significant 
of a serious purpose; they deal with the questions of Socialism and Democracy, 
Socialism and Morality, Socialism and Religion.
Professor Flint sets out with many citations of definitions of his subject from 
various writers and then gives his own definition (p. 17), which reads: 
"Socialism ..... is any theory of social organization which sacrifices the 
legitimate liberties of individuals to the will or interests of the community." 
He goes on to say (pp. 17-18): "I do not think we can get much farther in the 
way of definition. The thing to be defined is of its very nature vague, and to 
present what is vague as definite is to misrepresent it. No definition of 
Socialism at once true and precise has ever been given or ever will be given. 
For Socialism is essentially indefinite, indeterminable. It is a tendency and 
movement towards an extreme. .... Socialism is the exaggeration of the rights and 
claims of society, just as Individualism is the exaggeration of the rights and 
claims of individuals. The latter system rests on excessive or exclusive faith 
in individual independence; the former system rests on excessive or exclusive 
faith in social authority." This is, of course, a definition which involves a 
condemnation of that which it sets out to characterize, and is therefore an 
unfortunate defini-[248]tion for any useful purpose. It is, moreover, an attempt 
at defining socialism in the extreme generical sense so as to include all 
possible phases and manifestations of the movement in the past and the present, 
and not specifically that definitely conceived movement which confronts society 
with such singleness of purpose today, and which is the object of so much lively 
alarm and of so much hope and enthusiasm. This chapter on the definition of 
socialism has, indeed, more to do with fossil and recent forms than with that 
extant type of socialism which one might fairly expect would be treated of by a 
teacher who is addressing a popular audience with the avowed purpose of 
instructing and influencing them in their attitude toward the movement as one of 
the vital questions of the day. It also appears in a later chapter (p. 61) that 
"The kind of Socialism most in repute at present ... is the government of all by 
and for all, with private property largely or wholly abolished, capital rendered 
collective, industrial armies formed under the control of the state on co-
operative principles, and work assigned to every individual and its value 
determined for him." "The Socialism thus described has come to be commonly 
designated Collectivism, and the name is convenient and appropriate. It is the 
only kind of Socialism greatly in repute at present, or really formidable; and, 
consequently, it is the form of it which especially requires to be examined. It 
is the Socialism which I shall henceforth have chiefly in view" (pp. 62-63). The 
prefacing of his discussion by the characterization first cited abate becomes 
all the more surprising when it appears that the author finds this second and 
very different definition necessary for practical use.
It may be noted in connection with this painstaking effort at defining his 
subject that while Professor Flint quotes with approval and in support of his 
own position Schaeffle's characterization of socialism (pp. 61-62) he falls foul 
of the same authority in a curious manner at an earlier point (p. 18). Professor 
Flint formulates in strong terms the view that socialism is, in point of 
principle, the diametrical opposite of individualism; whereas Schaeffle in his 
well-known Impossibility of Social Democracy has this to say in amplification of 
his definition of collectivism: "Liberalism and socialism are offspring of the 
same spirit, the spirit of Individualism." "It [Collectivism] is at bottom .... 
the extreme of Individualism - Individualism in universal realization, and 
intensified by the envious fancy of the proletariat." The impression produced by 
this lack of harmony between the author and [249] the authority whom he cites in 
support of his own position is heightened by certain passages in a later chapter 
(pp. 91-100) where he professes the view that socialism and individualism are in 
a vital sense coincident in point of fundamental principle.
The manner in which the author's position vacillates between an identification 
of socialism with individualism and a contrasting of the two as antagonistic 
opposites suggests the generalisation (which might perhaps not be borne out by a 
careful re-reading of the volume) that the two are held to be antagonistic in 
those portions of the book which are printed in large type, and to be identical 
in those portions which are in small print. The large print contains 
(apparently) the substance of the popular lectures which formed the nucleus of 
the book; the fine print, the most of the subsequent emendations.
It may be in place to say a word in extenuation of the lexicographer Littré's 
fault, when he is criticised by Professor Flint (p. 15) for his definition of 
socialism, which "is, if possible, worse" than that given by the dictionary of 
the Academy. The Academy dictionary's definition reads; "The doctrine of men who 
pretend to change the state, and to reform it, on an altogether new plan;" 
Littré's definition as quoted by professor Flint is; "A system which, regarding 
political reforms as of subordinate importance, offers a plan of social reform." 
Now, while Professor Flint may be well within the bounds in saying that it is by 
no means characteristic of the socialism of today "to subordinate the political 
to the social," Littré was perhaps equally accurate in his day in defining it as 
he did. Littré's socialistic (communistic) bias was acquired early. It dates 
back to the period when the term "socialism" first came into vogue. The 
definition which he gives is probably to be taken as answering to his own first-
hand knowledge of the use of the term at that early day, and it defines the 
usage of that time with Littré's accustomed discrimination. The term took its 
early meaning from Owenism, and even appreciably later than the middle of the 
century "socialism" denoted, in European usage, a relatively respectable upper-
class movement for the amelioration of the lot of humanity in general, and of 
the working class in particular, by social rather than political reform. The 
movement inaugurated by Marx and Engels in the forties is the typical 
"socialist" movement of today; but when these men drew up the Manifesto of the 
Communist Party in 1847 they, and the League whose spokesmen they were, 
unhesitatingly adopted the term "communism" to describe their movement. [250] 
Marx and Engels, in the turbulent years of the forties, could no more have 
classed their propaganda as "socialism" than Mr. Hyndman or Mr. Morris today 
could class their activity under the head of "university settlements."
The discussion under the head of Socialism and Labor does not inspire confidence 
in Professor Flint's apprehension of what is involved in the socialist doctrine 
of labor-value and of the "Right to the Entire Product of Labor." There occurs, 
e. g., the following passage (p. 126): "Karl Marx .... maintains that the value 
of work should be estimated according to the quantity of socially necessary 
labor expended, or, in equivalent terms, according to the time which must be on 
the average occupied in the work. There is neither reasonableness nor justice in 
this view. Mere expenditure of labor does not produce any value, and is not 
entitled to any remuneration. A man may labor long and hard in producing 
something in which nobody can see any use or beauty. If he do so, he will get 
nothing for his labor, and he has no right to expect anything for it. He may 
expend ten hours' labor in producing what there is so little demand for that he 
will get merely the pay of one hour's work for it." To this it is to be said 
that probably no socialist would have any hesitation in repudiating the 
construction of the doctrine of labor-value contained in this comment. That 
doctrine is surely infirm enough to inspire surprise at its wide acceptance, but 
its weakness is not so obvious at the first glance as the construction put upon 
it by Professor Flint (pp. 126-127) would imply. Marx was too skillful a 
dialectician (to say nothing more) to base his economic scheme on so undisguised 
an absurdity. Still, the discussion of the Marxian theory of value and surplus-
value is suggestive, though it is scarcely as conclusive as Professor Flint 
appears to find it.
In the chapter on Socialism and Labor (pp. 149-150), there is a fairly lucid 
statement of the Marxian (socialistic) definition of "capital." Capital, 
according to this view, comprises those productive goods which are held as 
private property and employed by means of hired labor for the production of a 
profit. In the chapter on Socialism and Capital (pp. 157 et seq.), however, when 
speaking of the ungrounded hostility of socialists to "capital" this peculiar 
socialistic concept of capital as "an historical category" is forgotten, and the 
discussion plainly proceeds on the assumption that socialistic hostility to 
"capital" means hostility to the instruments of production. This failure [251] 
to consistently maintain the distinction between the socialist concept of 
capital and the concept as currently in vogue vitiates the entire chapter.
Occasionally there crop out curiosities of economic argument; the following (pp. 
216-217) is an example taken from the chapter on the Nationalization of Land (a 
portion of the argument which has apparently been carried over with but 
inconsiderable change from the popular lecture): "The rise and fall of the rents 
of land, then, depend on the labor and good or bad fortune of society no 
otherwise than the rise and fall of all other rents, of all prices, and of all 
value. There is nothing special or peculiar in the mode of their increase or in 
the course of their movement which can warrant society to treat them in an 
exceptional way, and to deal with property in land differently from all other 
property. .... The man who can believe that land is in this country the 
exclusively, or even a specially, remunerative kind of property, that the want 
of it is a necessary and chief cause of poverty, and the possession of it the 
infallible and abundant source of wealth, displays a remarkable power of 
adhering to a prepossession in defiance of its contradiction by experience. Is 
there any kind of property which increases less in value in Britain than land? 
It is known not to have doubled in value during the last seventy years. It has 
certainly diminished in value during the last twenty years." It would perhaps be 
impossible to pursue a line of argument less convincing than this to the 
advocate of land nationalization on the ground of the doctrine of an unearned 
increment, or one that would be more completely beside the point.
The discussion is abreast of the time with respect to the position taken on 
State Socialism and Christian Socialism, both of which movements are excluded by 
Professor Flint from the category of modern socialism proper. With regard to the 
latter of the two there occurs (pp. 440-441) the following summary statement: 
"Christianity and Socialism, then, are not so related as those who are styled 
Christian Socialists imagine. What is called Christian Socialism will always be 
found to be either unchristian in so far as it is socialistic, or unsocialistic 
in so far as it is truly and fully Christian."
The range of the discussion is such as to preclude any detailed review of the 
contents of the volume. The book bears testimony to its author's erudition at 
the same time that it shows a wide acquaintance with writers and events related 
to the socialist movement. The [252] method of treatment varies from the 
homiletical to the polemical, and is generally ex parte, in spite of an evident 
effort at impartial presentation. The presence of an animus throughout the 
argument results in such narrowness of construction as defeats the main purpose 
of the book. One feels in reading the triumphant refutation of one after another 
of the socialist positions that the positions in question have not been stated 
in their strongest and most reasonable form, and that the discussion for that 
reason does not dispose of the questions with any finality. Its refutations (and 
it is eminently a volume of refutations) will be accepted as conclusive chiefly 
by those who are already in a frame of mind to accept the conclusions offered. 
It can scarcely be said to be a book with which science, especially the science 
of economics, will have to count. There is a lack of unity, not to say of 
consistency, in the treatment of the subject and in the point of view from which 
it is approached, and even in the salient features of the characterization of 
the movement itself. It is a book that might have been more useful, and probably 
would have met with a more sympathetic acceptance at the hands of intelligent 
people, a generation ago than today.
T. B. VEBLEN.