Socialism is Unsound and Unscientific By Sir Guilford Lindsey Molesworth 1918
Modern Socialism is based on that unintelligible and self-contradictory work of Karl Marx, "Kapital," which Socialists have styled The Bible of Social Democracy and the scientific foundation of the modern Socialist Movement.
Socialists of the present day have disguised the ugly features and past failures of Socialism by dressing it up in the pretentious garb of "Scientific Socialism," although it is, in reality, absolutely unscientific. The very foundation-stone of it rests on the exploded Ricardian fallacy that labour alone produces wealth, or that all value is the product of labour. Professor Macleod, in his History of Economics, has completely demolished this fallacy. He wrote:— "In short, there never was any doctrine in science which has received such a crushing and overwhelming overthrow as that labour is the cause of value; hence, that system of economics which founds its ideas of wealth and value on labour is utterly fallacious" History of Economics, Macleod, p. 646).
Amongst the numerous cases Macleod has cited to prove the absurdity of this doctrine it will only be necessary to quote one:—
"If a lump of gold and a lump of clay were obtained by equal quantities of labour, they ought to be of equal value" (p. 642). In his endeavour to prove his contention Marx has involved himself in a network of confusion, from which, in his efforts to disentangle himself, he has floundered out of his depth, and has had recourse to pseudo-scientific nonsense. He has admitted, with regard to his theory of "labour power," that "this law clearly contradicts all experience based on appearance," and that the whole question is enveloped in mist. He argues:—
"A commodity appears at first sight a very trivial thing, and easily understood. Its analysis shows that it is, in reality, a very queer thing, abounding in metaphysical subtleties and theological niceties. ... A commodity is, therefore, a mysterious thing, simply because in it the social character of men's labour appears to them as an objective character stamped upon the product of that labour. ... It is value, rather, that converts every product into a social hieroglyphic. Later on we try to decipher the hieroglyphic, to get behind the secret of our own social products; for to stamp an object of utility as a value is just as much a social product as language. The recent scientific discovery that the products of labour, so far as they are values, are but material expressions of the human labour spent in their production, marks, indeed, an epoch in the development of the human race, but by no means dissipates the mist through which the social character of labour appears to us to be an objective character of the products themselves."
But, apart from the unsound character of Marx's Socialism, his assumption that labour is robbed by capital is absolutely disproved by the fact that the employers of labour in Great Britain have, for the past forty years, been struggling to avoid bankruptcy, and the majority of them have failed disastrously. Sir Benjamin Browne has shown from statistics, and from his own experience, that "labour gets about £10 for every £l that is paid in dividends to capital" (Industrial Peace, p. 11).
Modern Socialism is based on that unintelligible and self-contradictory work of Karl Marx, "Kapital," which Socialists have styled The Bible of Social Democracy and the scientific foundation of the modern Socialist Movement.
Socialists of the present day have disguised the ugly features and past failures of Socialism by dressing it up in the pretentious garb of "Scientific Socialism," although it is, in reality, absolutely unscientific. The very foundation-stone of it rests on the exploded Ricardian fallacy that labour alone produces wealth, or that all value is the product of labour. Professor Macleod, in his History of Economics, has completely demolished this fallacy. He wrote:— "In short, there never was any doctrine in science which has received such a crushing and overwhelming overthrow as that labour is the cause of value; hence, that system of economics which founds its ideas of wealth and value on labour is utterly fallacious" History of Economics, Macleod, p. 646).
Amongst the numerous cases Macleod has cited to prove the absurdity of this doctrine it will only be necessary to quote one:—
"If a lump of gold and a lump of clay were obtained by equal quantities of labour, they ought to be of equal value" (p. 642). In his endeavour to prove his contention Marx has involved himself in a network of confusion, from which, in his efforts to disentangle himself, he has floundered out of his depth, and has had recourse to pseudo-scientific nonsense. He has admitted, with regard to his theory of "labour power," that "this law clearly contradicts all experience based on appearance," and that the whole question is enveloped in mist. He argues:—
"A commodity appears at first sight a very trivial thing, and easily understood. Its analysis shows that it is, in reality, a very queer thing, abounding in metaphysical subtleties and theological niceties. ... A commodity is, therefore, a mysterious thing, simply because in it the social character of men's labour appears to them as an objective character stamped upon the product of that labour. ... It is value, rather, that converts every product into a social hieroglyphic. Later on we try to decipher the hieroglyphic, to get behind the secret of our own social products; for to stamp an object of utility as a value is just as much a social product as language. The recent scientific discovery that the products of labour, so far as they are values, are but material expressions of the human labour spent in their production, marks, indeed, an epoch in the development of the human race, but by no means dissipates the mist through which the social character of labour appears to us to be an objective character of the products themselves."
But, apart from the unsound character of Marx's Socialism, his assumption that labour is robbed by capital is absolutely disproved by the fact that the employers of labour in Great Britain have, for the past forty years, been struggling to avoid bankruptcy, and the majority of them have failed disastrously. Sir Benjamin Browne has shown from statistics, and from his own experience, that "labour gets about £10 for every £l that is paid in dividends to capital" (Industrial Peace, p. 11).
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