Elements of Socialism: A Text-Book

The influence of Karl Marx: As we turn from the Socialist criticism of existing society to the more positive aspects of Socialism we encounter the personality of the greatest thinker and most powerful influence in the history of Socialism, Karl Marx. Professor Thorstein Veblen has said: "The Socialism that inspires hopes and fears in the world to-day is of the school of Marx. No one is seriously apprehensive of any other so-called socialistic movement, and no one is seriously concerned to criticise or refute the doctrines set forth by any other school of 'Socialists.' The Socialists of all countries gravitate toward the theoretical position of avowed Marxism. In proportion as the movement in any given country grows in mass, maturity and conscious purpose, it unavoidably takes on a more consistently Marxian complexion."¹

The greatness of Karl Marx is freely admitted by the most implacable opponents of Socialism as well as by its most ardent advocates. The words "Socialism" and "Marxism" are practically synonymous in the vast literature of the subject which has been produced during the last thirty or forty years. Whatever modifications his followers may have made in his theories, or may yet be compelled to make, one fact stands undisputed by friend or foe, namely, that the great international Socialist movement finds in those theories its justification, its intellectual weapons for defense and attack, the rationale of its aspirations toward a better and happier state of society and the bedrock of its assurance in the ultimate attainment of that goal.

Saint-Simon, Fourier and Owen: It is commonly said that Marx found Socialism a Utopian movement and transformed it into a scientific movement. Prior to Marx Social

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