THE CATHOLIC SOCIAL-REFORM MOVEMENT 29
Germany. Collectivism, say the Catholics, would be so intoler- able a tyranny that it would end in anarchy ; and philosophic anarchism, could it realize its dream, would only pave the way to a new imperial despotism. Collectivism and anarchism have verv nearly the same theoretic basis, and at present they are for the most part fighting under the same banner, and appear in politics under the single head of socialism.
Liberalism likewise has two leading phases — Cssaristic and democratic, or rather bureaucratic. The Csesarism of the a?icie?i r^gi)ne\wz.s as liberalistic as the bureaucracy and parliamentarian- ism of the new ; but the former, which was less reflective, less autocratic, less irresponsible, and, at the same time, less spe- cious, than the latter, can hardly be considered to be any longer a distinct factor in politics, save so far as the Russian czardom may be considered to represent it.
Modern liberalism holds, in theory, what the most extreme Ccesarism always assumes, in practice, that all men are equal. Just as in an absolute despotism a prince and a slave must exchange places at the tyrant's nod, so, under the regime of the new liberalism, men are exalted and abased according to the caprices of fortune, without regard to their personal merits. The govern- ment considers it none of its affair if the strong prey upon the weak. "Catch who catch can, and the devil take the hindmost," is the principle.
Socialism and anarchism, starting from the same premise of universal equality, demand that this equality shall not remain merely a name, but that it shall either be guaranteed and realized in its perfection by means of a radical reorganization and official administration of society, or else remain unhampered by the existence of governments, which, under existing conditions, can- not fail, they say, to operate chiefly as a means for the perpetua- tion of economic slavery and the repression of any efforts to obtain justice that may be made by those who are now deprived of even the scantiest means of livelihood.
Alongside the socialist movement there has grown up, as part of a universal revival of Catholic ideals, a movement for a
