degree of prosperity which industry must possess in order that the realisation of Socialism may be possible; for experience shows us that it is by seeking to stop the progress of capitalism, and to preserve the means of existence of classes who are on the down-grade, that the prophets of social peace chiefly endeavour to capture popular favour. The dependence of the revolution on the constant and rapid progress of industry must be demonstrated in a striking manner.[1]
(3) Too great stress cannot be laid on the fact that Marxism condemns every hypothesis about the future manufactured by the Utopists. Professor Brentano of Munich relates that in 1869 Marx wrote to his friend Beesly (who had published an article on the future of the working class) to say that up till then he had looked upon him as the sole revolutionary Englishman, and that henceforth he looked upon him as a reactionary—for, he said, "the man who draws up a programme for the future is a reactionary."[2] He considered that the proletariat had no need to take lessons from the learned inventors of solutions to social problems, but simply to take up production where capitalism left it. There was no need for programmes of the future; the programmes were already worked out in the workshops. The idea of a technological continuity dominates the whole of the Marxian position.
- ↑ Kautsky has often dwelt on this idea, of which Engels was particularly fond.
- ↑ Bernstein said about this story that Brentano might have exaggerated a little, but that "the phrase quoted by him was not inconsistent with Marx's general line of thought" (Mouvement socialiste, September 1, 1899, p. 270). Of what can Utopias be composed? Of the past and often of a very far-off past; it is probably for this reason that Marx called Beesly a reactionary, while everybody else was astonished at his revolutionary boldness. The Catholics are not the only people who are hypnotised by the Middle Ages, and Yves Guyot pokes fun at the collectivist troubadourism of Lafargue (Lafargue and Y. Guyot, La Propriété, pp. 121–122).
