M. Tugan-baranowsky
Published: 2014-01-28
Total Pages: 240
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The Author's PREFACE: THE Socialistic literature notwithstanding its vastness opens to view a gap, the almost total absence of a systematic, scientifically objective and critical investigation of what constitutes the doctrine of modern Socialism. Schaeffle's famous book Quintessence of Socialism exhibits to a certain extent such a tendency but lacks every historical illustration and bears more or less a dogmatical stamp. This work, as well as Menger's New State Doctrine are besides mere expositions of a part of the general doctrine of Socialism as they interpret only its positive side. Bourguin's Contemporary Socialist Systems, one of the latest researches in this province, is to my mind far from fulfilling the void I have pointed out, being in a considerable measure but an unconvincing attempt to confute Socialism as a positive doctrine. Many good writings on Socialism have of late been published. It will suffice to mention Sombart's well-known book Socialism and the Socialist Movement during the Nineteenth Century which also belongs to that class of writings, the tendency of which, in most cases is not so much to characterise the doctrines of Socialism as to expound the Socialist movement. The book now put before the reader has another aim: a succinct critical exposition of the essential tenets of modern Socialism as a definite social doctrine. And taking into consideration that Marxism, as I strongly believe, does not embrace all the scientific elements of Socialism, my investigation necessarily assumed an historical character in so far as I was obliged to retrospect and introduce earlier, partly forgotten doctrines of the so called Utopian category, which I consider deserving of the most serious attention and which in some respects are even more scientific than Marxism. I shall be glad, indeed, if my book will again draw attention to the either wholly neglected or but little read works of the many great originators of modern socialist ideals, who, failing to accomplish what they had striven for during their lifetime, have left a deep and indelible mark of their thoughts upon the epoch we live in. —M. Tugan-Baranowsky.