The " Limitations of Papa Cabet" and Herr Grün
It should be mentioned in conclusion that precisely those economists who took consumption as their starting-point happened to be reactionary and ignored the revolutionary element in competition and large-scale industry.
The " Limitations of Papa Cabet" and Herr Grün
Herr Grün concludes his digression on the school of Fourier and on Herr Reybaud with the following words:
"I wish to make the organisers of labour conscious of their essence, I wish to show them historically where they have sprung from ... these hybrids ... who cannot claim as their own even the least of their thoughts. And later, perhaps, I shall find space to make an example of Herr Reybaud, not only of Herr Reybaud, but also of Herr Jay. The former is, in reality, not so bad, he is merely stupid; but the latter is more than stupid, he is learned.
"And so"... (p. 260). The gladiatorial posture into which Herr Grün throws himself, his threats against Reybaud, his contempt for learning, his resounding promises, these are all sure signs that something portentous is stirring within him. Fully "conscious of his essence" as we are, we infer from these symptoms that Herr Grün is on the point of carrying out a most tremendous plagiaristic coup. To anyone who has had experience of his tactics, his bragging loses all ingenuousness and turns out to be always a matter of sly calculation.
"And so": A chapter follows headed:
"The Organisation of Labour!" Where did this thought originate?—In France.—But how?" it is also labelled:
"Review of the Eighteenth Century." "Where did this" chapter of Herr Grün's "originate?—In France.—But how?" The reader will find out without delay.
It should not be forgotten that Herr Grün wants to make the French organisers of labour[140] conscious of their essence by an historical exposition in the profound German style.
And so.
When Herr Grün realised that Cabet "had his limitations" and that his "mission had been completed long ago" (which he had known for a long time), it did not, "of course, mean an end of everything". On the contrary, by arbitrarily selecting a few quotations from Cabet and stringing them together he laid upon Cabet the new mission: to provide the French "background" to Herr Grün's German history of socialist development in the eighteenth century.
How does he set about his task? He reads "productively". The twelfth and thirteenth chapters of Cabet's Voyage en Icarie contain a motley collection of the opinions of ancient and modern authorities in favour of communism. He does not claim that he is tracing an historical movement. The French bourgeois view communism as a suspicious character. Good, says Cabet, in that case, men of the utmost respectability from every age will testify to the good character of my client; and Cabet proceeds exactly like a lawyer. Even the most adverse evidence becomes in his hands favourable to his client. One cannot demand historical accuracy in a legal defence. If a famous man happens to let fall a word against money, or inequality, or wealth, or social evils, Cabet seizes upon it, begs him to repeat it, puts it forward as the man's declaration of faith, has it printed, applauds it and cries with ironic good humour to his irritated bourgeois: "Ecoutez, écoutez, n'était-il pas communiste?"3
No one escapes him. Montesquieu, Sieyès, Lamartine, even Guizot— communists all malgré eux. Voilà mon Communiste tout trouvé!h
Herr Grün, in a productive mood, reads the quotations collected by Cabet, representing the eighteenth centuiy; he never doubts for a moment the essential Tightness of it all; he improvises for the benefit of the reader a mystical connection between the writers whose names happen to be mentioned by Cabet on one page, pours over the whole his Young-German literary slops and then gives it the title which we saw above.
And so.
Herr Grün: Cabet:
Herr Grün introduces his review with the following words:
"The social idea did not fall from heaven, it is organic, i.e., it arose by a process of gradual development. I cannot write here its complete history, I cannot commence with the Indians and the Chinese and proceed to Persia, Egypt and Judaea. I cannot question the Greeks and Romans about their social consciousness, I cannot take the evidence of Christianity, Neo-Platonism and pa-tristic philosophy,[141] I cannot listen to what the Middle Ages and the Arabs have to say, nor can I examine the
Cabet introduces his quotations with the following words:
"Vous prétendez, adversaires de la communauté, qu'elle n'a pour elle que quelques opinions sans crédit et sans poids; eh bien, je vais interroger devant vous l'histoire et tous les philosophes: écoutez! Te ne m'arrête pas à vous parler de plusieurs peuples anciens, qui prati-quaient ou avaient pratiqué la communauté des biens! Je ne m'arrête non plus aux Hébreux ... ni aux prêtres Égyptiens, ni à Minos ... Lycurgue et Pythagore ... je ne vous parle non plus de Confucius et de Zoroastre, qui l'un en Reformation and philosophy during the Chine et l'autre en Perse ... proclamèrent period of its awakening and so on up to ce principe."(1) (Voyage en Icarie, deux-the eighteenth century" (p. 261). ième édition, p. 470.)
After the passages given above, Cabet investigates Greek and Roman history, takes the evidence of Christianity, of Neo-Platonism, of the Fathers of the Church, of the Middle Ages, of the Reformation and of philosophy during the period of its awakening. Cf. Cabet, pp. 471-82. Herr Grün leaves others "more patient than himself" to copy these eleven pages, "provided the dust of erudition has left them the necessary humanism to do so" (that is, to copy them). (Grün, p. 261.) Only the social consciousness of the Arabs belongs to Herr Grün. We await longingly the disclosures about it which he has to offer the world. "I must restrict myself to the eighteenth century." Let us follow Herr Grün into the eighteenth century, remarking only that Grün underlines almost the very same words as Cabet .'*
Herr Grün: Cabet "Locke, the founder of sensation-"Mais voici Locke, écoutez-le s'écrier ism, observes: He whose possessions ex-dans son admirable Gouvernement civil": ceed his needs, oversteps the bounds of 'Celui qui possède au delà de ses be-reason and of original justice and steals soins, passe les bornes de la raison et that which belongs to others. Every sur-de la justice primitive et enlève ce qui plus is usurpation, and the sight of the appartient aux autres. Toute superfluitéest needy must awaken remorse in the soul une usurpation, et, la vue de l'indigent of the wealthy. Corrupt men, you who devrait éveiller le remords dans l'âme du roll in luxury and pleasures, tremble lest riche. Hommes pervers, qui nagez dans one day the wretch who lacks the neces-l'opulence et les voluptés, tremblez qu'un skies of life shall truly come to know the jour l'infortuné qui manque du néces-rights of man. Fraud, faithlessness and saire n'aprenne à connaître vraiment les avarice have produced that inequality of droits de l'homme.' Écoutez-le s'écrier en-possessions which is the great misfortune of core: 'La fraude, la mauvaise foi, l'ava-the human race by piling up all sorts of rice ont produit cette inégalité dans lesfor-sufferings, on the one hand, beside tunes, qui fait le malheur de l'espèce humai-riches, on the other, beside destitution. ne, en amoncelant d'un côté tous les vices The philosopher must, therefore, regard the avec la richesse et de l'autre tous les use of money as one of the most pernicious maux avec la misère'" (of which Herr inventions of human industry" (p. 266). Grün makes nonsense). "'Le philosophe doit donc considérer l'usage de la mon-naie comme une des plus funestes inventions de l'industrie humaine""1 (p. 485). Herr Grün concludes from these quotations of Cabet's that Locke is "an opponent of the monetary system" (p. 264), "a most out-spoken opponent of money and of all property which exceeds the limits of need" (p. 266). Locke was, unfortunately, one of the first scientific champions of the monetary system, a most uncompromis-ing advocate of the flogging of vagabonds and paupers, one of the doyens of modern political economy .b
Herr Grün: Cabet:
"Already Bossuet, the Bishop of "Écoutez le baron de Puffendorf, Meaux, says in his Politics Derived from professeur de droit naturel en Al-Holy Scripture: 'Without governments' lemagne et conseiller d'état à Stockholm ('without politics'—an absurd interpola-et à Berlin, qui dans son droit de la tion on the part of Herr Grün) 'the earth nature et des gens réfute la doctrine with all its goods would be the common d'Hobbes et de Grotius sur la monarchie property of men, just as much as air and absolue, qui proclame l'égalité naturelle, light; no man, according to the original la fraternité, la communauté des biens law of nature, has a particular right to primitive, et qui reconnaît que la prop-anything. All things belong to all men; it is riété est une institution humaine, qu'elle from civil government that property results.' résulte d'un partage consenti pour as-A priest in the seventeenth century surer à chacun et surtout au travailleur has the honesty to say such things as une possession perpétuelle, indivise ou these; to express such views as these! divise, et que par conséquent l'inégalité And the German Puffendorf, whom one" actuelle de fortune est une injustice qui (i.e., Herr Grün) "knows only through n'entraîne les autres inégalités" (absurd-one of Schiller's epigrams,0 was of the •>' translated by Herr Grün) "que par following opinion: 'The present inequality l'insolence des riches et la lâcheté des pauvres, of means is an injustice which involves all "Et Bossuet, l'évêque de Meaux. le other inequalities by reason of the inso-précepteur du Dauphin de France, le
"But here we have Locke, who exclaims in his admirable Civil Government: 'He who possesses in excess of his needs, oversteps the bounds of reason and of original justice and appropriates the property of others. All excess is usurpation, and the sight of the needy ought to awaken remorse in the soul of the wealthy. Perverse men, you who roll in riches and pleasures, tremble lest one day the wretch, who lacks the necessities of life truly apprehend the rights of man.' Hear him exclaim again: 'Fraud, bad faith, avarice have produced that inequality of means, which, by piling on the one hand wealth and vice and on the other poverty and suffering, constitutes the great misfortune of the human race.... The philosopher must, therefore, regard the use of money as one of the most fatal inventions of human industry.'"—Ed.
célèbre Bossuet, dans sa Politique tirée de l'Ecriture sainte, rédigée pour l'instruction du Dauphin, ne reconnaît-il pas aussi que sans les gouvernements la terre et tous les biens seraient aussi communs entre les hommes que l'air et la lumière: Selon le droit primitif de la nature mal n'a le droit particulier sur quoi que ce soit: tout est à tous, et c'est du gouvernement civil que naît la propriété"" (p. 486).
The substance of Herr Grün's "digression" from France is that Cabet quotes a German. Grün even spells the German name in the incorrect French fashion. Apart from his occasional mistranslations and omissions, he surprises us by his improvements. Cabet speaks first of Pufendorf and then of Bossuet; Herr Grün speaks first of Bossuet and then of Pufendorf. Cabet speaks of Bossuet as a famous man; Herr Grün calls him a "priest". Cabet quotes Pufendorf with all his titles; Herr Grün makes the frank admission that one knows him only from one of Schiller's epigrams. Now he knows him also from one of Cabet's quotations, and it is apparent that the French-man, with all his limitations, has made a closer study than Herr Grün not only of his own countrymen, but of the Germans as well.
Cabet says: "I must make haste to deal with the great philosophers of the eighteenth century; I shall begin with Montesquieu" (p. 487). In order to reach Montesquieu, Herr Grün begins with a sketch of the "legislative genius of the eighteenth century" (p. 282). Compare their various quotations from Montesquieu, Mably, Rousseau, Turgot. It suffices here to compare Cabet and Herr Grün on Rousseau and Turgot. Cabet proceeds from Montesquieu to Rousseau. Herr Grün constructs this transition:
d "Listen to Baron von Pujfendorf, a professor of natural law in Germany and a Councillor of State in Stockholm and Berlin, a man who in his law of nature and nations refutes the doctrine of Hobbes and Grotius concerning absolute monarchy, who proclaims natural equality, fraternity, and primitive community of goods, and who recognises property to be a human institution, the result of a distribution of goods, by common consent, to the end that all, and particularly the workers, may be assured of permanent possession, undivided or divided, and that, in consequence, the existing inequality of possessions is an injustice which only involves the other inequalities in consequence of the insolence of the rich and the cowardice of the poor.
"Rousseau was the radical and Montesquieu the constitutional politician."
Herr Grün quotes from Rousseau: Cabet: "The greatest evil has already been "Écoutez maintenant Rousseau, l'au-done when one has to defend the poor teur de cet immortel Contrat social ... and restrain the rich, etc." écoutez: 'Les hommes sont égaux en droit. La nature a rendu tous les biens (ends with the words) "hence it follows communs ... dans le cas de partage le that the social state is only advantageous part de chacun devient sa propriété, to men if they all of them'1 have some-Dans tous les cas la société est toujours thing and none has too much." Accord-seule propriétaire de tous les biens'" (a ing to Herr Grün, Rousseau becomes point omitted by Herr Grün). "Écoutez "confused and quite vague when he has encore:..." (Cabet ends) "'d'où il suit que to answer the question: what transforma-l'état social n'est avantageux aux tion does the previous form of property hommes qu'autant qu'ils ont tous quel-undergo when primitive man enters into que chose et qu'aucun d'eux n'a rien de society? What does he answer? He trop.' answers: Nature has made all goods "Écoutez, écoutez encore Rousseau common" ... (ends with the words) "if a dans son Economie politique: 'Le plus distribution takes place the share of each grand mal est déjà fait quand on a des becomes his property" (pp. 284, 285). pauvres à défendre, et des riches à contenir'" etc., etc. (pp. 489, 490). Herr Grün makes two brilliant innovations: firstly, he merges the quotations from the Contrat social and the Economie politique and, secondly, he begins where Cabet ends. Cabet names the titles of the writings of Rousseau from which he quotes, Herr Grün suppresses them. The explanation of these tactics is, perhaps, that Cabet is speaking of Rousseau's Economie politique, which Herr Grün does not know, even from an epigram of Schiller. Although Herr Grün is conversant with all the secrets of the Encyclopédie (cf. p. 263), it was a secret for him that Rousseau's Economie politique is none other than the article in the Encyclopédie on political economy.
Let us pass on to Turgot. Herr Grün is not content here with merely copying the quotations; he actually transcribes the sketch that Cabet gives of Turgot.
Herr Grün: Cabet: "One of the noblest and most futile "Et cependant, tandis que le roi attempts to establish a new order on the déclare que lui seul et son ministre
The parenthesis "(What grammar!)" is added in the Westphälische Dampfboot.—Ed.
"Listen now to Rousseau, the author of the immortal Social Contract—listen: 'Men are equal by right. Nature has made all goods common... if distribution takes place the share of each becomes his property. In all cases the sole proprietor of all goods is society.' Listen again: ... 'hence it follows that the social state is only advantageous to men inasmuch as they all have something and none has too much'.
foundations of the old, everywhere on (Turgot) sont dans la cour les amis du the point of collapse, was made by peuple, tandis que le peuple le comble de Turgot. It was in vain. The aristocracy ses bénédictions, tandis que les brought about an artificial famine, insti-philosophes le couvrent de leur admira-gated revolts, intrigued and spread don, tandis que Voltaire veut, avant de calumnies against him until the debonair mourir, baiser la main qui a signé tant Louis dismissed his Minister.—The aris-d'améliorations populaires, l'aristocratie tocracy would not listen, therefore, it conspire, organise même une vaste had to suffer. Human development al-famine et des émeutes pour le perdre et ways avenges fearfully those good angels fait tant par ses intrigues et calomnies who utter the last urgent warning before qu'elle parvient à déchaîner les salons a catastrophe. The French people de Paris contre le réformateur et à blessed Turgot, Voltaire wished to kiss perdre Louis XVI lui-même en le for-his hand before he died, the King had cant à renvoyer le vertueux ministre qui called him his friend.... Turgot, the Bar-le sauverait" (p. 497). "Revenons à on, the Minister, one of the last feudal Turgot, baron, ministre de Louis XVI lords, pondered the idea that a domestic pendant la première année de son règne, press ought to be invented so as to make qui veut réformer les abus, qui fait une freedom of the press completely secure" foule de réformes, qui veut faire établir (pp. 289, 290). une nouvelle langue et qui, pour assurer la liberté de la presse, travaille lui-même à l'invention d'une presse à domicile"(2)
(p. 495).
Cabet calls Turgot a Baron and a Minister, Herr Grün copies this much from him, but by way of improving on Cabet, he changes the youngest son of the prévôt of the Paris merchants into "one of the oldest of the feudal lords". Cabet is wrong in attributing the famine and the uprising of 1775[142] to the machinations of the aristocracy. Up to the present, no one has discovered who was behind the outcry about the famine and the movement connected with it. But in any case the parliaments and popular prejudice had far more to do with it than the aristocracy. It is quite in order for Herr Grün to copy this error of "poor limited Papa" Cabet. He believes in him as in a gospel. On Cabet's authority Herr Grün numbers Turgot among the communists, Turgot, one of the leaders of the physiocratic school, the most resolute champion of free competition, the defender of usury, the mentor of Adam Smith. Turgot was a great man, since his actions were in accordance with the time in which he lived and not with the illusions of Herr Grün, the origin of which we have shown already.
Let us now pass to the men of the French Revolution. Cabet greatly embarrasses his bourgeois opponent by numbering Sieyès among the forerunners of communism, by reason of the fact that he recognised equality of rights, and considered that only the state sanctions property (Cabet, pp. 499-502). Herr Grün, who "is fated to find the French mind inadequate and superficial every time that he comes into close contact with it", cheerfully copies this, and imagines that an old party leader like Cabet is destined to preserve the "humanism" of Herr Grün from "the dust of erudition". Cabet continues: "Ecoutez le fameux Mirabeau!"* (p. 504). Herr Grün says: "Listen to Mirabeau!" (p. 292) and quotes some of the passages stressed by Cabet, in which Mirabeau advocates the equal division of bequeathed property among brothers and sisters. Herr Grün exclaims: "Communism for the family!" (p. 292). On this principle,
Herr Grün could go through the whole range of bourgeois institutions, finding in all of them traces' of communism, so that taken as a whole they could be said to represent perfect communism. He could christen the Code Napoléon a Code de la communauté!h
And he could discover communist colonies in the brothels, barracks and prisons.
Let us conclude these tiresome quotations with Condorcet. A comparison of the two books will show the reader very clearly that
Herr Grün now omits passages, now merges them, now quotes titles, now suppresses them, leaves out the chronological dates but meticulously follows Cabet's order, even when Cabet does not proceed strictly in accordance with chronology, and he achieves in the end nothing more than an abridgement of Cabet, poorly and timidly disguised.
Herr Grün: Cabet:
"Condorcet is a radical Girondist. He "Entendez Condorcet soutenir dans sa recognises the injustice of the dis-réponse à l'académie de Berlin" ... (a tribution of property, he absolves the long passage follows in Cabet, conclud-poor from blame ... if the people are ing:) "'C'est donc uniquement parce que somewhat dishonest on principle, the les institutions sont mauvaises que le cause lies in the institutions themselves. peuple est si souvent un peu voleur par principe.' "In his journal, Social Education ... he even tolerates large-scale capitalists....
"Condorcet moved that the Legislative Assembly should divide the 100 millions owned by the three princes who emigrated into 100,000 parts .... he organises education and the establishment of public assistance" (cf. the original text).
"In his report on public education to the Legislative Assembly, Condorcet says: 'The object of education and the duty of the political authorities ... is to offer every member of the human race the means of satisfying his needs, etc.'" (Herr Grün changes the report of the Committee on Condorcet's plan into a report by Condorcet himself.) (Grün, pp. 293, 294.)
"Ecoutez-le dans son journal L'instruction sociale ... il tolère même de grands capitalistes." etc.
"Écoutez l'un des chefs Girondins, le philosophe Condorcet, le 6 juillet 1792 à la tribune de l'assemblée législative: 'Dé-crétez que les biens des trois princes français (Louis XVIII, Charles X, et le prince de Condé'"—this is omitted by Herr Grün) " 'soient sur-le-champ mis en vente ... ils montent à près de 100 millions, et vous remplacerez trois princes par cent mille citoyens ... organisez l'instruction et les établissements de se-cours publics.'
"Mais écoutez le comité d'instruction publique présentant à l'assemblée législa-tive son rapport sur le plan d'éducation rédigé par Condorcet, 20 avril 1792: 'L'éducation publique doit offrir à tous les individus les moyens de pourvoir à leurs besoins ... tel doit être le premier but d'une instruction nationale et sous ce point de vue elle est pour la puissance politique un devoir de justice'",3 etc. (pp. 502, 503, 505, 509).
By this shameless copying from Cabet, Herr Grün, using the historical method, endeavours to make the French organisers of labour conscious of their essence; he proceeds moreover according to the principle: Divide et impera. He unhesitatingly interpolates among his quotations his definitive verdict on persons whose acquaintance he made a moment ago by reading a passage about
a "Listen to Condorcet, who maintained in his reply to the Berlin Academy" ... "'It is therefore entirely because the institutions are evil that the people are so frequently a little dishonest on principle.'
"Listen to what he has to say in his journal L'instruction sociale... he even tolerates large-scale capitalists....
"Listen to one of the Girondist leaders, the philosopher Condorcet, from the tribune of the Legislative Assembly, on the 6th July, 1792: 'Decree that the possessions of the three French princes (Louis XVIII, Charles X and the Prince of Condé) be immediately put up for sale ... they amount to almost 100 millions, and you will replace three princes by 100 thousand citizens ... organise education and institutions for public assistance.' them; then he inserts a few phrases about the French Revolution and divides the whole into two halves by the use of a few quotations from Morelly. Just at the right moment for Herr Grün Morelly was en vogue in Paris, through the efforts of Villegardelle(3); and the most important passages from Morelly's work had been translated in the Paris Vorwärts[15] long before Herr Grün came upon the scene. We shall adduce only one or two glaring examples of Herr Grün's slipshod method of translation.
Morelly:
"L'intérêt rend les cœurs dénaturés et répand l'amertume sur les plus doux liens, qu'il change en de pesantes chaînes que détestent chez nous les époux en se détestant eux-mêmes."(4)
Herr Grün:
"Self-interest renders the heart unnatural and embitters the dearest ties, transforming them into heavy chains, which our married people detest and they detest themselves into the bargain" (p. 274).
Utter nonsense.
Morrelly:
"Notre âme ... contracte une soif si furieuse qu'elle se suffoque pour l'étancher." Herr Grün:
"Our soul ... contracts ... so furious a thirst that it suffocates itself in order to quench it" (ibid.).
Again utter nonsense.
Morelly:
"Ceux qui prétendent régler les mœurs et dicter des lois", etc.(5)
Herr Grün:
"Those who pretend to control our morals and dictate our laws", etc. (p. 275).
All three mistakes occur in a single passage of Morelly which takes up fourteen lines in Herr Grün's book. In his exposition of Morelly there are also numerous plagiarisms from Villegardelle/ Herr Grün is able to sum up all his knowledge of the eighteenth century and of the Revolution in the following lines:
"Sensualism, deism and theism together stormed the old world. The old world crumbled. When a new world came to be built, deism was victorious in the Constituent Assembly, theism in the Convention, while pure sensualism was beheaded or silenced" (p. 263).
Here we have the philosophic habit of dismissing history with a few categories proper to ecclesiastical history; Herr Grün reduces it to its basest form, to a mere literary phrase, which serves only to adorn his plagiarisms. Avis aux philosophes!*
We skip Herr Grün's remarks about communism. His historical notes are copied from Cabet's brochures, and the Voyage en Icarie is viewed from the standpoint adopted by true socialism (cf. Bürgerbuch and Rheinische Jahrbücher).b Herr Grün shows his knowledge of French, and at the same time of English, conditions by calling Cabet the "communist O'Connell of France" (p. 382), and then says:
"He would be ready to have me hanged if he had the power and knew what I think and write about him. These agitators are dangerous for men such as us, because their intelligence is limited" (p. 382).
Endnotes
[140] See Note 113.
[141] Patristic philosophy—the teachings of the Fathers of the Church (3rd to 5th century).
[142] The spontaneous popular risings which took place in many parts of France, and also in Paris, in 1775 were caused by crop failure and famine. The feudal aristocracy which was against Turgot's reforms used these uprisings to oust him from the post of Controller-General of Finance. In the spring of 1776, Turgot was dismissed and the reforms he had introduced (free trade in grain, abolition of some feudal privileges and of the guilds) were rescinded.
[15] See the section "Geographische Grundlage der Weltgeschichte" in Hegel's Vorlesungen über die Philosophie der Geschichte.