The Psychology of Socialism Book

General Books publication date: 2009 Original publication date: 1899 Original Publisher: The Macmillan co. Subjects: Socialism Notes: This is a black and white OCR reprint of the original. It has no illustrations and there may be typos or missing text. When you buy the General Books edition of this book you get free trial access to Million-Books.com where you can select from more than a million books for free. Excerpt: CHAPTER II THE ORIGIN OF SOCIALISM AND THE CAUSES OF ITS PRESENT DEVELOPMENT 1. The antiquity of Socialism: -- The social struggles engendered by the inequality of conditions go back to the earliest historical ages -- Col- lectivist doctrines among the Greeks -- How Socialism caused the destruction of the Greek Independence -- Socialism among the Romans and the Jews -- Primitive Christianity represents a period of triumph for Socialism -- How it was quickly obliged to renounce the Socialistic doctrines -- The Socialistic illusions of fifty years ago. 2. The causes of the present development of Socialism : -- The modern exaggeration of sensibility -- The upheavals and instability due to the progress of industry -- Needs have developed more quickly than the means of satisfying them -- The appetites of modern youth -- University ideas -- The part played by financiers -- The pessimism of thinkers -- The present state of societies compared to their state in the past. 3. The percentage method in the appreciation of social phenomena: -- Necessity of establishing an exact relation between the useful and hurtful elements entering into the composition of a society -- Insufficiency of the method of averages -- Social phenomena are governed by percentages, not by averages. i. The Antiquity Of Socialism. SOCIALISM has not made its first appearance in the world to-day. To use an expression dear to ancient historians, we may say that its origins are lost in the night of time; for its prime cause is the inequality of conditions, and this inequality was the ...Read More