Abstract

Excerpt from The Social Interpretation of History: A Refutation of the Marxian Economic, Interpretation of History In these days of disorganization and disintegration, a contribution dealing with the problems of International Socialism hardly calls for an apology. The following study was undertaken in December, 1918, and completed in July, 1919. At the outset I little dreamed that this investigation would lead me to question the validity of Marxian conclusions. A disciple of Marxian socialism for more than a quarter of a century, I have had unbounded faith in the claim that Marxian principles are based upon the science and laws of social evolution. To me it is now evident that this claim cannot stand the test of an original investigation. Did Marx discover the laws of social evolution? Do his principles conform to these laws? Did he put Socialism upon a scientific basis? I can no longer answer these questions in the affirmative without violence to the facts of history. History seems to indicate that Marxian principles are neither scientific nor socialistic, but, on the contrary, are both Utopian and anti-social. These conclusions have been forced upon me by the lessons of history. I am aware that the views I have developed in these pages are quite unorthodox. They constitute an indictment of the leaders of International Socialism who believe they have been following in the footsteps of Marx. While Marx may have erred in his conclusions, he was none the less a scientist. He applied the scientific method. History alone furnished the basis for his conclusions. He may have misread the lessons of history, but he never looked elsewhere for his understanding of social processes. Present day leaders of International Socialism, unlike Marx, refuse to study history, preferring to cling dogmatically to the conclusions formulated by Marx in 1848. Such is the extent of their "science." Our leaders could not have chosen a more effective method of bringing about the destruction of the International Socialist movement. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.