THE NEW SCHAFF-HERZOG
begun in the party of the Mountain in the French Revolution, when Marat maintained that equaHty of rights leads to e(iuality in enjoyment. Thus communism was robbed of its religious guise and placed upon its present materialistic basis. However, the real father of modern communism was Saint-Simon (q.v.). His ideas wore taken up by Fourier (d. 1JS37); Enfantin (d. 1864), who advocated community of women; and others, including Cabet (d. 1S56), who founded communistic colonies in America (see below, II., 6). Later Karl Marx (d. 1SS3) attempted to reduce the more or less obscure and idealistic thoughts of Saint-Simon to a cold logical system by deducing common ownership from the nature of property. The position of the radical social party in Germany to-day is founded upon the theories of Marx. A product of the latter-day communistic thought was Edward Bellamy's Looking Backward (1888). The philanthropic aims of the later communism have attracted certain of the clergy, as they did earlier the contemporary of Saint-Simon, Robert Owen (q.v.); but the result is a new mixture of the ideas of Christian asceticism, based on a misunderstanding of the Gospel, with the materialistic desires of the multitude. A like tendency, with the same confusion of thouglit and result, appears in the Roman Catholic Church in Lamennais (q.v.) and other Frenchmen. The theories of Henry George (d. 1896) differ from communism in essential points and are only allied to the latter.
Like many other things, communism is beautiful in theory; but it does not work in practise. The successful control by the government 4. Criticism, of isolated utilities forms no argument fpr the common ownership of everything. Granting that the entire industrial world could be organized under a single management, on what principle would the fruits of the common work be divided among the individual members of society? According to the needs of the individual, or the amount of his production? according to the number of hours employed, or according to the quahty of his work, physical or intellectual? Such practical considerations show that thoroughgoing communism is only a theory. We are neither machines nor slaves; yet such a system would, in effect, condemn the whole of humanity to penal servitude. There woulil be no longer any individual endeavor; for all articles of use, whether pig iron, potted ham, or poetry, would be forthcoming at the command of some general committee. Even a philosopher would be prohibited from spending his leisure hours in pleasant meditation; for in a communistic society all philosophical problems would have been solved, and further speculation must be considered dangerous to the existing social organization. Such an offense would constitute a sort of lese-majesty. Arguments for communism are superficial and can be met by a simple appeal to the nature of man as a full moral agent. Communism based upon an ec|ii;U enjoyment of this world's goods is unchristian and is not supported by revelation. God makes men to differ from one another, and this fact is recognized in the Bible. The institution of private
jjroperty is sup i] )orted by every passage in the Bible where property is mentioned; and, in fact, it is a postulate of Christian ethics. Is it not through accumulating that the Christian is to make himself a useful member of society ?
(M. VON NATHUSIUSf.)
II. Communism in America: [Almost from its discovery America seemed marked out as the home of communistic experiments. The Jamestown charter (1606) included a provision
Type and for a common storehouse, and the
Character Pilgrims for a time maintained some of Ameri- features of communism. More direct can Com- and systematic attempts to embody
munism. the idea in practise were the Labadist community in Maryland (1680; see Labadib, Jean de, Labadists) and the community of the " Woman in the Wilderness " in Pennsylvania (1694). It is significant of the hopes which were entertained concerning America that such communistic bodies as the Shakers, Harmonists, Separatists, Amana Society, and Icarians (see below) were growths transplanted from other lands. The teachings of Owenism, Fourierism, and Cabetism were tested here, as well as in later times those of Marx and his school. In many of these the religious principle was central. Other efforts disregarded the religious basis and were either purely social or a mingling of the social and economic. Some of those which started as religious movements became purely economic. Of early foundations only the Oneida Community, the Amana Society, and the Shakers are now in existence. Where the basis was the thought of a single mind emphasizing personal idiosyncrasy, and where the essay was made in ignorance of vital and economic laws success could be only temporary. Division and dissension soon wrought the ruin of the experiment. Some of these essays at a communal life left their impress upon both life and literature. Such a one was Brook Farm, which figures in the works of Hawthorne, Alcott, and the New England writers of their time. The tendency of the last two decades has been away from a strictly communistic and toward a cooperative type of society. The life of these experiments is not yet sufficiently extended to afford basis for judgment as to the permanence they will attain. The more important of them are the following.]
1. The Adonai Shomo ("the Lord is there "): A religious society holding the doctrines of the Second Advent, which existed in Massachusetts 1861-96. Its founder, Frederick I. Llowland, a Quaker of New Bedford, was converted to the Second Advent doctrine under the preaching of William Miller (q.v.) in lS4;x Believing that he had received the gift of inspiration in 1855, he formed an association in 1861 with other like-minded persons, who settled in Athol and afterward in Petersham, Mass. The fvmtlamental principles of the society as given by one of its presidents were: "The Jesus, the Mystery of CUirist, and belief in times of restitution of all things, of which God hath spoken by the mouth of all his holy prophets since the world I be^an; and that the elect, by grace through said I faith, will attain to the Melchisidek priesthood, which