Transcriber's Note:
Inconsistent hyphenation in the original document has been preserved.
Obvious typographical errors have been corrected.For a complete list, please see the end of this document.
SOCIALISM.
BY
JOHN STUART MILL.
Reprinted from the Fortnightly Review.
CHICAGO.
BELFORDS, CLARKE & CO.
MDCCCLXXIX.
PRELIMINARY NOTICE.
It was in the year 1869 that, impressed with the degree in which, evenduring the last twenty years, when the world seemed so wholly occupiedwith other matters, the socialist ideas of speculative thinkers hadspread among the workers in every civilized country, Mr. Mill formedthe design of writing a book on Socialism. Convinced that theinevitable tendencies of modern society must be to bring the questionsinvolved in it always more and more to the front, he thought it ofgreat practical consequence that they should be thoroughly andimpartially considered, and the lines pointed out by which the bestspeculatively-tested theories might, without prolongation of sufferingon the one hand, or unnecessary disturbance on the other, be appliedto the existing order of things. He therefore planned a work which[6]should go exhaustively through the whole subject, point by point; andthe chapters now printed are the first rough drafts thrown downtowards the foundation of that work. These chapters might not, whenthe work came to be completely written out and then re-written,according to the author's habit, have appeared in the present order;they might have been incorporated into different parts of the work. Ithas not been without hesitation that I have yielded to the urgent wishof the editor of this Review to give these chapters to the world; butI have complied with his request because, while they appear to me topossess great intrinsic value as well as special application to theproblems now forcing themselves on public attention, they will not, Ibelieve, detract even from the mere literary reputation of theirauthor, but will rather form an example of the patient labor withwhich good work is done.
Helen Taylor.
January, 1879.
SOCIALISM.
INTRODUCTORY.
In the great country beyond the Atlantic, which is now well-nigh themost powerful country in the world, and will soon be indisputably so,manhood suffrage prevails. Such is also the political qualification ofFrance since 1848, and has become that of the German Confederation,though not of all the several states composing it. In Great Britainthe suffrage is not yet so widely extended, but the last Reform Actadmitted within what is called the pale of the Constitution so large abody of those who live on weekly wages, that as soon and a