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THE NEWEST ANARCHISM 261
wages instead of as shareholders, thus creating at one
stroke a new capitalist class and a new proletariat. (29)
... In short, the socialism of Owen led him to propose
a practical scheme which was not even socialistic, and
which, if it could possibly have been carried out, would
have simply arbitrarily redistributed the capital of the
country without altering or superseding the capitalist
system in the least." (30)
Although this "group socialism" would certainly necessitate
a Parliament in order to harmonize the conflicting
interests of the various productive associations, there is
nothing, it appears, that the syndicalist so much abhors.
He is never quite done with picturing the burlesque of
parliamentarism. While, no doubt, this is a necessary
corollary to his antagonism to the State, it is aggravated
by the fact that one of the chief ends of a political party
is to put its representatives into Parliament. The syndicalist,
in ridiculing all parliamentary activity, is at the
same time, therefore, endeavoring to prove the folly of
political action. That you cannot bring into the world
a new social order by merely passing laws is something
the syndicalist never wearies of pointing out. Parliamentarism,
he likes to repeat, is a new superstition that
is
weakening the activity and paralyzing the mentality of
the working class. "The superstitious belief in parliamentary
action," Leone says, ". . . ascribes to acts of
Parliament the magic power of bringing about new social
forces." (31) Sorel refers to the same thing as the
"belief in the magic influence of departmental authority,"
(32) while Labriola divines that "parties may elect members
of Parliament, but they cannot set one machine going,
nor can they organize one business undertaking."
(33) All this reminds one of what Marx himself said in
the early fifties. He speaks in "Revolution and Counter-