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FREELAND

A SOCIAL ANTICIPATION


BY


DR. THEODOR HERTZKA

TRANSLATED BY
ARTHUR RANSOM


1891




TRANSLATOR'S NOTE


This book contains a translation of _Freiland; ein sociales Zukunftsbild_,
by Dr. THEODOR HERTZKA, a Viennese economist. The first German edition
appeared early in 1890, and was rapidly followed by three editions in an
abridged form. This translation is made from the unabridged edition, with a
few emendations from the subsequent editions.

The author has long been known as an eminent representative of those
Austrian Economists who belong to what is known on the Continent as the
Manchester School as distinguished from the Historical School. In 1872 he
became economic editor of the _Neue Freie Presse_; and in 1874 he with
others founded the Society of Austrian National Economists. In 1880 he
published _Die Gesetze der Handels-und Sozialpolitik_; and in 1886 _Die
Gesetze der Sozialentwickelung_. At various times he has published works
which have made him an authority upon currency questions. In 1889 he
founded, and he still edits, the weekly _Zeitschrift fuer Staats-und
Volkswirthschaft_.

How the author was led to modify some of his earlier views will be found
detailed in the introduction of the present work.

The publication of _Freiland_ immediately called forth in Austria and
Germany a desire to put the author's views in practice. In many of the
larger towns and cities a number of persons belonging to all classes of
society organised local societies for this purpose, and these local
societies have now been united into an International Freeland Society. At
the first plenary meeting of the Vienna _Freilandverein_ in March last, it
was announced that a suitable tract of land in British East Africa, between
Mount Kenia and the coast, had already been placed at the disposal of the
Society; and a hope was expressed that the actual formation of a Freeland
Colony would not be long delayed. It is anticipated that the English
edition of _Freiland_ will bring a considerable number of English-speaking
members into the Society; and it is intended soon to make an application to
the British authorities for a guarantee of non-interference by the
Government with the development of Freeland institutions.

Any of the readers of this book who wish for further information concerning
the Freeland movement, may apply either to Dr. HERTZKA in Vienna, or to the
Translator.

A.R.

ST. LOYES, BEDFORD: _June_, 1891.




AUTHOR'S PREFACE


The economic and social order of the modern world exhibits a strange
enigma, which only a prosperous thoughtlessness can regard with
indifference or, indeed, without a shudder. We have made such splendid
advances in art and science that the unlimited forces of nature have been
brought into subjection, and only await our command to perform for us all
our disagreeable and onerous tasks, and to wring from the soil and prepare
for use whatever man, the master of the world, may need. As a consequence,
a moderate amount of labour ought to produce inexhaustible abundance for
everyone born of woman; and yet all these glorious achievements have
not--as Stuart Mill forcibly says--been able to mitigate one human woe.
And, what is more, the ever-increasing facility of producing an abundance
has proved a curse to multitudes who lack necessaries because there exists
no demand for the many good and useful things which they are able to
produce. The industrial activity of the present day is a ceaseless confused
struggle with the various symptoms of the dreadful evil known as
'over-production.' Protective duties, cartels and trusts, guild agitations,
strikes--all these are but the desperate resistance offered by the classes
engaged in production to the inexorable consequences of the apparently so
absurd, but none the less real, phenomenon that increasing facility in the
production of wealth brings ruin and misery in its train.

That science stands helpless and perplexed before this enigma, that no beam
of light has yet penetrated and dispelled the gloom of this--the
social--problem, though that problem has exercised the minds of the noblest
and best of to-day, is in part due to the fact that the solution has been
sought in a wrong direction.

Let us see, for example, what Stuart Mill says upon this subject: 'I looked
forward... to a future'... whose views (and institutions)... shall be
'so firmly grounded in reason and in the true exigencies of life that they
shall not, like all former and present creeds, religious, ethical, and
political, require to be periodically thrown off and replaced by others.'
[Footnote: _Autobiography_, p. 166.]

Yet more plainly does Laveleye express himself in the same sense at the
close of his book