The Impossibility of Social Democracy. By Dr. A. Schiiffie. Edited
by Bernard Bosanquet. (Swan Sonnenschein and Co.)— This is an English edition of Dr. Schiffie's supplement to his "Quintessence of Socialism," which has already been translated for Messrs. Swan Sonnenschein's "Social Science Series." In the present work, the author undertakes to show how Social Democracy is to be met critically, by a theoretical demonstration of its impossibility, and practically, by a "positive" policy of social and constitutional reform. The volume is made up of three letters, and owing perhaps to its form, is somewhat diffuse and ill-arranged ; and this, added to the abstract character of the diction and a want of lucidity and directness in the style, makes it neither easy nor pleasant reading. Nor can the arguments be of much immediate interest in England, where Socialism, in the German sense of an anarchic and revolutionary force, is almost non-existent. The author seems to have studied English economic legislation and institutions to some advantage ; and his chief merit consists in seeing that Social Democracy can be best met, not by measures of repression, but by a constructive policy of social reform. The book also clearly enforces the truth that the Communism of the Social Democrats, while it is a reaction from the extreme nihilistic individualism of the last generation, is itself only an "intensified individualism" for which the State has no value as an organic whole, but only as a piece of mechanism intended to minister to the needs of the individual.
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