Tolstoy's Theory of Social Reform. I

Abstract

The system which underlies Tolstoy's doctrine of social reform is one of literary rather than of strictly sociological and logical order. This literary mode of exposition often beguiles him into errors of discursiveness and futile detail. The basic principles as represented in his works of social reform are: (I) law, (2) money, and (3) Property. Law is recognized by him only when it is written in the hearts of men, not in the books. Rejecting written law and accepting divine law as recommended by Christ, he emphasizes the teaching of non-resistance. Money, in Tolstoy's opinion, is a medium of oppression and enslavement of men, not a medium of exchange, as chrematistics teaches us. He does not take into consideration those innumerable advantages which a circulating medium renders to the community and particularly to the commercial world. He absolutely repudiates the theory that in all production only three factors take part: land, capital, and labor. His disconcerting controversy on the catallactic theory of money contains nothing fundamentally new in the categories of economics, but the manner is odd in which he couches the notion of capital, labor, and distribution of wealth.