n industrial production. Petty-bourgeois socialism arises from this class, but holds up the standard of the proletariat, with whom the bourgeoisie are a shared enemy. Marx credits this school of socialism with "dissect[ing] with great acuteness the contradictions in the conditions of modern production," but ultimately upbraids them for wanting to reinstate old social formations. They do not see that the answer to bourgeois exploitation is to develop the proletariat into a revolutionary class rather than to return the worker to the country and renew a failed feudalism. C. German or 'True' Socialism: German Socialism began as a response to French socialist literature. These early socialists, though, did not appreciate that the French ideas grew out of a social environment, which did not exist yet in Germany. Unlike the French bourgeoisie, the German bourgeoisie had barely begun their struggle against feudalism and there was no proletariat to speak of. As socialism lacked practical significance for Germany, German thinkers universalized the French ideas, raising them to the status of immutable laws of human Reason, transcending the narrow concerns of any particular class. Those who championed these ideas in the political area forgot that they were developed for a society different from their own; the result of this premature valorization of socialistic values was a hardening of aristocratic resistance to the bourgeoisie. This has slowed the progress of industrialization and kept Germany less developed economically than France. While the political rhetoric of this movement has earned it many admirers, its lack of class character and its decrying of violent revolution make it weak and ineffectual. II. Conservative, or Bourgeois, Socialism This is the form of socialism practiced by those sections of the bourgeoisie who wish to reform their class rather than destroy it. They want to enjoy the social developments, which their economic and polit...
