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Title: The Theory of Social Revolutions

Author: Brooks Adams

Release Date: January 6, 2004 [EBook #10613]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

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THE THEORY OF SOCIAL REVOLUTIONS

BY

BROOKS ADAMS

1913

PREFATORY NOTE

The first chapter of the following book was published, in substantially
its present form, in the _Atlantic Monthly_ for April, 1913. I have to
thank the editor for his courtesy in assenting to my wish to reprint.
The other chapters have not appeared before. I desire also to express my
obligations to my learned friend, Dr. M.M. Bigelow, who, most kindly, at
my request, read chapters two and three, which deal with the
constitutional law, and gave me the benefit of his most valuable
criticism.

Further than this I have but one word to add. I have written in support
of no political movement, nor for any ephemeral purpose. I have written
only to express a deep conviction which is the result of more than
twenty years of study, and reflection upon this subject.

BROOKS ADAMS.

QUINCY, MASSACHUSETTS, May 17, 1913.

CONTENTS

I. THE COLLAPSE OF CAPITALISTIC GOVERNMENT

II. THE LIMITATIONS OF THE JUDICIAL FUNCTION

III. AMERICAN COURTS AS LEGISLATIVE CHAMBERS

IV. THE SOCIAL EQUILIBRIUM

V. POLITICAL COURTS

VI. INFERENCES

INDEX [not included in this etext]

THE THEORY OF SOCIAL REVOLUTIONS

CHAPTER I

THE COLLAPSE OF CAPITALISTIC GOVERNMENT

Civilization, I apprehend, is nearly synonymous with order. However much
we may differ touching such matters as the distribution of property, the
domestic relations, the law of inheritance and the like, most of us, I
should suppose, would agree that without order civilization, as we
understand it, cannot exist. Now, although the optimist contends that,
since man cannot foresee the future, worry about the future is futile,
and that everything, in the best possible of worlds, i