The Ego and His Own Part 10

The commonalty has its power, and at the same time its limits, in the _fundamental law of the State_, in a charter, in a legitimate[76] or "just"[77] prince who himself is guided, and rules, according to "rational laws"; in short, in _legality_. The period of the _bourgeoisie_ is ruled by the British spirit of legality. An a.s.sembly of provincial estates, _e. g._, is ever recalling that its authorization goes only so and so far, and that it is called at all only through favor and can be thrown out again through disfavor. It is always reminding itself of its--_vocation_. It is certainly not to be denied that my father begot me; but, now that I am once begotten, surely his purposes in begetting do not concern me a bit and, whatever he may have _called_ me to, I do what I myself will. Therefore even a called a.s.sembly of estates, the French a.s.sembly in the beginning of the Revolution, recognized quite rightly that it was independent of the caller. It _existed_, and would have been stupid if it did not avail itself of the right of existence, but fancied itself dependent as on a father. The called one no longer has to ask "what did the caller want when he created me?" but "what do I want after I have once followed the call?"

Not the caller, not the const.i.tuents, not the charter according to which their meeting was called out, nothing will be to him a sacred, inviolable power. He is _authorized_ for everything that is in his power; he will know no restrictive "authorization," will not want to be _loyal_. This, if any such thing could be expected from chambers at all, would give a completely _egoistic_ chamber, severed from all navel-string and without consideration. But chambers are always devout, and therefore one cannot be surprised if so much half-way or undecided, _i. e._ hypocritical, "egoism" parades in them.

The members of the estates are to remain within the _limits_ that are traced for them by the charter, by the king's will, and the like. If they will not or can not do that, then they are to "step out." What dutiful man could act otherwise, could put himself, his conviction, and his will as the _first_ thing? who could be so immoral as to want to a.s.sert _himself_, even if the body corporate and everything should go to ruin over it? People keep carefully within the limits of their _authorization_; of course one must remain within the limits of his _power_ anyhow, because no one can do more than he can. "My power, or, if it be so, powerlessness, be my sole limit, but authorizations only restraining--precepts? Should I profess this all-subversive view? No, I am a--law-abiding citizen!"

The commonalty professes a morality which is most closely connected with its essence. The first demand of this morality is to the effect that one should carry on a solid business, an honorable trade, lead a moral life.

Immoral, to it, is the sharper, the demirep, the thief, robber, and murderer, the gamester, the penniless man without a situation, the frivolous man. The doughty commoner designates the feeling against these "immoral" people as his "deepest indignation." All these lack settlement, the _solid_ quality of business, a solid, seemly life, a fixed income, etc.; in short, they belong, because their existence does not rest on a _secure basis_, to the dangerous "individuals or isolated persons," to the dangerous _proletariat_; they are "individual bawlers"

who offer no "guarantee" and have "nothing to lose," and so nothing to risk. The forming of family ties, _e. g., binds_ a man: he who is bound furnishes security, can be taken hold of; not so the street-walker. The gamester stakes everything on the game, ruins himself and others;--no guarantee. All who appear to the commoner suspicious, hostile, and dangerous might be comprised under the name "vagabonds"; every vagabondish way of living displeases him. For there are intellectual vagabonds too, to whom the hereditary dwelling-place of their fathers seems too cramped and oppressive for them to be willing to satisfy themselves with the limited s.p.a.ce any more: instead of keeping within the limits of a temperate style of thinking, and taking as inviolable truth what furnishes comfort and tranquillity to thousands, they overleap all bounds of the traditional and run wild with their impudent criticism and untamed mania for doubt, these extravagating vagabonds.

They form the cla.s.s of the unstable, restless, changeable, _i. e._ of the _proletariat_, and, if they give voice to their unsettled nature, are called "unruly fellows."

Such a broad sense has the so-called _proletariat_, or pauperism. How much one would err if one believed the commonalty to be desirous of doing away with poverty (pauperism) to the best of its ability! On the contrary, the good citizen helps himself with the incomparably comforting conviction that "the fact is that the good things of fortune are unequally divided and will always remain so--according to G.o.d's wise decree." The poverty which surrounds him in every alley does not disturb the true commoner further than that at most he clears his account with it by throwing an alms, or finds work and food for an "honest and serviceable" fellow. But so much the more does he feel his quiet enjoyment clouded by _innovating_ and _discontented_ poverty, by those poor who no longer behave _quietly_ and endure, but begin to _run wild_ and become restless. Lock up the vagabond, thrust the breeder of unrest into the darkest dungeon! He wants to "arouse dissatisfaction and incite people against existing inst.i.tutions" in the State--stone him, stone him!

But from these identical discontented ones comes a reasoning somewhat as follows: It need not make any difference to the "good citizens" who protects them and their principles, whether an absolute king or a const.i.tutional one, a republic, etc., if only they are protected. And what is their principle, whose protector they always "love"? Not that of labor; not that of birth either. But that of _mediocrity_, of the golden mean: a little birth and a little labor, _i. e._, an _interest-bearing possession_. Possession is here the fixed, the given, inherited (birth); interest-drawing is the exertion about it (labor); _laboring capital_, therefore. Only no immoderation, no ultra, no radicalism! Right of birth certainly, but only hereditary possessions; labor certainly, yet little or none at all of one's own, but labor of capital and of the--subject laborers.

If an age is imbued with an error, some always derive advantage from the error, while the rest have to suffer from it. In the Middle Ages the error was general among Christians that the church must have all power, or the supreme lords.h.i.+p on earth; the hierarchs believed in this "truth"

not less than the laymen, and both were spellbound in the like error.

But by it the hierarchs had the _advantage_ of power, the laymen had to _suffer_ subjection. However, as the saying goes, "one learns wisdom by suffering"; and so the laymen at last learned wisdom and no longer believed in the mediaeval "truth."--A like relation exists between the commonalty and the laboring cla.s.s. Commoner and laborer believe in the "truth" of _money_; they who do not possess it believe in it no less than those who possess it: the laymen, therefore, as well as the priests.

"Money governs the world" is the keynote of the civic epoch. A dest.i.tute aristocrat and a dest.i.tute laborer, as "starvelings," amount to nothing so far as political consideration is concerned; birth and labor do not do it, but _money_ brings _consideration_.[78] The possessors rule, but the State trains up from the dest.i.tute its "servants," to whom, in proportion as they are to rule (govern) in its name, it gives money (a salary).

I receive everything from the State. Have I anything without the _State's a.s.sent_? What I have without this it _takes_ from me as soon as it discovers the lack of a "legal t.i.tle." Do I not, therefore, have everything through its grace, its a.s.sent?

On this alone, on the _legal t.i.tle_, the commonalty rests. The commoner is what he is through the _protection of the State_, through the State's grace. He would necessarily be afraid of losing everything if the State's power were broken.

But how is it with him who has nothing to lose, how with the proletarian? As he has nothing to lose, he does not need the protection of the State for his "nothing." He may gain, on the contrary, if that protection of the State is withdrawn from the _protege_.

Therefore the non-possessor will regard the State as a power protecting the possessor, which privileges the latter, but does nothing for him, the non-possessor, but to--suck his blood. The State is a--_commoners'

State_, is the estate of the commonalty. It protects man not according to his labor, but according to his tractableness ("loyalty"),--to wit, according to whether the rights entrusted to him by the State are enjoyed and managed in accordance with the will, _i. e._ laws, of the State.

Under the _regime_ of the commonalty the laborers always fall into the hands of the possessors,--_i. e._ of those who have at their disposal some bit of the State domains (and everything possessible is State domain, belongs to the State, and is only a fief of the individual), especially money and land; of the capitalists, therefore. The laborer cannot _realize_ on his labor to the extent of the value that it has for the consumer. "Labor is badly paid!" The capitalist has the greatest profit from it.--Well paid, and more than well paid, are only the labors of those who heighten the splendor and _dominion_ of the State, the labors of high State _servants_. The State pays well that its "good citizens," the possessors, may be able to pay badly without danger; it secures to itself by good payment its servants, out of whom it forms a protecting power, a "police" (to the police belong soldiers, officials of all kinds, _e. g._ those of justice, education, etc.,--in short, the whole "machinery of the State") for the "good citizens," and the "good citizens" gladly pay high tax-rates to it in order to pay so much lower rates to their laborers.

But the cla.s.s of laborers, because unprotected in what they essentially are (for they do not enjoy the protection of the State as laborers, but as its subjects they have a share in the enjoyment of the police, a so-called protection of the law), remains a power hostile to this State, this State of possessors, this "citizen kings.h.i.+p." Its principle, labor, is not recognized as to its _value_; it is exploited,[79] a _spoil_[80]

of the possessors, the enemy.

The laborers have the most enormous power in their hands, and, if they once became thoroughly conscious of it and used it, nothing would withstand them; they would only have to stop labor, regard the product of labor as theirs, and enjoy it. This is the sense of the labor disturbances which show themselves here and there.

The State rests on the--_slavery of labor_. If _labor_ becomes _free_, the State is lost.

-- 2.--SOCIAL LIBERALISM

We are freeborn men, and wherever we look we see ourselves made servants of egoists! Are we therefore to become egoists too? Heaven forbid! we want rather to make egoists impossible! We want to make them all "ragam.u.f.fins"; all of us must have nothing, that "all may have."

So say the Socialists.

Who is this person that you call "All"?--It is "society"!--But is it corporeal, then?--_We_ are its body!--You? Why, you are not a body yourselves;--you, sir, are corporeal to be sure, you too, and you, but you all together are only bodies, not a body. Accordingly the united society may indeed have bodies at its service, but no one body of its own. Like the "nation" of the politicians, it will turn out to be nothing but a "spirit," its body only semblance.

The freedom of man is, in political liberalism, freedom from _persons_, from personal dominion, from the _master_; the securing of each individual person against other persons, personal freedom.

No one has any orders to give; the law alone gives orders.

But, even if the persons have become _equal_, yet their _possessions_ have not. And yet the poor man _needs_ the rich, the rich the poor, the former the rich man's money, the latter the poor man's labor. So no one needs another as a _person_, but needs him as a _giver_, and thus as one who has something to give, as holder or possessor. So what he _has_ makes the _man_. And in _having_, or in "possessions," people are unequal.

Consequently, social liberalism concludes, _no one must have_, as according to political liberalism _no one was to give orders_; _i. e._, as in that case the _State_ alone obtained the command, so now _society_ alone obtains the possessions.

For the State, protecting each one's person and property against the other, _separates_ them from one another; each one _is_ his special part and _has_ his special part. He who is satisfied with what he is and has finds this state of things profitable; but he who would like to be and have more looks around for this "more," and finds it in the power of other _persons_. Here he comes upon a contradiction; as a person no one is inferior to another, and yet one person _has_ what another has not but would like to have. So, he concludes, the one person is more than the other, after all, for the former has what he needs, the latter has not; the former is a rich man, the latter a poor man.

He now asks himself further, are we to let what we rightly buried come to life again? are we to let this circuitously restored inequality of persons pa.s.s? No; on the contrary, we must bring quite to an end what was only half accomplished. Our freedom from another's person still lacks the freedom from what the other's person can command, from what he has in his personal power,--in short, from "personal property." Let us then do away with _personal property_. Let no one have anything any longer, let every one be a--ragam.u.f.fin. Let property be _impersonal_, let it belong to--_society_.

Before the supreme _ruler_, the sole _commander_, we had all become equal, equal persons, _i. e._ nullities.

Before the supreme _proprietor_ we all become equal--_ragam.u.f.fins_. For the present, one is still in another's estimation a "ragam.u.f.fin," a "have-nothing"; but then this estimation ceases. We are all ragam.u.f.fins together, and as the aggregate of Communistic society we might call ourselves a "ragam.u.f.fin crew."

When the proletarian shall really have founded his purposed "society" in which the interval between rich and poor is to be removed, then he _will be_ a ragam.u.f.fin, for then he will feel that it amounts to something to be a ragam.u.f.fin, and might lift "Ragam.u.f.fin" to be an honorable form of address, just as the Revolution did with the word "Citizen." Ragam.u.f.fin is his ideal; we are all to become ragam.u.f.fins.

This is the second robbery of the "personal" in the interest of "humanity." Neither command nor property is left to the individual; the State took the former, society the latter.

Because in society the most oppressive evils make themselves felt, therefore the oppressed especially, and consequently the members in the lower regions of society, think they find the fault in society, and make it their task to discover the _right society_. This is only the old phenomenon,--that one looks for the fault first in everything but _himself_, and consequently in the State, in the self-seeking of the rich, etc., which yet have precisely our fault to thank for their existence.

The reflections and conclusions of Communism look very simple. As matters lie at this time,--in the present situation with regard to the State, therefore,--some, and they the majority, are at a disadvantage compared to others, the minority. In this _state_ of things the former are in a _state of prosperity_, the latter in a _state of need_. Hence the present _state_ of things, _i. e._ the State, must be done away with. And what in its place? Instead of the isolated state of prosperity--a _general state of prosperity_, a _prosperity of all_.

Through the Revolution the _bourgeoisie_ became omnipotent, and all inequality was abolished by every one's being raised or degraded to the dignity of a _citizen_: the common man--raised, the aristocrat--degraded; the _third_ estate became sole estate,--_viz._, the estate of--_citizens of the State_. Now Communism responds: Our dignity and our essence consist not in our being all--the _equal children_ of our mother, the State, all born with equal claim to her love and her protection, but in our all existing _for each other_. This is our equality, or herein we are _equal_, in that we, I as well as you and you and all of you, are active or "labor" each one for the rest; in that each of us is a _laborer_, then. The point for us is not what we are _for the State_ (_viz._, citizens), not our _citizens.h.i.+p_ therefore, but what we are _for each other_,--_viz._, that each of us exists only through the other, who, caring for my wants, at the same time sees his own satisfied by me. He labors, _e. g._, for my clothing (tailor), I for his need of amus.e.m.e.nt (comedy-writer, rope-dancer, etc.), he for my food (farmer, etc.), I for his instruction (scientist, etc.). It is _labor_ that const.i.tutes our dignity and our--equality.

What advantage does citizens.h.i.+p bring us? Burdens! And how high is our labor appraised? As low as possible! But labor is our sole value all the same; that we are _laborers_ is the best thing about us, this is our significance in the world, and therefore it must be our consideration too and must come to receive _consideration_. What can you meet us with?

Surely nothing but--_labor_ too. Only for labor or services do we owe you a recompense, not for your bare existence; not for what you are _for yourselves_ either, but only for what you are _for us_. By what have you claims on us? Perhaps by your high birth, etc.? No, only by what you do for us that is desirable or useful. Be it thus then: we are willing to be worth to you only so much as we do for you; but you are to be held likewise by us. _Services_ determine value,--_i. e._ those services that are worth something to us, and consequently _labors for each other_, _labors for the common good_. Let each one be in the other's eyes a _laborer_. He who accomplishes something useful is inferior to none, or--all laborers (laborers, of course, in the sense of laborers "for the common good," _i. e._ communistic laborers) are equal. But, as the laborer is worth his wages,[81] let the wages too be equal.

As long as faith sufficed for man's honor and dignity, no labor, however hara.s.sing, could be objected to if it only did not hinder a man in his faith. Now, on the contrary, when every one is to cultivate himself into man, condemning a man to _machine-like labor_ amounts to the same thing as slavery. If a factory-worker must tire himself to death twelve hours and more, he is cut off from becoming man. Every labor is to have the intent that the man be satisfied. Therefore he must become a _master_ in it too, _i. e._ be able to perform it as a totality. He who in a pin-factory only puts on the heads, only draws the wire, etc., works, as it were, mechanically, like a machine; he remains half-trained, does not become a master: his labor cannot _satisfy_ him, it can only _fatigue_ him. His labor is nothing taken by itself, has no object _in itself_, is nothing complete in itself; he labors only into another's hands, and is _used_ (exploited) by this other. For this laborer in another's service there is no _enjoyment of a cultivated mind_, at most crude amus.e.m.e.nts: _culture_, you see, is barred against him. To be a good Christian one needs only to _believe_, and that can be done under the most oppressive circ.u.mstances. Hence the Christian-minded take care only of the oppressed laborers' piety, their patience, submission, etc. Only so long as the downtrodden cla.s.ses were _Christians_ could they bear all their misery: for Christianity does not let their murmurings and exasperation rise. Now the _hus.h.i.+ng_ of desires is no longer enough, but their _sating_ is demanded. The _bourgeoisie_ has proclaimed the gospel of the _enjoyment of the world_, of material enjoyment, and now wonders that this doctrine finds adherents among us poor: it has shown that not faith and poverty, but culture and possessions, make a man blessed; we proletarians understand that too.

The commonalty freed us from the orders and arbitrariness of individuals. But that arbitrariness was left which springs from the conjuncture of situations, and may be called the fortuity of circ.u.mstances; favoring _fortune_, and those "favored by fortune," still remain.

When _e. g._ a branch of industry is ruined and thousands of laborers become breadless, people think reasonably enough to acknowledge that it is not the individual who must bear the blame, but that "the evil lies in the situation."

Let us change the situation then, but let us change it thoroughly, and so that its fortuity becomes powerless, and a _law_! Let us no longer be slaves of chance! Let us create a new order that makes an end of _fluctuations_. Let this order then be sacred!

Formerly one had to suit the _lords_ to come to anything; after the Revolution the word was "Grasp _fortune_!" Luck-hunting or hazard-playing, civil life was absorbed in this. Then, alongside this, the demand that he who has obtained something shall not frivolously stake it again.

Strange and yet supremely natural contradiction. Compet.i.tion, in which alone civil or political life unrolls itself, is a game of luck through and through, from the speculations of the exchange down to the solicitation of offices, the hunt for customers, looking for work, aspiring to promotion and decorations, the second-hand dealer's petty haggling, etc. If one succeeds in supplanting and outbidding his rivals, then the "lucky throw" is made; for it must be taken as a piece of luck to begin with that the victor sees himself equipped with an ability (even though it has been developed by the most careful industry) against which the others do not know how to rise, consequently that--no abler ones are found. And now those who ply their daily lives in the midst of these changes of fortune without seeing any harm in it are seized with the most virtuous indignation when their own principle appears in naked form and "breeds misfortune" as--_hazard-playing_. Hazard-playing, you see, is too clear, too barefaced a compet.i.tion, and, like every decided nakedness, offends honorable modesty.

The Socialists want to put a stop to this activity of chance, and to form a society in which men are no longer dependent on _fortune_, but free.

In the most natural way in the world this endeavor first utters itself as hatred of the "unfortunate" against the "fortunate," _i. e._, of those for whom fortune has done little or nothing, against those for whom it has done everything.

But properly the ill-feeling is not directed against the fortunate, but against _fortune_, this rotten spot of the commonalty.

As the Communists first declare free activity to be man's essence, they, like all work-day dispositions, need a Sunday; like all material endeavors, they need a G.o.d, an uplifting and edification alongside their witless "labor."

That the Communist sees in you the man, the brother, is only the Sunday side of Communism. According to the work-day side he does not by any means take you as man simply, but as human laborer or laboring man. The first view has in it the liberal principle; in the second, illiberality is concealed. If you were a "lazybones," he would not indeed fail to recognize the man in you, but would endeavor to cleanse him as a "lazy man" from laziness and to convert you to the _faith_ that labor is man's "destiny and calling."

Therefore he shows a double face: with the one he takes heed that the spiritual man be satisfied, with the other he looks about him for means for the material or corporeal man. He gives man a twofold _post_,--an office of material acquisition and one of spiritual.