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I
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1. " Labor is the source of wealth and all culture , and since useful labor is
possible only in society and through society , the proceeds of labor belong
undiminished with equal right to all members of society . " First part of the
paragraph : " Labor is the source of all wealth and all culture . " Labor is
not the source of all wealth . Nature is just as much the source of use values
( and it is surely of such that material wealth consists ! ) as labor , which
itself is only the manifestation of a force of nature , human labor power . the
above phrase is to be found in all children 's primers and is correct insofar
as it is implied that labor is performed with the appurtenant subjects and
instruments . But a socialist program cannot allow such bourgeois phrases to
pass over in silence
the conditions that lone give them meaning . And insofar as man from the
beginning behaves toward nature , the primary source of all instruments and
subjects of labor , as an owner , treats her as belonging to him , his labor
becomes the source of use values , therefore also of wealth . The bourgeois
have very good grounds for falsely ascribing supernatural creative power to
labor ; since precisely from the fact that labor depends on nature it follows
that the man who possesses no other property than his labor power must , in all
conditions of society and culture , be the slave of other men who have made
themselves the owners of the material conditions of labor . He can only work
with their permission , hence live only with their permission . Let us now
leave the sentence as it stands , or rather limps . What could one have
expected in conclusion ? Obviously this : " Since labor is the source of all
wealth , no one in society can appropriate wealth except as the product of
labor .
Therefore , if he himself does not work , he lives by the labor of others and
also acquires his culture at the expense of the labor of others . " Instead of
this , by means of the verbal river " and since " , a proposition is added in
order to draw a conclusion from this and not from the first one . Second part
of the paragraph : " Useful labor is possible only in society and through
society . " According to the first proposition , labor was the source of all
wealth and all culture ; therefore no society is possible without labor . Now
we learn , conversely , that no " useful " labor is possible without society .
One could just as well have said that only in society can useless and even
socially harmful labor become a branch of gainful occupation , that only in
society can one live by being idle , etc. , etc. -- in short , once could just
as well have copied the whole of Rousseau . And what is " useful " labor ?
Surely only labor which produces the intended useful result . A savage
-- and man was a savage after he had ceased to be an ape -- who kills an
animal with a stone , who collects fruit , etc. , performs " useful " labor .
Thirdly , the conclusion : " Useful labor is possible only in society and
through society , the proceeds of labor belong undiminished with equal right to
all members of society . " A fine conclusion ! If useful labor is possible only
in society and through society , the proceeds of labor belong to society -- and
only so much therefrom accrues to the individual worker as is not required to
maintain the " condition " of labor , society . In fact , this proposition has
at all times been made use of by the champions of the state of society
prevailing at any given time . First comes the claims of the government and
everything that sticks to it , since it is the social organ for the maintenance
of the social order ; then comes the claims of the various kinds of private
property , for the various kinds of private property are the foundations
of society , etc. One sees that such hollow phrases are the foundations of
society , etc. One sees that such hollow phrases can be twisted and turned as
desired . The first and second parts of the paragraph have some intelligible
connection only in the following wording : " Labor becomes the source of wealth
and culture only as social labor " , or , what is the same thing , " in and
through society " . This proposition is incontestably correct , for although
isolated labor ( its material conditions presupposed ) can create use value ,
it can create neither wealth nor culture . But equally incontestable is this
other proposition : " In proportion as labor develops socially , and becomes
thereby a source of wealth and culture , poverty and destitution develop among
the workers , and wealth and culture among the nonworkers . " This is the law
of all history hitherto . What , therefore , had to be done here , instead of
setting down general phrases about " labor " and " society " , was
to prove concretely how in present capitalist society the material , etc. ,
conditions have at last been created which enable and compel the workers to
lift this social curse . In fact , however , the whole paragraph , bungled in
style and content , is only there in order to inscribe the Lassallean catchword
of the " undiminished proceeds of labor " as a slogan at the top of the party
banner . I shall return later to the " proceeds of labor " , " equal right " ,
etc. , since the same thing recurs in a somewhat different form further on . 2.
" In present-day society , the instruments of labor are the monopoly of the
capitalist class ; the resulting dependence of the working class is the cause
of misery and servitude in all forms . " This sentence , borrowed from the
Rules of the International , is incorrect in this " improved " edition . In
present-day society , the instruments of labor are the monopoly of the
landowners ( the monopoly of property in land is even the basis of the mo
nopoly of capital ) and the capitalists . In the passage in question , the
Rules of the International do not mention either one or the other class of
monopolists . They speak of the " monopolizer of the means of labor , that is ,
the sources of life . " The addition , " sources of life " , makes it
sufficiently clear that land is included in the instruments of labor . The
correction was introduced because Lassalle , for reasons now generally known ,
attacked only the capitalist class and not the landowners . In England , the
capitalist class is usually not even the owner of the land on which his factory
stands . 3. " The emancipation of labor demands the promotion of the
instruments of labor to the common property of society and the co-operative
regulation of the total labor , with a fair distribution of the proceeds of
labor . " Promotion of the instruments of labor to the common property " ought
obviously to read their " conversion into the common property " ; but this is
only pas
sing . What are the " proceeds of labor " ? The product of labor , or its
value ? And in the latter case , is it the total value of the product , or only
that part of the value which labor has newly added to the value of the means of
production consumed ? " Proceeds of labor " is a loose notion which Lassalle
has put in the place of definite economic conceptions . What is " a fair
distribution " ? Do not the bourgeois assert that the present-day distribution
is " fair " ? And is it not , in fact , the only " fair " distribution on the
basis of the present-day mode of production ? Are economic relations regulated
by legal conceptions , or do not , on the contrary , legal relations arise out
of economic ones ? Have not also the socialist sectarians the most varied
notions about " fair " distribution ? To understand what is implied in this
connection by the phrase " fair distribution " , we must take the first
paragraph and this one together . The latter presupposes a society wherein t
he instruments of labor are common property and the total labor is
co-operatively regulated , and from the first paragraph we learn that " the
proceeds of labor belong undiminished with equal right to all members of
society . " " To all members of society " ? To those who do not work as well ?
What remains then of the " undiminished " proceeds of labor ? Only to those
members of society who work ? What remains then of the " equal right " of all
members of society ? But " all members of society " and " equal right " are
obviously mere phrases . The kernel consists in this , that in this communist
society every worker must receive the " undiminished " Lassallean " proceeds of
labor " . Let us take , first of all , the words " proceeds of labor " in the
sense of the product of labor ; then the co-operative proceeds of labor are the
total social product . From this must now be deducted : First , cover for
replacement of the means of production used up . Second , additional portion
for e
xpansion of production . Third , reserve or insurance funds to provide against
accidents , dislocations caused by natural calamities , etc. These deductions
from the " undiminished " proceeds of labor are an economic necessity , and
their magnitude is to be determined according to available means and forces ,
and partly by computation of probabilities , but they are in no way calculable
by equity . There remains the other part of the total product , intended to
serve as means of consumption . Before this is divided among the individuals ,
there has to be deducted again , from it : First , the general costs of
administration not belonging to production . This part will , from the outset ,
be very considerably restricted in comparison with present-day society , and it
diminishes in proportion as the new society develops . Second , that which is
intended for the common satisfaction of needs , such as schools , health
services , etc. From the outset , this part grows considerably in com
parison with present-day society , and it grows in proportion as the new
society develops . Third , funds for those unable to work , etc. , in short ,
for what is included under so-called official poor relief today . Only now do
we come to the " distribution " which the program , under Lassallean influence
, alone has in view in its narrow fashion -- namely , to that part of the means
of consumption which is divided among the individual producers of the
co-operative society . The " undiminished " proceeds of labor have already
unnoticeably become converted into the " diminished " proceeds , although what
the producer is deprived of in his capacity as a private individual benefits
him directly or indirectly in his capacity as a member of society . Just as the
phrase of the " undiminished " proceeds of labor has disappeared , so now does
the phrase of the " proceeds of labor " disappear altogether . Within the
co-operative society based on common ownership of the means of production ,
the producers do not exchange their products ; just as little does the labor
employed on the products appear here as the value of these products , as a
material quality possessed by them , since now , in contrast to capitalist
society , individual labor no longer exists in an indirect fashion but directly
as a component part of total labor . The phrase " proceeds of labor " ,
objectionable also today on account of its ambiguity , thus loses all meaning .
What we have to deal with here is a communist society , not as it has developed
on its own foundations , but , on the contrary , just as it emerges from
capitalist society ; which is thus in every respect , economically , morally ,
and intellectually , still stamped with the birthmarks of the old society from
whose womb it emerges . Accordingly , the individual producer receives back
from society -- after the deductions have been made -- exactly what he gives to
it . What he has given to it is his individual quantum of labor . For
example , the social working day consists of the sum of the individual hours
of work ; the individual labor time of the individual producer is the part of
the social working day contributed by him , his share in it . He receives a
certificate from society that he has furnished such-and-such an amount of labor
( after deducting his labor for the common funds ) ; and with this certificate
, he draws from the social stock of means of consumption as much as the same
amount of labor cost . The same amount of labor which he has given to society
in one form , he receives back in another . Here , obviously , the same
principle prevails as that which regulates the exchange of commodities , as far
as this is exchange of equal values . Content and form are changed , because
under the altered circumstances no one can give anything except his labor , and
because , on the other hand , nothing can pass to the ownership of individuals
, except individual means of consumption . But as far as the dis
tribution of the latter among the individual producers is concerned , the same
principle prevails as in the exchange of commodity equivalents : a given amount
of labor in one form is exchanged for an equal amount of labor in another form
. Hence , equal right here is still in principle -- bourgeois right , although
principle and practice are no longer at loggerheads , while the exchange of
equivalents in commodity exchange exists only on the average and not in the
individual case . In spite of this advance , this equal right is still
constantly stigmatized by a bourgeois limitation . The right of the producers
is proportional to the labor they supply ; the equality consists in the fact
that measurement is made with an equal standard , labor . But one man is
superior to another physically , or mentally , and supplies more labor in the
same time , or can labor for a longer time ; and labor , to serve as a measure
, must be defined by its duration or intensity , otherwise it ceases to
be a standard of measurement . This equal right is an unequal right for
unequal labor . It recognizes no class differences , because everyone is only a
worker like everyone else ; but it tacitly recognizes unequal individual
endowment , and thus productive capacity , as a natural privilege . It is ,
therefore , a right of inequality , in its content , like every right . Right ,
by its very nature , can consist only in the application of an equal standard ;
but unequal individuals ( and they would not be different individuals if they
were not unequal ) are measurable only by an equal standard insofar as they are
brought under an equal point of view , are taken from one definite side only --
for instance , in the present case , are regarded only as workers and nothing
more is seen in them , everything else being ignored . Further , one worker is
married , another is not ; one has more children than another , and so on and
so forth . Thus , with an equal performance of labor , and henc
e an equal in the social consumption fund , one will in fact receive more than
another , one will be richer than another , and so on . To avoid all these
defects , right , instead of being equal , would have to be unequal . But these
defects are inevitable in the first phase of communist society as it is when it
has just emerged after prolonged birth pangs from capitalist society . Right
can never be higher than the economic structure of society and its cultural
development conditioned thereby . In a higher phase of communist society ,
after the enslaving subordination of the individual to the division of labor ,
and therewith also the antithesis between mental and physical labor , has
vanished ; after labor has become not only a means of life but life 's prime
want ; after the productive forces have also increased with the all-around
development of the individual , and all the springs of co-operative wealth flow
more abundantly -- only then then can the narrow horizon of bourgeois
right be crossed in its entirety and society inscribe on its banners : From
each according to his ability , to each according to his needs ! I have dealt
more at length with the " undiminished " proceeds of labor , on the one hand ,
and with " equal right " and " fair distribution " , on the other , in order to
show what a crime it is to attempt , on the one hand , to force on our Party
again , as dogmas , ideas which in a certain period had some meaning but have
now become obsolete verbal rubbish , while again perverting , on the other ,
the realistic outlook , which it cost so much effort to instill into the Party
but which has now taken root in it , by means of ideological nonsense about
right and other trash so common among the democrats and French socialists .
Quite apart from the analysis so far given , it was in general a mistake to
make a fuss about so-called distribution and put the principal stress on it .
Any distribution whatever of the means of consumption is only a con
sequence of the distribution of the conditions of production themselves . The
latter distribution , however , is a feature of the mode of production itself .
The capitalist mode of production , for example , rests on the fact that the
material conditions of production are in the hands of nonworkers in the form of
property in capital and land , while the masses are only owners of the personal
condition of production , of labor power . If the elements of production are so
distributed , then the present-day distribution of the means of consumption
results automatically . If the material conditions of production are the
co-operative property of the workers themselves , then there likewise results a
distribution of the means of consumption different from the present one .
Vulgar socialism ( and from it in turn a section of the democrats ) has taken
over from the bourgeois economists the consideration and treatment of
distribution as independent of the mode of production and hence the pre
sentation of socialism as turning principally on distribution . After the real
relation has long been made clear , why retrogress again ? 4. " The
emancipation of labor must be the work of the working class , relative to which
all other classes are only one reactionary mass . " The first strophe is taken
from the introductory words of the Rules of the International , but " improved
" . There it is said : " The emancipation of the working class must be the act
of the workers themselves " ; here , on the contrary , the " working class "
has to emancipate -- what ? " Labor . " Let him understand who can . In
compensation , the antistrophe , on the other hand , is a Lassallean quotation
of the first water : " relative to which " ( the working class ) " all other
classes are only one reactionary mass . " In the Communist Manifesto it is said
: " Of all the classes that stand face-to-face with the bourgeoisie today , the
proletariat alone is a really revolutionary class . The other classe
s decay and finally disappear in the face of modern industry ; the proletariat
is its special and essential product . " The bourgeoisie is here conceived as a
revolutionary class -- as the bearer of large-scale industry -- relative to the
feudal lords and the lower middle class , who desire to maintain all social
positions that are the creation of obsolete modes of production . thus , they
do not form together with the bourgeoisie " only one reactionary mass " . On
the other hand , the proletariat is revolutionary relative to the bourgeoisie
because , having itself grown up on the basis of large-scale industry , it
strives to strip off from production the capitalist character that the
bourgeoisie seeks to perpetuate . But the Manifesto adds that the " lower
middle class " is becoming revolutionary " in view of [ its ] impending
transfer to the proletariat " . From this point of view , therefore , it is
again nonsense to say that it , together with the bourgeoisie , and with the
feud
al lords into the bargain , " form only one reactionary mass " relative to the
working class . Has one proclaimed to the artisan , small manufacturers , etc.
, and peasants during the last elections : Relative to us , you , together with
the bourgeoisie and feudal lords , form one reactionary mass ? Lassalle knew
the Communist Manifesto by heart , as his faithful followers know the gospels
written by him . If , therefore , he has falsified it so grossly , this has
occurred only to put a good color on his alliance with absolutist and feudal
opponents against the bourgeoisie . In the above paragraph , moreover , his
oracular saying is dragged in by main force without any connection with the
botched quotation from the Rules of the International . Thus , it is simply an
impertinence , and indeed not at all displeasing to Herr Bismarck , one of
those cheap pieces of insolence in which the Marat of Berlin deals . [ Marat of
Berlin a reference to Hasselmann , cheif editor of the Neuer Soci
al-Demokrat ] 5. " The working class strives for its emancipation first of all
within the framework of the present-day national states , conscious that the
necessary result of its efforts , which are common to the workers of all
civilized countries , will be the international brotherhood of peoples . "
Lassalle , in opposition to the Communist Manifesto and to all earlier
socialism , conceived the workers ' movement from the narrowest national
standpoint . He is being followed in this -- and that after the work of the
International ! It is altogether self-evident that , to be able to fight at all
, the working class must organize itself at home as a class and that its own
country is the immediate arena of its struggle -- insofar as its class struggle
is national , not in substance , but , as the Communist Manifesto says , " in
form " . But the " framework of the present-day national state " , for instance
, the German Empire , is itself , in its turn , economically " within the fram
ework " of the world market , politically " within the framework " of the
system of states . Every businessman knows that German trade is at the same
time foreign trade , and the greatness of Herr Bismarck consists , to be sure ,
precisely in his pursuing a kind of international policy . And to what does the
German Workers ' party reduce its internationalism ? To the consciousness that
the result of its efforts will be " the international brotherhood of peoples "
-- a phrase borrowed from the bourgeois League of Peace and Freedom , which is
intended to pass as equivalent to the international brotherhood of working
classes in the joint struggle against the ruling classes and their governments
. Not a word , therefore , about the international functions of the German
working class ! And it is thus that it is to challenge its own bourgeoisie --
which is already linked up in brotherhood against it with the bourgeois of all
other countries -- and Herr Bismarck 's international policy of
conspiracy . In fact , the internationalism of the program stands even
infinitely below that of the Free Trade party . The latter also asserts that
the result of its efforts will be " the international brotherhood of peoples "
. But it also does something to make trade international and by no means
contents itself with the consciousness that all people are carrying on trade at
home . The international activity of the working classes does not in any way
depend on the existence of the International Working Men 's Association . This
was only the first attempt to create a central organ for the activity ; an
attempt which was a lasting success on account of the impulse which it gave but
which was no longer realizable in its historical form after the fall of the
Paris Commune . Bismarck 's Norddeutsche was absolutely right when it announced
, to the satisfaction of its master , that the German Workers ' party had sworn
off internationalism in the new program . II " Starting from these bas
ic principles , the German workers ' party strives by all legal means for the
free stateâandâsocialist society : that abolition of the wage system
together with the iron law of wages -- andâexploitation in every form ; the
elimination of all social and political inequality . " I shall return to the "
free " state later . So , in future , the German Workers ' party has got to
believe in Lassalle 's " iron law of wages " ! That this may not be lost , the
nonsense is perpetrated of speaking of the " abolition of the wage system " (
it should read : system of wage labor ) , " together with the iron law of wages
" . If I abolish wage labor , then naturally I abolish its laws also , whether
they are of " iron " or sponge . But Lassalle 's attack on wage labor turns
almost solely on this so-called law . In order , therefore , to prove that
Lassalle 's sect has conquered , the " wage system " must be abolished "
together with the iron law of wages " and not without it . It is well kno
wn that nothing of the " iron law of wages " is Lassalle 's except the word "
iron " borrowed from Goethe 's " great , eternal iron laws " . [ 1 ] The word "
iron " is a label by which the true believers recognize one another . But if I
take the law with Lassalle 's stamp on it , and consequently in his sense ,
then I must also take it with his substantiation for it . And what is that ? As
Lange already showed , shortly after Lassalle 's death , it is the Malthusian
theory of population ( preached by Lange himself ) . But if this theory is
correct , then again I cannot abolish the law even if I abolish wage labor a
hundred times over , because the law then governs not only the system of wage
labor but every social system . Basing themselves directly on this , the
economists have been proving for 50 years and more that socialism cannot
abolish poverty , which has its basis in nature , but can only make it general
, distribute it simultaneously over the whole surface of society ! But
all this is not the main thing . Quite apart from the false Lassallean
formulation of the law , the truly outrageous retrogression consists in the
following : Since Lassalle 's death , there has asserted itself in our party
the scientific understanding that wages are not what they appear to be --
namely , the value , or price , of laborâbut only a masked form for the value
, or price , of labor power . Thereby , the whole bourgeois conception of wages
hitherto , as well as all the criticism hitherto directed against this
conception , was thrown overboard once and for all . It was made clear that the
wage worker has permission to work for his own subsistenceâthat is , to live
, only insofar as he works for a certain time gratis for the capitalist ( and
hence also for the latter 's co-consumers of surplus value ) ; that the whole
capitalist system of production turns on the increase of this gratis labor by
extending the working day , or by developing the productivityâthat is , i
ncreasing the intensity or labor power , etc. ; that , consequently , the
system of wage labor is a system of slavery , and indeed of a slavery which
becomes more severe in proportion as the social productive forces of labor
develop , whether the worker receives better or worse payment . And after this
understanding has gained more and more ground in our party , some return to
Lassalle 's dogma although they must have known that Lassalle did not know what
wages were , but , following in the wake of the bourgeois economists , took the
appearance for the essence of the matter . It is as if , among slaves who have
at last got behind the secret of slavery and broken out in rebellion , a slave
still in thrall to obsolete notions were to inscribe on the program of the
rebellion : Slavery must be abolished because the feeding of slaves in the
system of slavery cannot exceed a certain low maximum ! Does not the mere fact
that the representatives of our party were capable of perpetrating suc
h a monstrous attack on the understanding that has spread among the mass of
our party prove , by itself , with what criminal levity and with what lack of
conscience they set to work in drawing up this compromise program ! Instead of
the indefinite concluding phrase of the paragraph , " the elimination of all
social and political inequality " , it ought to have been said that with the
abolition of class distinctions all social and political inequality arising
from them would disappear of itself . III
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
" The German Workers ' party , in order to pave the way to the solution of the
social question , demands the establishment of producers ' co-operative
societies with state aid under the democratic control of the toiling people .
The producers ' co-operative societies are to be called into being for industry
and agriculture on such a scale that the socialist organization of the total
labor will arise from the
m . " After the Lassallean " iron law of wages " , the physic of the prophet .
The way to it is " paved " in worthy fashion . In place of the existing class
struggle appears a newspaper scribbler 's phrase : " the social question " , to
the " solution " of which one " paves the way " . Instead of arising from the
revolutionary process of transformation of society , the " socialist
organization of the total labor " " arises " from the " state aid " that the
state gives to the producers ' co-operative societies and which the state , not
the workers , " calls into being " . It is worthy of Lassalle 's imagination
that with state loans one can build a new society just as well as a new railway
! From the remnants of a sense of shame , " state aid " has been put -- under
the democratic control of the " toiling people " . In the first place , the
majority of the " toiling people " in Germany consists of peasants , not
proletarians . Second , " democratic " means in German " Volksherrschaft
lich " [ by the rule of the people ] . But what does " control by the rule of
the people of the toiling people " mean ? And particularly in the case of a
toiling people which , through these demands that it puts to the state ,
expresses its full consciousness that it neither rules nor is ripe for ruling !
It would be superfluous to deal here with the criticism of the recipe
prescribed by Buchez in the reign of Louis Philippe , in opposition to the
French socialists and accepted by the reactionary workers , of the Atelier .
The chief offense does not lie in having inscribed this specific nostrum in the
program , but in taking , in general , a retrograde step from the standpoint of
a class movement to that of a sectarian movement . That the workers desire to
establish the conditions for co-operative production on a social scale , and
first of all on a national scale , in their own country , only means that they
are working to revolutionize the present conditions of production , and it
has nothing in common with the foundation of co-operative societies with
state aid . But as far as the present co-operative societies are concerned ,
they are of value only insofar as they are the independent creations of the
workers and not protégés either of the governments or of the bourgeois . IV
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
I come now to the democratic section . A. " The free basis of the state . "
First of all , according to II , the German Workers ' party strives for " the
free state " . Free state â what is this ? It is by no means the aim of the
workers , who have got rid of the narrow mentality of humble subjects , to set
the state free . In the German Empire , the " state " is almost as " free " as
in Russia . Freedom consists in converting the state from an organ superimposed
upon society into one completely subordinate to it ; and today , too , the
forms of state are more free or less free to the extent that they
restrict the " freedom of the state " . The German Workers ' party â at
least if it adopts the program â shows that its socialist ideas are not even
skin-deep ; in that , instead of treating existing society ( and this holds
good for any future one ) as the basis of the existing state ( or of the future
state in the case of future society ) , it treats the state rather as an
independent entity that possesses its own intellectual , ethical , and
libertarian bases . And what of the riotous misuse which the program makes of
the words " present-day state " , " present-day society " , and of the still
more riotous misconception it creates in regard to the state to which it
addresses its demands ? " Present-day society " is capitalist society , which
exists in all civilized countries , more or less free from medieval admixture ,
more or less modified by the particular historical development of each country
, more or less developed . On the other hand , the " present-day state " change
s with a country 's frontier . It is different in the Prusso-German Empire
from what it is in Switzerland , and different in England from what it is in
the United States . The " present-day state " is therefore a fiction .
Nevertheless , the different states of the different civilized countries , in
spite or their motley diversity of form , all have this in common : that they
are based on modern bourgeois society , only one more or less capitalistically
developed . They have , therefore , also certain essential characteristics in
common . In this sense , it is possible to speak of the " present-day state "
in contrast with the future , in which its present root , bourgeois society ,
will have died off . The question then arises : What transformation will the
state undergo in communist society ? In other words , what social functions
will remain in existence there that are analogous to present state functions ?
This question can only be answered scientifically , and one does not get
a flea-hop nearer to the problem by a thousand-fold combination of the word
'people ' with the word 'state ' . Between capitalist and communist society
there lies the period of the revolutionary transformation of the one into the
other . Corresponding to this is also a political transition period in which
the state can be nothing but the revolutionary dictatorship of the proletariat
. Now the program does not deal with this nor with the future state of
communist society . Its political demands contain nothing beyond the old
democratic litany familiar to all : universal suffrage , direct legislation ,
popular rights , a people 's militia , etc. They are a mere echo of the
bourgeois People 's party , of the League of Peace and Freedom . They are all
demands which , insofar as they are not exaggerated in fantastic presentation ,
have already been realized . Only the state to which they belong does not lie
within the borders of the German Empire , but in Switzerland , the United
States
, etc. This sort of " state of the future " is a present-day state , although
existing outside the " framework " of the German Empire . But one thing has
been forgotten . Since the German Workers ' party expressly declares that it
acts within " the present-day national state " , hence within its own state ,
the Prusso-German Empire â its demands would indeed be otherwise largely
meaningless , since one only demands what one has not got â it should not
have forgotten the chief thing , namely , that all those pretty little gewgaws
rest on the recognition of the so-called sovereignty of the people and hence
are appropriate only in a democratic republic . Since one has not the courage
â and wisely so , for the circumstances demand caution â to demand the
democratic republic , as the French workers ' programs under Louis Philippe and
under Louis Napoleon did , one should not have resorted , either , to the
subterfuge , neither " honest " [ 1 ] nor decent , of demanding things whi
ch have meaning only in a democratic republic from a state which is nothing
but a police-guarded military despotism , embellished with parliamentary forms
, alloyed with a feudal admixture , already influenced by the bourgeoisie , and
bureaucratically carpentered , and then to assure this state into the bargain
that one imagines one will be able to force such things upon it " by legal
means " . Even vulgar democracy , which sees the millennium in the democratic
republic , and has no suspicion that it is precisely in this last form of state
of bourgeois society that the class struggle has to be fought out to a
conclusion â even it towers mountains above this kind of democratism , which
keeps within the limits of what is permitted by the police and not permitted by
logic . That , in fact , by the word " state " is meant the government machine
, or the state insofar as it forms a special organism separated from society
through division of labor , is shown by the words " the German Wo
rkers ' party demands as the economic basis of the state : a single
progressive income tax " , etc. Taxes are the economic basis of the government
machinery and of nothing else . In the state of the future , existing in
Switzerland , this demand has been pretty well fulfilled . Income tax
presupposes various sources of income of the various social classes , and hence
capitalist society . It is , therefore , nothing remarkable that the Liverpool
financial reformers â bourgeois headed by Gladstone 's brother â are
putting forward the same demand as the program . B. " The German Workers '
party demands as the intellectual and ethical basis of the state : " 1.
Universal and equal elementary education by the state . Universal compulsory
school attendance . Free instruction . " " Equal elementary education " ? What
idea lies behind these words ? Is it believed that in present-day society ( and
it is only with this one has to deal ) education can be equal for all classes ?
Or is it dem
anded that the upper classes also shall be compulsorily reduced to the modicum
of education â the elementary school â that alone is compatible with the
economic conditions not only of the wage-workers but of the peasants as well ?
" Universal compulsory school attendance . Free instruction . " The former
exists even in Germany , the second in Switzerland and in the United States in
the case of elementary schools . If in some states of the latter country higher
education institutions are also " free " , that only means in fact defraying
the cost of education of the upper classes from the general tax receipts .
Incidentally , the same holds good for " free administration of justice "
demanded under A , 5. The administration of criminal justice is to be had free
everywhere ; that of civil justice is concerned almost exclusively with
conflicts over property and hence affects almost exclusively the possessing
classes . Are they to carry on their litigation at the expense of the natio
nal coffers ? This paragraph on the schools should at least have demanded
technical schools ( theoretical and practical ) in combination with the
elementary school . " Elementary education by the state " is altogether
objectionable . Defining by a general law the expenditures on the elementary
schools , the qualifications of the teaching staff , the branches of
instruction , etc. , and , as is done in the United States , supervising the
fulfillment of these legal specifications by state inspectors , is a very
different thing from appointing the state as the educator of the people !
Government and church should rather be equally excluded from any influence on
the school . Particularly , indeed , in the Prusso-German Empire ( and one
should not take refuge in the rotten subterfuge that one is speaking of a "
state of the future " ; we have seen how matters stand in this respect ) the
state has need , on the contrary , of a very stern education by the people .
But the whole program , f
or all its democratic clang , is tainted through and through by the Lassallean
sect 's servile belief in the state , or , what is no better , by a democratic
belief in miracles ; or rather it is a compromise between these two kinds of
belief in miracles , both equally remote from socialism . " Freedom of science
" says paragraph of the Prussian Constitution . Why , then , here ? . " Freedom
of conscience " ! If one desired , at this time of the Kulturkampf to remind
liberalism of its old catchwords , it surely could have been done only in the
following form : Everyone should be able to attend his religious as well as his
bodily needs without the police sticking their noses in . But the Workers '
party ought , at any rate in this connection , to have expressed its awareness
of the fact that bourgeois " freedom of conscience " is nothing but the
toleration of all possible kinds of religious freedom of conscience , and that
for its part it endeavours rather to liberate the conscience f
rom the witchery of religion . But one chooses not to transgress the "
bourgeois " level . I have now come to the end , for the appendix that now
follows in the program does not constitute a characteristic component part of
it . Hence , I can be very brief . ------------- Appendix
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
" 2. Normal working day . " In no other country has the workers ' party
limited itself to such an indefinite demand , but has always fixed the length
of the working day that it considers normal under the given circumstances . "
3. Restriction of female labor and prohibition of child labor . " The
standardization of the working day must include the restriction of female labor
, insofar as it relates to the duration , intermissions , etc. , of the working
day ; otherwise , it could only mean the exclusion of female labor from
branches of industry that are especially unhealthy for the female body , or are
objectionable morally fo
r the female sex . If that is what was meant , it should have been said so . "
Prohibition of child labor . " Here it was absolutely essential to state the
age limit . A general prohibition of child labor is incompatible with the
existence of large-scale industry and hence an empty , pious wish . Its
realization -- if it were possible -- would be reactionary , since , with a
strict regulation of the working time according to the different age groups and
other safety measures for the protection of children , an early combination of
productive labor with education is one of the most potent means for the
transformation of present-day society . " 4. State supervision of factory ,
workshop , and domestic industry . " In consideration of the Prusso-German
state , it should definitely have been demanded that the inspectors are to be
removable only by a court of law ; that any worker can have them prosecuted for
neglect of duty ; that they must belong to the medical profession . " 5. Regula
tion of prison labor . " A petty demand in a general workers ' program . In
any case , it should have been clearly stated that there is no intention from
fear of competition to allow ordinary criminals to be treated like beasts , and
especially that there is no desire to deprive them of their sole means of
betterment , productive labor . This was surely the least one might have
expected from socialists . " 6. An effective liability law . " It should have
been stated what is meant by an " effective " liability law . Be it noted ,
incidentally , that , in speaking of the normal working day , the part of
factory legislation that deals with health regulations and safety measures ,
etc. , has been overlooked . The liability law comes into operation only when
these regulations are infringed . In short , this appendix also is
distinguished by slovenly editing . Dixi et salvavi animam meam . [ I have
spoken and saved my soul . ]
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