http://www.dailytimes.com.pk/default.asp?page=2009\11\26\story_26-11-2009_pg3_4
Thursday, November 26, 2009 purple patch: Prussia and social reform -Karl Marx No government in the world has ever issued peremptory orders concerning pauperism, without an understanding with the authorities. The English parliament even sent commissioners into all the countries of Europe, in order to become acquainted with the various administrative remedies for pauperism. But so far as states have been concerned with pauperism, they have either confined themselves to administrative and charitable measures, or have gone back upon such measures. Can the state behave otherwise? The state will never find the cause of social crime in the "state and the institution of society", as "Prussian" requires of his king. Where there are political parties, each finds the cause of every evil in the fact that its opponent, instead of itself, is at the helm of the state. Even the radical and revolutionary politicians seek the cause of the evil not in the essence of the state, but in a specific form of the state, which they aim at replacing by another state form. >From the political standpoint, the state and the institution of society are >not two separate things. The state is the institution of society. So far as >the state recognises social evils, it attributes them either to natural laws, >which are amenable to no human power, or to the defects of private life, which >is independent of the state, or in the futility of the administration which is >dependent on it. Thus England finds poverty to be grounded in the natural law >according to which the population is always bound to overstep the means of >subsistence. According to another side, it explains pauperism from the wicked >dispositions of the poor, just as the King of Prussia explained it from the >un-Christian sentiment of the rich, and just as the Convention explained it >from the counter-revolutionary and suspicious dispositions of the property >owners. England therefore punishes the poor, the King of Prussia exhorts the >rich, and the Convention decapitates the property owners. Finally, all states seek the cause of social evil in accidental or deliberate defects of administration, and therefore look to administrative measures for the remedy. Why? Just because the administration is the organised activity of the state. The state cannot abolish the contradiction between the intentions and the good will of the administration, on the one hand, and its expedients and its resources, on the other hand, without abolishing itself, for it is based upon this contradiction. It is based upon the contradiction between public and private life, upon the contradiction between the general interest and individual interests. The administration is therefore obliged to confine itself to a formal and negative activity, for its power ceases where middle-class life and its work begin. Yes, as against the consequences which spring from the unsocial nature of this middle-class life, this private property, this trade, this industry, this mutual plundering of various middle-class circles, as against these consequences impotence is the natural law of the administration. For this dismemberment, this slavery of middle-class society, is the natural foundation upon which the modern state rests, just as the civil society of slavery was the natural foundation upon which the antique state rested. The existence of the state is inseparable from the existence of slavery. The antique state and antique slavery - manifest classical antagonisms - were not more intimately connected than is the modern state with the modern huckstering world - sanctimonious Christian antagonisms. If the modern state wishes to abolish the impotence of its administration, it would have to abolish the present-day mode of living. If it wishes to abolish this mode of living, it would have to abolish itself, for it exists only in opposition to the same. No living person, however, would believe that defects in his existence are due to the vital principle of his life, but would rather attribute them to circumstances outside his life. Suicide is unnatural. The state cannot therefore believe in the innate impotence of its administration. It can only take notice of formal and accidental defects therein and attempt to remedy them. If these modifications are fruitless, social crime must be a natural imperfection independent of mankind, a law of God, or else the dispositions of private individuals are too vitiated to second the good intentions of the administration. And what perverted private individuals! They murmur against the government whenever the latter restricts freedom, and they demand that the government should provide against the necessary consequences of this freedom. The more powerful the state, and the more political, therefore, a country is, all the less is it inclined to seek in the principle of the state, and consequently in the existing institution of society, whose self-conscious and official expression the state is, for the cause of social crime, and to grasp its general principle. Political understanding is political understanding precisely because it thinks within the limitations of politics. The more acute, the more alert it is, the more incapable it is of perceiving social crime. The classic period of political understanding is the French Revolution. Far from perceiving the source of social defects in the principle of the state, the heroes of the French Revolution rather perceived in social defects the source of political abuses. Thus Robespierre saw in great poverty and great riches only an obstacle to pure democracy. Consequently, he desired to establish a general Spartan frugality. The principle of politics is willpower. The more one-sided, which means the more complete, political understanding is, all the more does it believe in the omnipotence of willpower, all the more blind is it to the natural and intellectual limitations to willpower, all the more incapable is it, therefore, of discovering the source of social crime. (This extract is taken from Selected Essays by Karl Marx , translated by Henry James Stenning) Karl Marx was a German philosopher, political economist, historian, political theorist, sociologist, communist and revolutionary, whose ideas are credited as the foundation of modern communism. Home | Editorial [Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
