Part 10 (1/2)
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.