# The German Classics of the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries/Volume 10/Open Letter to the Central Committee

OPEN LETTER TO THE CENTRAL COMMITTEE (1863)
For the Summoning of a General German Workingmen's Congress at Leipzig
By Ferdinand Lassalle
TRANSLATED BY E. H. BABBITT, A. B. Assistant Professor of German, Tufts College
ENTLEMEN:—You have asked me in your letter to express my opinion, in any way that seems suitable to me, on the workingmen's movement and the means which it should use to attain an improvement of the condition of the working class in political, material, and intellectual matters—especially on the value of associations for the class of people who have no property.
I have no hesitation in following your wishes, and I choose the form which is simplest and most suitable to the nature of the matter—the form of a public letter of reply to your communication.
Last October in Berlin, at a time when I was absent from here, during your first preliminary discussion concerning the German Workingmen's Congress—a discussion which I followed in the newspapers with interest—two opposing views were brought forward in the meeting.
One was to the effect that you have no concern whatever with political agitation and that it has no interest for you.
The other, in distinction from this, was that you were to consider yourselves an appendix to the Prussian Progressive party, and to furnish a sort of characterless chorus or sounding-board for it.
If I had attended that meeting, I should have expressed myself against both views. It is utterly narrow-minded to ​believe that political agitation and political progress do not concern the workingman. On the contrary, the workingman can expect the realization of his legitimate ambitions only from political liberty.
Even the question to what extent you are allowed to meet, discuss your interests, form general and local unions for their consideration, etc., is a question which depends upon the political situation and upon political legislation, and therefore it is not worth the trouble even to refute such a narrow view by further consideration.
No less false and misleading was the other view which was placed before you, namely, to consider yourselves politically a mere annex of the Progressive party.
It would certainly be unjust not to recognize that the Progressive party, in its struggle with the Prussian Government, performed at that time a certain service, though a moderate one, in behalf of political liberty, by its insistence upon the right of granting appropriations and its opposition to the reorganization of the army in Prussia.
Nevertheless the realization of that suggestion is completely out of the question, for the following reasons:
In the first place, such a position was in no way fitting for a powerful independent party with much more important political purposes, such as the German Workingmen's party should be, with reference to a party which, like the Prussian Progressive party, has set up as its standard, in the matter of principle, only the maintenance of the Prussian constitution, and, as the basis of its activity, only the prevention of the one-sided organization of the army—which is not even attempted in other German countries; or the insistence upon the right of granting appropriations—which is not even disputed in other German countries.
In the second place, it was in no way certain that the Prussian Progressive party would carry on its conflict with the Prussian Government with that dignity and energy which alone are appropriate for the working class, and which alone can count upon its warm sympathy.
​In the third place, it was also not certain that the Prussian Progressive party, even if it had won a victory over the Prussian administration, would use this victory in the interest of the whole people, or merely for the maintenance of the privileged position of the bourgeoisie; in other words, that it would apply this victory toward the establishment of the universal equal and direct franchise, which is demanded by democratic principles and by the legitimate interests of the working class. In the latter case it evidently could not make the slightest claim to any interest on the part of the German working class.
That is what I should have said to you at that time with reference to that suggestion.
Today I can add furthermore that in the meantime it has been shown by facts—a thing which at that time would not have been very difficult to foresee—that the Progressive party is completely lacking in the energy which would have been required to carry to a conclusion, in a dignified and victorious manner, even such a limited conflict between itself and the Prussian administration.
And since it continues, in spite of the denial by the Government of the right of granting appropriations, to meet and to carry on parliamentary affairs with the ministry, which has been declared by the party itself criminally liable, it humiliates, by this contradiction, itself and the people through a lack of force and dignity without parallel.
Since it continues to meet, to debate, and to arrange parliamentary affairs with the administration itself—in spite of the violation of the constitution which it has declared to exist—it is a support to the administration and aids it in maintaining the appearance of a constitutional situation.
Instead of declaring the sessions of the Chamber closed until the administration has declared that it will no longer continue the expenditures refused by the Chamber, instead of thus placing upon the administration the unavoidable alternative either of respecting the constitutional right of the Chamber or of renouncing every appearance of a ​constitutional procedure, of ruling openly and without prevarication as an absolute government, of taking upon itself the tremendous responsibility of absolutism, and thus of precipitating the crisis which must necessarily come, in time, as the result of open absolutism, this party by its own action enables the administration to unite all the advantages of absolute power with all the advantages of an apparently constitutional procedure.
And since, instead of forcing the administration into open and unconcealed absolutism and by that action enlightening the people as to the non-existence of constitutional procedure, it consents to continue to play its part in this comedy of mock constitutionalism, it helps maintain an appearance which, like every system of government based on appearances, must have a confusing and debasing effect upon the intelligence of the people.
Such a party has in this way shown that it is, and always will be, utterly impotent against a determined administration.
Such a party has shown that it is for this very reason entirely incapable of accomplishing even the slightest genuine development of the interests of liberty.
Such a party has shown that it has no claim to the sympathies of the democratic classes of the population, and that it has no realization and no understanding of the feeling of political honor which must permeate the working class.
Such a party has, in a word, shown by its action that it is nothing else than the resurrection of the unsavory Gotha idea, decked out with a different name.
I can add today also the following facts: Today, as at that time, I should have been obliged to say to you that a party which compels itself through its dogma of Prussian leadership to see in the Prussian administration the chosen Messiah for the German renaissance—while there is not a single German administration (even including Hesse), which is more backward than the Prussian in political ​development, and while there is hardly a single German government (and this includes Austria) which is not far ahead of Prussia—for this reason alone loses all claim to representing the German working class; for such a party shows by this alone a depth of illusion, self-conceit, and incompetence drunken with the sound of its own words, which must dash all hope of expecting from it a real development of the liberty of the German people.
From what has been said we can now understand definitely what position the working class must take in political matters and what attitude toward the Progressive party it must maintain.
The working class must establish itself as an independent political party, and must make the universal, equal, and direct franchise the banner and watchword of this party. Representation of the working class in the legislative bodies of Germany—nothing else can satisfy its legitimate interests from a political point of view. To begin a peaceful and law-abiding agitation for this by all lawful means is and must be, from a political point of view, the programme of the workingmen's party.
It is self-evident what attitude this workingmen's party is to take toward the German Progressive party.
It must feel and organize itself everywhere as an independent party completely separate from the latter, although the Progressive party is to be supported on points and questions in which the interest of the two parties is a common one; it must turn its back decidedly upon the Progressive party and oppose it whenever it departs from that interest, and thus force the Progressive party either to develop progressively and to rise above its own level or to sink deeper and deeper into the mire of insignificance and weakness in which it already stands knee deep; these must be the straightforward tactics of the German workingmen 's party with reference to the Progressive party.
So much as to what you must do from a political point of view.
​Now for the social question which you raise, a question which rightly interests you to a still greater extent.
I have read in the papers, not without a sad smile, that part of the program for your Congress consists in debates concerning freedom of choosing places of residence and of employment for the workingman.
What, Gentlemen, are you going to debate about the right of choosing places of residence, the right of settling down anywhere without being specially taxed!
I can answer you on this point with nothing better than Schiller's epigram:
Jahre lang schon bedien' ich mich meiner Nase zum Riechen: Aber hab' ich an sie auch ein erweisliches Recht?
(Year after year I have used the nose God gave me to smell with: But can I legally prove any such right to its use?)
And is not the situation the same as to freedom of employment?
All these debates have at least one mistake—they come more than fifty years too late. Freedom of moving about and freedom of employment are things which nowadays are decreed in a legislative body in silence, but no longer debated.
Should the German working class repeat again the spectacle of assemblies whose enjoyment consists in giving themselves over to long purposeless speeches and applauding them? The seriousness and the energy of the German working class will know how to protect it from such a pitiable spectacle.
But you propose to establish institutions for savings, funds for retiring pensions, insurance against accidents and sickness? I am willing to recognize the relative usefulness of these institutions, although it is a subordinate one and hardly worth notice.
But let us make a complete distinction between two questions which have absolutely nothing to do with each other
​Is it your object to make the misery of individual workingmen more endurable; to counteract the effects of thoughtlessness, sickness, old age, accidents of all kinds, through which by chance or necessity individual workingmen are forced even below the normal condition of the working class? For such objects all these institutions are entirely appropriate means. Only it would not be worth while in that case to begin a movement for such a purpose throughout all Germany, to stir up a general agitation in the whole working class of the nation. You must not bring mountains into labor in order that a ridiculous mouse appear. This so extremely limited and subordinate purpose can better be left to local unions and local organizations, which can always handle it far better.
Or is this your object: To improve the normal condition of the whole working class and elevate it above its present level? In truth this is and must be your purpose, but this sharp line of distinction is necessary, which I have drawn between these two objects, which must not be confused with each other, in order to show you, better than I could through a long exposition, how utterly powerless these institutions are to attain this second object, and therefore how utterly outside the scope of the present workingmen's movement.
Permit me to adduce the testimony of a single authority—the admission of a strict conservative, a strict royalist, Professor Huber—a man who has likewise devoted his studies to the social question and the development of the workingmen's movement.
I like to call on the testimony of this man (in the course of this letter I shall do it now and then again) because he is politically entirely opposed to me, and in regard to economic questions differs radically from me, and must accordingly be the best person to remove, through his testimony, the suspicion that the slight advantage which I attach to those institutions is only the consequence of previously formed political tendencies; furthermore because ​Professor Huber, who stands as far from liberalism as from my political views, has for this very reason the necessary impartiality to make in the field of political economy admissions which are in accordance with the truth; whereas all adherents of the liberal school of political economy are forced to deceive the workingmen, or, in order to deceive them better, first to deceive themselves, in order to bring the facts into harmony with their tendencies.
"Without underestimating," says Professor Huber, "the relative usefulness of savings banks, accident and sickness insurance, etc., as far as it really goes, these good things may nevertheless carry great negative disadvantages with them, in that they stand in the way of improvement."
And surely never would these negative disadvantages persist and stand in the way of improvement more than if they took up the attention of the great German workingmen's movement, or divided its forces.
It was stated in various newspapers, and your letter itself states, that you have been recommended from almost all sides to take into consideration the Schulze-Delitzsch organizations—credit associations, raw material associations, and consumers' associations—for the improvement of the situation of the working class. Allow me to ask you for still closer attention.
Schulze-Delitzsch may be considered from three points of view: First, from the political point of view, he belongs to the Progressive party, which has already been discussed. Second, he claims to be a political economist. In this respect—as a theoretical economist—he stands entirely on the ground of the Liberal school: he shares all its mistakes, fallacies, and self-deceptions. The addresses which he has made so far to the Berlin workingmen are a striking proof of this—misrepresentations of fact and conclusions which in no way follow from his premises. However, it will not help your purpose, and it is not my intention, to go into a criticism here of the economic views and the speeches of Schulze-Delitzsch and to point out these self-​deceptions and fallacies which, in matters of theoretical economics, he has in common with the whole Liberal school to which he belongs. I shall be compelled later, in any case, to come back to the essential content of these doctrines.
But Schulze-Delitzsch has, in the third place, a practical nature, which is of more importance than his theoretical economic viewpoint. He is the only member of his party, the Progressive party—and all the more credit is due him just for this reason—who has done anything for the people. Through his tireless activity, even though he stands alone at a most unfavorable time, he has become the father and founder of the German associations, and so has given an impulse, of the most far-reaching importance, to the cause of associations in general, a service for which, however I may be opposed to him in theory, I shake his hand warmly in spirit as I write this. Truth and justice even toward an adversary (and for the working class above all it is befitting to take this deeply to heart)—this is the first duty of man.
That the question whether associations are to be understood according to his or my interpretation is under discussion today is in large part due to him, and that is a real service which cannot be too highly esteemed.
But the warmth with which I recognize this service must not prevent us from stating the question with critical clearness: "Are the Schulze-Delitzsch associations for credit and for raw materials, and are the consumers' leagues able to accomplish the improvement of the situation of the working class?"
The answer to this question must be a most decided "no." It will be easy to show this briefly. As to the credit and raw material associations, these both agree in that they exist only for those who are carrying on business on their own account—that is, only for artisan production. For the working class in the narrower sense—the hands employed in factory production, who have no business of their own for which they can use credit and raw ​materials—neither kind of association exists. Their help can therefore reach only the artisan producers.
But, even in this respect, please notice and impress upon your minds two essential circumstances:
In the first place the inevitable tendency of our industrialism is to put factory production more and more from day to day in place of artisan production, and, in consequence, to drive the workmen of a constantly increasing number of trades into the laboring class proper, which finds work in the factories. England and France, which are ahead of us in economic development, show this in a still greater degree than Germany, which is, however, taking tremendous strides in the same direction. Your own experience will confirm this sufficiently.
It follows from this that the Schulze-Delitzsch credit and raw material associations, even if they could help the artisans, could be of advantage only to a very small number of people, a number which is constantly decreasing and tends to disappear, through the inevitable development of our manufacturing system—people who through the progress of our culture are, in constantly increasing numbers, forced into the class of workingmen who are not affected by this aid. That is, nevertheless, only the first conclusion. A second, of still greater importance, is the following: In competition with factory production, which is in constantly increasing scope taking the place of small artisan production, even the artisans who remain in the latter are in no way certain of being protected by the credit and raw material associations. I will again cite Professor Huber as a witness on this point. "Unfortunately," says he, after speaking in praise, as I have done, of the Schulze-Delitzsch credit and raw material associations, "unfortunately, however, the assumption that the competition of production on a small scale with factory production would be made possible seems by no means sufficiently established."
​But, better than any testimony, the easily explained internal reasons of what I say will convince you.
How far can the credit associations accomplish the procuring of cheap and good raw materials? It can place the artisan without capital in a position to compete with the artisan who has sufficient small capital for his small artisan production. It can, therefore, at most put the artisan without capital on an equality and in the same situation with the master workman who has sufficient capital of his own for his production. But now the fact is just here—even the master workman with sufficient capital of his own cannot stand the competition of large capitalists and of factory production, both on account of the smaller cost of production of all kinds made possible by the factory system, and on account of the smaller rate of the profit which in wholesale production is to be reckoned on each single piece, and, finally, on account of other advantages connected with it. Since, now, the credit and raw material associations can at most bring the small producer without capital into the same general position as the one who has sufficient capital for his small production, and since the latter cannot stand the competition of the wholesale production of the factories, this result is still more certain for the small producer who carries on his business with the help of these associations.
These associations can, therefore, with reference to the artisan, only prolong the death struggle in which artisan production is destined to succumb and give place to factory production; can only increase thereby the agony of this death struggle and hold back in vain the development of our culture—that is the whole result which they have with reference to the artisan class, while they do not touch at all the real laboring class occupied, in constantly increasing numbers, in factory production.
There remain for consideration the consumers' associations. The effect of these would reach the whole working class. They are, however, utterly incapable of accomplishing the improvement of the situation of the working ​class. This can be shown by three reasons which essentially, however, form a single one.
(1) The disadvantage under which the working class labors affects it, as the economic law which I shall adduce under the second head shows, as producer, not as consumer. It is therefore an entirely false kind of aid to try to help the workingman as a consumer instead of helping him in the place where the shoe really pinches him—as producer.
As consumers, we are, in general, all on the same footing; as before the law, so before the salesman, all men are equal—provided only they pay.
Just for this reason it is true that for the working class, in consequence of its limited ability to pay, a special additional evil has developed which has nothing to do with the general cancer which is eating into it—the disadvantage of having to supply needs on the smallest scale, and so of being exposed to the extortion of the retailer. Against this the consumers' associations give protection; but, aside from the facts that you will see under No. 3 as to how long this help can last and when it must cease, this limited help, which can for the time being make the sad condition of the workingman a little more endurable, must by no means be mistaken for a means for that improvement in the situation of the working class at which the workingmen are aiming.
(2) The relentless economic law which, under present conditions, fixes the wages by the law of demand and supply of labor is this: The average wage always remains at the lowest point which will maintain existence and propagate the race at the standard of living accepted by the people. This is the point about which the actual wage always oscillates like a pendulum, without ever rising above or falling below it for any length of time. It cannot permanently rise above this average, for then, through the easier situation of the workingman, an increase of the working population and therefore of the supply of hands would ensue, ​which would bring the wage again to a point below its former scale.
Neither can the wage fall permanently far below what is necessary to support life, for then arise emigration, celibacy, and avoidance of child-bearing, and, finally, a reduction of the number of laborers, which then diminishes still more the supply of hands, and therefore brings the wage back to its former position again.
The real average wage, therefore, is fixed by a constant movement about this point of equilibrium, to which it must constantly return, sometimes rising a little above it (period of prosperity in some or all industries), sometimes falling a little below it (period of more or less general distress and industrial crises).
The limitation of the average wage to the amount necessary to exist and propagate the race under the accepted standard of living in a community—that, I repeat, is the inexorable and cruel law which determines the wage under present conditions.
This law can be denied by no one. I could cite as many authorities for it as there are great and famous names in economic science, and even from the Liberal school itself, for it is just the Liberal school of political economy which has discovered this law and proved it. This inexorable and cruel law, Gentlemen, you must above all things fix deeply in your minds and base upon it all your thinking.
In this connection I can give you and the whole working class an infallible means of escaping once for all the many attempts to deceive and mislead you. To everyone who talks to you about the improvement of the situation of the working class, you must first put the question: Does he acknowledge the existence of this law, or not? If he does not, you must say to yourself at the start that this man is either trying to deceive you, or has the most pitiable ignorance in the science of political economy; for, as I said, there is not a single economist of the Liberal school worthy of mention who denies it—Adam Smith as well as Say, ​Ricardo as well as Malthus, Bastiat as well as John Stuart Mill, are unanimous in recognizing it. There is an agreement on this point among all men of science. And if he who talks to you about the condition of workingmen has recognized this law, then ask further: How does he expect to abolish this law? And, if he can give no answer to this, then coolly turn your back upon him. He is an idle prattler, who is trying to deceive you or himself, or dazzle you with empty talk.
Let us consider for a moment the effect and the nature of this law. It is stated in other words as follows: From the product of industry there is first withdrawn and divided among the workingmen the amount which is required to maintain their existence (wage). The whole remainder of the product (profit) goes to the employer. It is therefore a consequence of this inexorable and cruel law that you (and for this reason in my pamphlet on the working class to which you refer in your letter I have called you the class of the disinherited) are forever necessarily excluded from the productiveness which increases in amount through the progress of civilization, i. e., from the increased product of industry, from the increased earning power of your own work! For you there remain forever the bare necessities of life, for the employer everything produced by labor beyond this amount.
When, because of this great advance of productive power (yield of labor), many manufactured products become extremely cheap, it may happen that through this cheapness you have a certain indirect advantage from the increased productiveness of labor—but as consumers, not as producers. This advantage in no way affects, however, your activity as producers. It does not affect nor change the portion of the yield which falls to your share; it affects only your situation as consumer and also improves the situation as consumer of the employer, and of all men, whether they take part in the work or not, and in a much more considerable degree than yours. And this advantage, ​which affects you merely as human beings and not as workingmen, again disappears in consequence of this inexorable and cruel law, which always forces wages in the long run down to the point of consumption necessary to maintain life.
Now, however, it may happen that if such an increased yield from labor (and the extreme cheapness of many products caused thereby), comes about very suddenly; if, moreover, it coincides with a prolonged period of increased demand for labor, then these products, which have become disproportionately cheaper, are taken into the body of products that are regularly considered in a community as necessities of life.
The fact, then, that workingmen and wages are always dancing on the extreme verge of what suffices, according to the social standard of each age, for the maintenance of life, sometimes standing a little above and sometimes a little below this limit—this never changes. But this extreme limit itself may at different ages have changed through the coincidence of the above circumstances, and it may therefore happen that, if you compare different periods with one another, the situation of the working class in the later century or generation (seeing that now the minimum of necessities of life demanded by custom is somewhat increased) has improved somewhat in comparison with the situation of the working class in the previous century or generation.
I was obliged to make this slight digression, Gentlemen, even if it is somewhat remote from my essential purpose, because this slight improvement in the course of centuries and generations is always the point to which those go back, who, after Bastiat's example, wish to throw dust in your eyes by declamation that is as easy as it is meaningless.
Consider exactly my words, Gentlemen. I say it may, for the above reasons, occur that the minimum of the necessities of life has risen, and accordingly the situation of the working class when compared with that of former ​generations is somewhat improved. Whether this is really so, whether the whole situation of the working class has constantly improved in different centuries is a very difficult and involved problem—a problem for scholars that cannot be treated at all by those who incessantly fill your ears with statements of how expensive cotton was in the last century and how much cotton clothing is used now, and similar commonplaces which anybody may copy from any reference book.
It is not my purpose to enter upon a consideration of this problem here. For at this time I must confine myself to giving you not only what is absolutely accepted, but what is also easy to prove. Let us assume, then, that such an improvement of the minimum of the necessities of life, and therefore of the situation of the working class, goes on constantly in different generations and different centuries.
But I must show you, Gentlemen, that with these commonplaces the real question is taken out of your hands and perverted into a totally different question.
If you speak of the situation of the workingman and its improvement, you mean your situation compared with that of your fellow citizens—that is, compared with contemporary standards of living.
And they amuse you with alleged comparisons of your condition with the condition of workingmen in previous centuries! But what value has the question for you, and what satisfaction can it give you, if, in case the minimum of the accepted standard has risen, you are better off today than the workingmen of eighty, two hundred, three hundred years ago? No more than the fully proved fact that you are better off today than Hottentots and cannibals.
Every satisfaction of human needs depends merely on the relation of the means of satisfaction to the necessities of life demanded by the standard of living of the time, or, what amounts to the same thing, upon the surplus of the means over the minimum amount of such necessities. An increased minimum of the absolute necessities of life brings ​also sufferings and deprivations which former times never knew. What deprivation is it to the Hottentot that he cannot buy soap? What deprivation is it to the cannibal if he cannot wear a decent coat? What deprivation was it to the workingman, if before the discovery of America, he had no tobacco to smoke, or if, before the invention of printing, he could not get a useful book? All human suffering and deprivation depend only on the proportion of the means of satisfaction to the needs and customs of living at a given time. All human suffering and deprivation, and all human satisfactions, accordingly every human condition, is, therefore, to be measured only by comparison with the situation of other men of the same period and their customary necessities of life. The condition of any class is, therefore, to be measured only by its relation to the condition of other classes at the same period.
If it were ever so well established, then, that the standard of the necessaries of life has risen through different periods, that satisfactions previously unknown have become daily necessities, and for this reason deprivations and sufferings not before known have appeared, your social situation has remained at these different periods always the same, always this—that you are standing on the verge of the usual minimum necessities of life, sometimes a little above it, sometimes a little below. Your social position, therefore, has remained the same, for this social position is reckoned not by its relation to the position of the beast in primeval forests, or negroes in Africa, or of the serf in the Middle Ages, or the workingmen of eighty years ago, but only by the relation of this position to the position of your fellowmen—to the position of other classes in the same time.
And instead of taking account of this, instead of considering how this position can be improved, and how this cruel law, which constantly keeps you at the lowest verge of the necessities of life, can be changed, these people amuse themselves by changing the question under your ​nose without your perceiving it, and by entertaining you with very dubious historical retrospects as to the situation of the working class in previous periods—retrospects which are all the more questionable because manufactured products, becoming constantly cheaper, are far less consumed by the working class than the food products which are their chief articles of consumption, and are in no way subject to any similar tendency of constantly increasing cheapness! These are retrospects, finally, which could have value only if they undertook investigations from every point of view into the general position of workingmen at different ages—investigations of the most difficult nature and to be carried on only with the utmost circumspection, investigations for which those who talk to you about them have not even the material at hand, and which they, therefore, should all the more leave to special scholars.
(3) Let us now come back from this necessary digression to the question: What influence can the consumers' leagues have upon the situation of the working class according to the law of wages discussed under No. 2? The answer will be a very easy one.
As long as only particular groups of workingmen unite in consumers' leagues, general wages will not be affected thereby, and the consumers' leagues will accordingly furnish, through lower prices, to the workingmen who belong to them—as long as this condition lasts—that minor relief for the oppressed condition discussed and admitted under No. 1; but as soon as the consumers' leagues begin to take in more and more the whole working class, then, in consequence of the above-considered law, the inevitable result will follow that the wage, because sustenance has become cheaper through the consumers' leagues, will drop to just that extent.
The consumers' leagues can never, even in the slightest degree, help the whole working class, and they can furnish to the single groups of workingmen who compose them the above-considered aid only as long as the example of ​these workingmen has not been generally followed. Every day that the consumers' leagues extend and take in larger numbers of the working class, even this slight relief is lost more and more even for the workingmen who belong to them, until it drops to zero at the time when the consumers' leagues have been joined by the majority of the whole working class. Can anybody talk seriously of the working class turning its attention to a means which gives it no aid whatever as a class, and furnishes its individual members this inconsequential relief only until the time when the class as such has completely, or to a large extent, made use of it? If the German working class is willing to enter upon such a treadmill round, the time before the real improvement of its position will be long indeed.
I have now analyzed all the Schulze-Delitzsch organizations and shown that they do not and can not help you.
What then? Can not the principle of free individual associations of workingmen effect the improvement of the position of the workingmen?
Certainly it can, but only by its application and extension to the field of factory production. To make the working class their own employers—that is the means, the only means, by which, as you can see for yourself, this inexorable and cruel law which determines wages can be abolished. When the working class is its own employer, the distinction between wages and profits will disappear, and the total yield of the industry will take the place, as the reward of labor, of the bare living wage.
The abolition by this only possible means of that law which under present conditions assigns to the workingman his wages—that part of the product which is necessary for bare existence—and the whole remainder to the employer—this is the only real, non-visionary, just improvement in the position of the working class.
But how? Look at the railroads, machine shops, ship yards, cotton and woolen mills, etc., etc., and the millions required for these establishments; then look into your own ​empty pockets and ask yourself where you will ever get the enormous capital necessary for these establishments, and how therefore you can ever make possible the carrying on of wholesale production on your own account!
And surely there is no fact more true, more thoroughly established, than that you would never accomplish this if you were reduced exclusively and essentially to your own isolated efforts as individuals alone.
Just for this reason it is the business and the duty of the State to make it possible for you to take in hand the great cause of the free, individual association of the working class in such a way as to help its development, and make it its solemn duty to offer you the means and the opportunity for this association.
Now, do not allow yourselves to be deceived and misled by the cry of those who will tell you that any such intervention by the State destroys social incentive. It is not true that I hinder anybody from climbing a tower by his own strength if I hand him a ladder or a rope. It is not true that the State prevents children from educating themselves by their own powers if it provides them with teachers, schools and libraries. It is not true that I hinder anybody from plowing a field by his own strength if I give him a plow. It is not true that I hinder anyone from defeating a hostile enemy by his own strength if I put a weapon into his hand for the purpose.
Although it is true that now and then someone may have climbed a tower without a rope or a ladder; that individuals have acquired an education without teachers, schools, or public libraries; that the peasants in the Vendée in the wars of the Revolution now and then defeated an enemy even without weapons; yet all these exceptions do not vitiate the rule—they only prove it; and therefore, although it is true that under certain special conditions single groups of workingmen in England have been able to improve their condition, to a certain limited extent, in certain minor branches of wholesale production, by an ​association based chiefly upon their own exertions, nevertheless the law stands that the real improvement of the situation of the workingman, which he has a just right to demand, and to demand for the whole working class as such, can be accomplished only by this aid of the State. No more should you allow yourselves to be misled and deceived by the cry of those who talk about Socialism or Communism and try to oppose this demand of yours by such cheap phrases; but be firmly convinced regarding such people that they are only trying to deceive you, or else they themselves do not know what they are talking about. Nothing is further from so-called Socialism and Communism than this demand according to which, if realized, the working classes, just as they do today, would maintain their individual liberty, individual manner of living, and individual compensation for work, and would stand in no different relation to the State, except that the necessary capital, or credit, for their association would be provided for them by it. But that is exactly the office and the destiny of the State—to make easy and provide means for the great cultural progress of humanity. This is its ultimate purpose. For this it exists. It has always served this purpose and always must.
I will give you a single example among hundreds—the canals, highways, postoffices, steamboat lines, telegraph lines, banking institutions, agricultural improvements, the introduction of new branches of industry, etc., in all of which the intervention of the State was necessary—a single example, but one which is worth a hundred others, and one which is especially near at hand. When railroads were to be built, in all German as well as in all foreign states except in some few isolated lines, the State had to intervene in one way or another—chiefly by undertaking to guarantee at least the dividends on the stock, in many countries going much further than this.
The guarantee of dividends constitutes a one-sided contract of the rich stockholder with the State—namely, if the ​new enterprises are unprofitable, then the loss falls upon the State, and consequently upon all taxpayers, and, consequently again, especially upon you, Gentlemen, upon the great class of the propertyless. If, on the other hand, the new enterprises are profitable, then the profit, the large dividends, come to us, the rich stockholders, and this is not obviated by the fact that in many countries—for instance in Prussia—certain very uncertain advantages for the State in a very distant future are stipulated, advantages which would result much sooner and much more abundantly from an association of the working class.
Without this intervention of the State, of which, as I have said, the guarantee of dividends was the weakest form, we should perhaps have no railroads on the whole continent today.
The fact is also unquestionable that the State was obliged to take this step; that the guarantee of dividends was a most pronounced intervention of the State, that, furthermore, this intervention took place in favor of the rich and well-to-do class, which also controls all capital and all credit, and which therefore could dispense with the intervention of the State far more easily than you; and that this intervention was called for by the whole capitalist class.
Why then did not a cry arise at that time against the guarantee of dividends as an inadmissible intervention of the State? Why was it not then discovered that by this guarantee the social incentive of the rich managers of those stock companies was threatened? Why was this guarantee of the State not decried as Socialism and Communism?
But forsooth, this intervention of the State was in the interests of the rich and well-to-do classes of society, and in that case it is entirely admissible and always has been! It is only when there is any question of intervention in favor of the poverty-stricken classes, in favor of the infinite majority, then it is "pure Socialism and Communism."
Give this answer, therefore, to those who wish to raise a howl about the inadmissibility of State intervention and the ​social independence endangered by it, and the Socialism and Communism concealed in a demand which does not give the slightest occasion for such a howl; and add that since we have, after all, been living in a state of Socialism and Communism, as those guarantees of dividends on railroads and all the other above-mentioned examples show, we will continue right on in that state.
A further consideration is that, however great was the advance in civilization accomplished by the railroads, it drops to the vanishing point in contrast with that mighty advance which would be accomplished by the association of the working class. Of what avail are all the hoarded wealth and all the fruits of civilization if they exist for only a few, and if the majority of the human race always remains the Tantalus who reaches in vain for these fruits! Worse than Tantalus—for he at least had not produced the fruits for which his parched lips were condemned to pant in vain! This, the mightiest advance of culture which history could know, would justify the helpful intervention of the State if anything would. The State furthermore can furnish this possibility in the easiest manner through the banking institutions (a matter into which I cannot go at length here) without assuming any greater responsibility than it did by the guarantee of dividends to the railroads.
Finally, Gentlemen, what, after all, is the State? (Quotes statistics which may be summed up as follows: In 1851 the percentage of the population of Prussia having more than 1,000 thalers ($750) annual income for each family of five persons was less than ½ of 1 per cent.; of those having less than 100 thalers ($75) for such a family was 72¼ per cent.; those having 100 to 200 thalers, 16¼ per cent.; and 200 to 400, 7¼ per cent.) The two lowest classes form, therefore, 89 per cent. of the population; and if you take also the 7¼ per cent. of the third class, who must still be considered in oppressive poverty, you have 96¼ per cent. of the population in a most needy, unfortunate situation. The State, therefore, belongs to you, Gentlemen, to ​the suffering classes—not to us, the upper classes; for it is you who compose it. "What is the State?" I ask; and you see now from a few figures, more vividly than from heavy volumes, the answer. The great association of the poorer classes—yourselves—that is the State.
And why should not your great association have a helpful and fruitful effect upon your smaller associated groups? This question you may also put to those who talk to you about the inadmissibility of State intervention and about Socialism and Communism in the demand for it.
If, finally, you desire a special instance of the impossibility of producing an improvement in the condition of the working class in any other way than by free association through this helpful intervention of the State, you may look to England, that country which is most frequently called in evidence to prove the possibility for an association of individual workingmen established purely and exclusively through their unassisted powers, to improve the condition of the whole class—England, which in fact must appear best suited, for various reasons based on its particular national conditions, to carry out this experiment, without, nevertheless, demonstrating thereby a similar possibility for other countries.
And this special instance comes directly from those English workingmen's associations which up to this time have usually been referred to as triumphant proof of such an assertion. I speak of the Pioneers of Rochdale. This cooperative society, organized in 1844, established in 1858 a spinning and weaving establishment with a capital of £5,500 sterling. According to the statutes of this association, the workmen employed in the factory, whether they were stockholders in the association or not, drew a profit, in addition to the usual wages, equal to that distributed as dividends to the stockholders—the arrangement having been made that the annual dividends should be reckoned and distributed both on wages and on capital stock. Now the number of stockholders of this factory is one thousand ​six hundred, while only five hundred workmen are employed there. Accordingly, there exists a large number of stockholders who are not also workmen in the factory, on the other hand, all the workmen are not at the same time stockholders. In consequence of this an agitation broke out in 1861 among the workingmen stockholders who did not work in the factory, and also among those who were both employees and stockholders, against the workmen who were not stockholders receiving a share of the profits. On the part of the workingmen stockholders the principle was laid down simply and frankly that, according to the usual custom in the whole industrial world, the claims of labor were satisfied with the wages and that wages were determined by supply and demand (we have seen above by what law). "This fact," relates Professor Huber in his report of this affair, "was considered valid without further question, as the natural condition, needing no further justification, in opposition to a quite exceptional, arbitrary innovation, even though it were according to the statutes." Bravely, but only with very dimly understood emotional reasons, this proposition for the changing of the statutes was opposed by the original founders and managers of the association. In fact, a majority of five-eighths of the workingmen stockholders voted for the change of the statutes, taking exactly the same position as the capitalist employers, and the change was defeated for the time being only because, according to the statutes, a majority of three-fourths of the votes was required. "But nobody," states Professor Huber, "is unaware that the matter is not thereby settled; it is more likely that still further serious internal dissensions are to be looked for by this association, the outcome of which, perhaps even next year, may well be a successful repetition of this attempt—all the more so since the opposition is determined to make its influence felt in the election of the officials of the association, an election at which the majority elects, and through which the ​controlling offices of the management may soon be in their hands."
Huber reports further in this matter that most of the associations producing on a factory scale have fallen in at the outset with the general custom, evidently without any further consideration or any consciousness of a principle. Only a few have adopted the cooperative principle in favor of labor, and Huber must further admit, although very unwillingly and with a heavy heart, for he is a partisan of cooperation depending upon individual workingmen alone: "There is no doubt that this question will very soon come to discussion and decision in all the producing associations where the opposition of capital and labor exists, and that the competition of the industrial macrocosm (i. e., the world's industry as a whole) is reproduced in the coöperative microcosm (the individual world represented by the workingmen 's associations)."
You see, Gentlemen, if you reflect about these facts that great questions can be solved only in a large way, never in a small way. As long as the universal wage is determined by the above-considered law, the small associations will not be able to escape the prevailing influence of it; and what does the working class as a whole gain, or the workingman as such, whether he works for workingmen employers or for capitalist employers? Nothing! You have only scattered the employers to whose profit the result of your labor falls. But labor and the working class are not set free. "What does it gain by this? It gains only depravation, only corruption, which now takes hold of it and sets workingman as an exploiting employer against workingman. The employers have changed in person; but labor, the only source of production, remains, as before, dependent upon the so-called wage—that is, the maintenance of existence. Under the influence of this law the perversion of conceptions is so great that, in our instance, even those workingmen stockholders not employed in the factory, instead of recognizing that they owe their dividends to the labor ​of the workmen who are employed, and accordingly that it is they who draw the profit from the labor of the latter, will, in defiance of this, not allow the latter even a share in the product of their own work, not even a share of what labor has a just claim to. Workingmen with workingmen's means and employers' hearts—that is the repulsive caricature into which those workingmen have been changed.
And now finally one more clear and decisive proof based on these facts. You have seen that in that factory of the Pioneers five hundred workmen were employed and sixteen hundred workingmen held the stock. This much must also be clear to you—that, unless we are willing to imagine the workmen as rich people (in which case all questions are solved—in imagination), the capital necessary for the establishment of a factory can never be raised from the pockets of the workmen employed in it. They will be obliged to take in a much greater number of other workingmen stockholders, who are not employed in their factory. In this respect the proportion in the case of that factory of the Pioneers—sixteen hundred stockholders to five hundred workingmen in the factory (say a proportion of only about three to one)—may be called astonishingly favorable and unusual—as small as is in any way possible, and to be accounted for partly by the especially fortunate situation of the Pioneers, who represent a great exception in the working class, partly by the fact that this branch of manufacturing is far from being one of those which require the heaviest capitalization, and partly because this factory is not large enough to count among the really large enterprises, for in these the proportion, even in this branch of industry, would be a very different one. And, finally, it may be added that through the development of industrialism itself, and through the progress of civilization, this proportion must increase daily. For the progress of civilization consists in the very fact that from day to day more natural mechanical power—more machinery—takes the place of human labor, and that accordingly the proportion ​of the amount of invested capital to the amount of human labor becomes larger; so then, if in that factory of the Pioneers sixteen hundred stockholders were necessary to raise the capital to employ five hundred workmen, a proportion of one to three, the proportion among other workmen in other branches and in larger establishments—and also in consideration of the daily advance of civilization—will be one to four, one to five, six, eight, ten, twenty, etc. However, let us keep this proportion of one to three. To establish a factory in which five hundred workmen find employment, I need sixteen hundred workingmen stockholders in order to have the necessary capital. Very well: as long as I try to establish one, two, three, etc., factories, there is no difficulty in theory (always in theory, Gentlemen—in imagination), I call to aid (always in theory) the three, four, etc., times the number of workingmen stockholders. But if I extend this association to the whole working class—and their cause, not that of individuals who wish to improve their position, is in question here—if in course of time I wish to establish factories enough to occupy the whole working class, where shall I get the three, five, ten, twenty-fold number of the whole working class who, as workingmen stockholders, must stand behind the workmen occupied in the factories in order to establish these factories?
You see then that it is a mathematical impossibility to free the working class in this way—by the exertions of its members as merely single individuals; that only very confused, uncritical imaginations can lend themselves to these illusions, and that the only way to this end, the only way for the abolition of that cruel law of wages to which the working class is bound as to a martyr's stake, is the encouragement and development of free, individual, coöperative associations of workingmen through the helping hand of the State. The movement for workingmen's associations founded upon the purely atomistic, isolated power of individual workingmen had only the value—and this, to be ​sure, is an enormous one—of showing definitely the practical way in which this liberation can take place, of giving brilliant, practical proofs for overcoming all real or assumed doubt of its practical feasibility, and, in just that way, of making it the urgent duty of the State to lend its supporting hand to those highest cultural interests of humanity. At the same time I have already proved that the State is essentially nothing else than the great association of the working class, and that therefore the help and fostering care through which the State made possible those smaller associations would be nothing else than the legitimate social initiative, absolutely natural and lawful, which the working classes put forth for themselves as a great association, for their members as single individuals. Once more then: free individual association of the workingmen, but such association made possible by the supporting and fostering hand of the State—that is the workingmen's only way out of the wilderness.
But how shall the State be enabled to make this intervention? The answer must be immediately evident to you all: it will be possible only through universal and direct suffrage. When the legislative bodies of Germany are based on universal and direct suffrage, then, and only then, will you be able to prevail upon the State to undertake this duty.
Then this demand will be brought forward in the legislative bodies; then the limits and the forms and the means of this intervention will be discussed by reason and science; and then—be assured of this!—those men who understand your situation and are devoted to your cause, armed with the glittering steel of science, will stand at your side and protect your interests; then you, the propertyless class of society, will have only yourselves and your own unwise choices to blame if the representatives of your class remain in a minority.
The universal and direct franchise is, as now appears, not merely your political principle—it is your social ​principle, the fundamental principle of all social advancement. It is the only means for improving the material condition of the working class. But how can they accomplish the introduction of the universal and direct franchise? For an answer, look to England! The great agitation of the English people against the corn laws lasted for more than five years, but then they had to go—abolished by the Tory ministry itself.
Organize yourselves as a general workingmen's union for the purpose of a lawful and peaceable, but untiring, unceasing agitation for the introduction of universal and direct suffrage in all German states. From the moment when this union includes even one hundred thousand German workingmen, it will be a force with which everybody must reckon. Send abroad this call into every workshop, every village, every cottage. Let the city workingmen pass on their higher standard of judgment and education to the country workers. Debate, discuss, everywhere, daily, untiringly, incessantly, as was done in that great English agitation against the corn laws, in peaceable public assemblies as well as in private meetings, the necessity of the universal and direct franchise. The more the echo of your voice resounds in the cars of millions, the more irresistible its force will be.
Establish financial committees, to which every member of the German workingmen's union must contribute, and to which your plans for organization can be submitted.
With these contributions establish funds which, in spite of the smallness of the individual amounts, would form a tremendous financial power for the purpose of agitation. A weekly contribution of only one silver groschen each from one hundred thousand members of the union would produce over one hundred and sixty thousand thalers yearly. Establish newspapers which would daily bring forward this demand and prove that it is founded upon social conditions; send out by the same means pamphlets for the same purpose; employ with the resources of this union agents ​to carry this same view into every corner of the land, to arouse with the same call the heart of every workingman, of every cotter and plowman; indemnify from the resources of this union all those workingmen who suffer injury and persecution on account of their activity in this cause.
Repeat daily, unceasingly, this same call. The more it is repeated, the more it will spread and the mightier will become its power. The whole art of practical success consists in concentrating all efforts at all times upon one point, and that the most important one, looking neither to the right nor to the left. Look you neither to the right nor to the left; be deaf to everything which does not mean universal and direct suffrage, to everything which is not connected with it, or able to lead to it.
If you have really spread this call, as you can do within a few years, through the 89 to 96 per cent. of the total population which, as I have shown you, constitutes the poor and propertyless classes of society, then your will can no longer be resisted—depend upon that! Quarrels and feuds may exist about political rights between the government and the capitalist. You may even be denied political powers and therefore universal suffrage, because of the lukewarmness with which political rights are regarded; but universal suffrage, which 89 to 96 per cent, of the population regard as a life question, and therefore spread with the warmth of life through the whole national body—depend upon it, Gentlemen, there is no power which can resist it.
This is the banner which you must raise. This is the standard under which you will conquer. There is no other for you.