Woman under socialism

192

"Scholarship is as often the hand-maid of ignorance as of progress." – Buckle's "History of Civilization in England."

193

According to the census of 1882 there were in Germany engaged in trade and transportation 1,570,318 persons, inclusive of those occupied in hotels and inns, and exclusive of 295,451 domestics.

[Some opinion may be formed of the volume of useless labor, parasitism, in the United States, from the census figures for 1900. Under this head of "Trade and Transportation" alone come 4,766,964 persons. Among them, substantially useless, are the 241,162 agents, the 73,277 brokers, the 92,919 commercial travelers, the 76,649 hucksters and peddlers, the 790,886 merchants and dealers (except wholesale), the 42,293 merchants and dealers (wholesale), the 74,072 officials of banks and companies, the 33,656 livery stable keepers, the 71,622 messengers and errand and office boys, and the 59,545 packers and shippers – in all 1,556,081. Of the remaining 3,210,883 – among whom are 254,880 bookkeepers and accountants, 632,127 clerks and copyists, 611,139 salesmen and women – fully two-thirds could be spared to-day under a rational social system. The proportion of wasteful forces, and even parasitism, is still larger under the heads of "Professional Service" and "Domestic and Personal Service," among which – to pick up only a few of the worst items – are 111,638 clergymen, 114,460 lawyers, 86,607 government officials, including officers of the United States army and navy, 33,844 saloon keepers, 1,560,721 servants and waiters, 43,235 soldiers, sailors and marines (U. S.), etc., etc. – The Translator.]

194

Even the Fathers of the Church, Bishops and Popes could not refrain from preaching in a communistic vein during those early centuries when community of property still prevailed, but its theft was assuming larger proportions. The Syllabus and the encyclicals of the nineteenth century have lost all recollection of this tone, and even the Roman Popes have been compelled to become subjects of capitalist society, and now pose as its zealous defenders against the Socialists.

In contrast therewith Bishop Clemens I. (deceased 102 of our reckoning) said: "The use of all things in this world is to be common to all. It is an injustice to say: 'This is my property, this belongs to me, that belongs to another.' Hence the origin of contentions among men."

Bishop Ambrose of Milan, who lived about 347, exclaimed: "Nature bestows all things on all men in common, for God has created all things that their enjoyment might be common to all, and that the earth might become the common possession of all. Common possession is, therefore, a right established by Nature, and only unjust usurpation (usurpatio) has created the right of private property."

St. John Chrysostomus (deceased 407) declared in his homilies directed against the immorality and corruption of the population of Constantinople: "Let none call aught his own; we have received everything from God for enjoyment in common, and 'mine' and 'thine' are words of falsehood."

St. Augustine (deceased 430) expressed himself thus: "Because private property exists there exists also law suits, enmities, dissensions, wars, rebellions, sins, injustice, murder. Whence proceed all these scourges? From property only. Let us then, my brothers, refrain from possessing anything as our property; at least let us refrain from loving it."

Pope Gregory the Great declares about 600: "Let them know that the earth from which they spring and of which they are formed belongs to all men in common, and that therefore the fruits which the earth brings forth must belong to all without distinction."

And one of the moderns, Zacharia, says in his "Forty Books on the State": "All the evils with which civilized nations have to contend, can be traced back to private property in land."

All these authorities have recognized more or less accurately the nature of private property, which, since its existence, as St. Augustine correctly puts it, brought law suits, enmities, dissensions, wars, rebellions, injustice and murder into the world, – all of them evils that will disappear with its abolition.

195

"The employment of water in the cultivation of fruit as well as of vegetables is highly desirable; water associations with these ends in view could turn with us also deserts into paradises." Official report on the Chicago Exposition of 1893, rendered by the Imperial Commissioner, Berlin, 1894.

196

This prospect seems nearer realization and in a quite different manner than the most far-sighted could have imagined. The discovery of acetylene gas is the point of departure for a long line of products of organic chemistry, that, with proper treatment, can be drawn from it. Among the articles of enjoyment, that may be expected to be gained first of all on this path, is alcohol, the production of which promises to be the easiest of all and very cheap, and is expected in but few years. If this succeeds, a large part of the agriculture of the East Elbian district, which depends upon the production of alcohol, will be put in jeopardy. The circumstance will bring on a revolution in the respective agricultural interests that will play mightily into the hands of Socialism. Evidently, what Werner, Siemens and Berthelot held out, is approaching reality.

197

Dr. G. Ruhland, "Die Grundprinzipien aktueller Agrarpolitik."

198

A petition by Julius Zuns, which finally was not sent to the Reichstag, on the subject of an agrarian investigation.

199

Dr. Rudolf Meyer, "Der Kapitalismus fin de siècle."

200

"There is a prescription for securing the fertility of the fields and perpetual repetition of their produce. If this prescription be consistently carried out it will prove more remunerative than any which has ever been applied in agriculture. It is this: Let every farmer, like the Chinese coolie, who carries a sack of corn or a hundred weight of rape, or carrots or potatoes, etc., to town, bring back with him as much if possible or more of the ingredients of his field products as he took with him, and restore it to the field whence it came. He must not despise a potato paring or a straw, but remember that one of his potatoes still needs a skin, and one of his ears of corn a stalk. The expense for this importation is slight, the outlay secure; a savings bank is not securer, and no investment brings in a higher rate of interest. The returns of his fields will be doubled in ten years: he will produce more corn, more meat and more cheese without expending more time or labor, and he will not be driven by constant anxiety to seek for new and unknown means, which do not exist, to make his ground fertile in another manner… Old bones, soot, ashes, whether washed out or not, and blood of animals and refuse of all kinds ought to be collected in storehouses, and prepared for distribution… Governments and town police should take precautions for preventing the loss of these materials by a suitable arrangement of drains and closets." – Liebig's "Chemical Letters."

201

"Every coolie (in China) who carries his produce to market in the morning, brings home two buckets full of manure on a bamboo rod in the evening. The appreciation of manure goes so far that every one knows how much a man secretes in a day, a month and a year, and the Chinaman considers it more than rude if his guest leaves his house carrying with him a benefit to which his host thinks himself justly entitled as a return for his hospitality… Every substance derived from plants or animals is carefully collected and used as manure by the Chinese… To complete the idea of the importance attached to animal refuse, it will suffice to mention the fact that the barbers carefully collect and trade with the hairs cut from the heads and beards of the hundred millions of customers whom they daily shave. The Chinese are acquainted with the use of gypsum and chalk, and it not infrequently occurs that they renew the plaster in their kitchens merely for the purpose of using the old plaster as manure." – Liebig's "Chemical Letters."

202

Karl Schober, Address delivered on the agricultural, municipal and national economic significance of city refuse; Berlin, 1877.

203

"Life, Its Elements and the Means of Its Conservation."

204

According to the census of 1890, Germany had 26 large cities of over 100,000 inhabitants each. In 1871 it had only 8 of them. In 1871, Berlin had, in round figures, 826,000 inhabitants; in 1890 it had 1,578,794 – it had almost doubled. A number of these large cities were compelled to take within their municipalities the contiguous industrial towns, that in themselves had populations large enough for cities. Through the process, the population of the former rose immediately. Thus, within the period of 1885 to 1890, Leipsic rose from 170,000 to 353,000; Cologne from 161,000 to 282,000; Madgeburg from 114,000 to 201,000; Munich from 270,000 to 345,000 inhabitants, etc. At the same time, most of the other cities that incorporated no contiguous towns increased considerably during that period. Breslau grew from 299,000 to 335,000; Dresden from 246,000 to 276,000; Frankfurt-on-Main from 154,000 to 180,000; Hanover from 140,000 to 163,000; Dusseldorf from 115,000 to 146,000; Nuerenberg from 115,000 to 142,000; Chemnitz from 111,000 to 139,000 inhabitants. Similar growths were also registered by many middle-sized cities of 50,000 to 100,000 inhabitants.

[In the United States, the concentration of population in large cities has been marked. In 1790 only 3.4 per cent. of the total population lived in cities. The proportion of urban to the total population then grew from census year to census year (decade to decade) as follows: 4.0 in 1800; 4.9 in 1810; 4.9 in 1820; 6.7 in 1830; 8.5 in 1840; 12.5 in 1850; 16.1 in 1860; 20.9 in 1870; 22.6 in 1880; 29.2 in 1890; and 33.1 in 1900. According to the census of 1900 there live 14,208,347 of the population in cities of at least 100,000 inhabitants; 5,549,271 in cities of 25,000 to 100,000 inhabitants; 5,286,375 in cities of 8,000 to 25,000 inhabitants; 3,380,193 in cities of 4,000 to 8,000 inhabitants; and 2,214,136 in cities of 2,500 to 4,000 inhabitants. In country districts there live 45,573,846 of a total population of 76,212,168, including Alaska and Hawaii. – The Translator.]

205

Prof. Adolf Wagner says in his work "Lehrbuch der politischen Oekonomie von Rau": "Small private holdings in land constitute an economic basis, that can be substituted by no other institution for a most important part of the population – an independent, self-sustaining peasantry, together with its peculiar socio-political position and function." Where, for the sake of his conservative friends, the author does not enthuse a tout prix for the small farmer, he is bound to regard this class as one of the poorest. Under existing circumstances, the small farmer is downright inaccessible to higher culture: he toils at hard labor from early dawn till late, and lives often worse than a dog. Meat, butter, eggs, milk, which he produces, he does not enjoy: he produces them for others: under present circumstances he can not raise himself into better conditions: he thus becomes an element that clogs civilization. He who loves retrogression, seeing he finds his account therein, may also find satisfaction in the continuance of such a social stratum. Human progress demands its disappearance.

206

At the Erfurt "Union Parliament" of 1850, Prince Bismarck thundered against the large cities as "the hot-beds of revolution," that should be razed to the ground. He was quite right: capitalist society produces its own "grave-diggers" in the modern proletariat.

207

Frederick Engels, "The Development of Socialism from Utopia to Science."

208

["Religion" In English is not quite the same as "Die Religion" in German. For all their etymology is identical, custom and social institutions have imparted to the German term a meaning, or a shade of a meaning, that it lacks in English. "Die Religion" is in Germany a State institution; it is part of the curriculum of colleges; and it is there so utterly creedy, churchianic, and dogmatic that it is a positive abomination even to the students who mean to devote themselves to theology. That, however, even in the German language the word has a varying meaning may be gathered from the epigram of Schiller: "To what religion I belong? To none. Why? Out of religiousness" – literally in German, "out of religion." The reproduction in this translation of the idea conveyed by the term "Die Religion" presented its difficulties. As none could be found in English to convey its varying sense, the word "religion" has been preserved throughout as the nearest equivalent. – The Translator.]

209

Karl Marx: "Zur Kritik der Hegelschen Rechts-Philosophie."

210

How the ancients thought upon the subject appears from the following utterance of Aristotle: "A tyrant (the term applied to autocrats in Old Greece) must put on the appearance of uncommon devotion to religion. Subjects are less apprehensive of illegal treatment from a ruler whom they consider god-fearing and pious. On the other hand, they do not easily move against him, believing that he has the gods on his side." – Aristotle's "Politics." Aristotle was born 384 B. C. at Stagira, whence he is frequently called "the Stagirite."

"A prince, then, is to have particular care that nothing falls from his mouth but what is full of the five qualities aforesaid, and that to see and to hear him, he appears all goodness, integrity, humanity and religion, which last he ought to pretend to more than ordinarily because more men do judge by the eye than by the touch; for everybody sees, but few understand; everybody sees how you appear, but few know what in reality you are, and those few dare not oppose the opinion of the multitude who have the majesty of their prince to defend them; and in the actions of all men, especially princes, where no man has power to judge, every one looks to the end. Let a prince, therefore, do what he can to preserve his life, and continue his supremacy, the means which he uses shall be thought honorable, and be commended by everybody; because the people are always taken with the appearance and event of things, and, the greatest part of the world consists of the people; those few who are wise taking place when the multitude has nothing else to rely upon." – Macchiavelli in his celebrated work, "The Prince." Macchiavelli was born in Florence, 1469.

211

Whenever the modern bourgeois is at a loss for reasons to justify some enormity with, a thousand to one he falls back upon "morality." In the spring of 1894, it went so far that, at a meeting of the Evangelical Synod, a "liberal" member of the Berlin Chamber of the Exchequer pronounced it "moral" that only taxpayers should have the right to vote at Church meetings (!)

212

"A certain degree of well-being and culture is a necessary external condition for the development of the philosophic spirit… Thence we find that people began to philosophize only in those nations, that had raised themselves to a considerable height of well-being and culture." – Tennemann, quoted by Buckle in a foot note, ubi supra.

"Material and intellectual interests go hand in hand. The one can not exist without the other. Between the two there is the same connection as between body and soul: to separate them is to bring on death." – v. Thuenen's "Der Isolirte Staat."

"The best life, as well for the individual in particular, as for the State in general, is that life in which virtue is decked out with external goods also, sufficient to make possible an active indulgence in beautiful and good actions." – Aristotle's "Politics."

213

When Eugene Richter in his "Irrelehren" (False Doctrines) repeats the old wornout phrase about the Socialists aiming at a "Penitentiary State" – that the question is no longer about a "State" will have by this time become clear to our readers – he presupposes the existence of a "State" or social order that will violate its own interests. A new State or social order radically different from the preceding one can not possibly be produced at will; to imagine such a thing would be to ignore and deny all the laws of development, obedient to which State and Society have hitherto risen and developed. Eugen Richter and those who share his views may take comfort: if Socialism really implies the silly and unnatural aims imputed to it by them, it will go to pieces, and without the aid of the "Irrelehren" of Richter. But it happens that there is no political party that stands as squarely and logically upon the evolutionary field as the Social Democratic.

Quite as unfounded as all the other objections are the remarks of Eugene Richter: "For a social condition, such as the Socialists want, the people must be angels." As is well known, there are no angels, nor do we need any. Partly are men influenced by conditions, and partly are conditions influenced by men, and the latter will be increasingly the case in the measure that men learn to know the nature of the social system that they themselves rear, and in the measure that the experience thus gathered is consciously applied by them by corresponding changes in their social organization, – and that is Socialism. What we need is not other people, but wiser and more intelligent people than most of them are to-day. It is with the end in view of making people wiser and more intelligent that we agitate, Herr Richter, and that we publish works like this one.

214

It is surprising that, considering the fathomless blockishness of our adversaries, none has yet claimed that in Socialist society everyone would receive an equal portion of food and an equal quantity of linen and clothing so as to "crown the work of uniformity." Such a claim is quite stupid enough to expect its being made by our opponents.

215

Fourier made this the subject of a brilliant argument, although he ran into utopianism in the elaboration of his ideas.

216

Condorcet demands in his plan of education: "Education must be free, equal, general, bodily, mental, industrial and political, and it must aim at real and actual equality."

Likewise Rousseau in his "Political Economy": "Above all, education must be public, equal and mixed, for the purpose of raising men and citizens."

Aristotle also demands: "Seeing the State has but one object, it must also provide one and the same education for all its members. The care hereof must be the concern of the State and not a private affair."

217

Eugene Richter among them, in his "Irrelehren."

218

"America's Bildungswesen," by Prof. Emil Hausknecht.

219

"The person who has led an honorable and active life until old age should not then have to live either on the charity of his children or of bourgeois society. An independent old age, free from cares or toil, is the natural reward for continuous exertions in the days of strength and health." – v. Thuenen's "Der Isolirte Staat." But how is it to-day in this bourgeois society? Millions look with dread towards the time when, having grown old, they are thrown upon the street. And our industrial system causes people to age prematurely. The very much boasted about old-age and invalid pensions in the German Empire afford but a very scanty substitute: even its most zealous defenders admit that. Their aids are still more inadequate than the pensions which the municipalities allow to the large majority of the officials whom they provide with pensions.

220

[It is a feature of theology to be positive, precise and emphatic in descriptions of what the describer knows nothing about. No less theologic, in this sense of the term, are negative assertions concerning matters that science has not yet illumined. Whether "to be dead means to be ended" or not, is no part either of the general question of Socialism, or the specific question of Woman. Nevertheless, while respecting the author's private opinion in the matter, and leaving his sentence untouched, the following phrasing would seem preferable, as free from the taint of what may be called the "theologic method," and also more in keeping with the mental posture of positive knowledge: "Whether to be dead means to be ended or not, is a matter on which man awaits the fiat of Science." – The Translator.]

221

[It is otherwise in the United States, where, as a rule, clergymen have to "hustle" – both to curry favor with their parishioners and to countermine the mines laid by their competitors for fatter "calls," or by their numerous unemployed "brothers of the cloth." According to the census of 1900, clergymen had the very highest death rate (23.5) among the professional occupations for the registration area, – and it was among the highest altogether. It was excelled only by the death rate of the coopers (23.8); of the millers, flour and grist, (26.6); of the sailors, pilots, fishermen and oystermen (27.7); and of the stock raisers, herders and drovers (32.1). The census also shows that the death rate of clergymen is on the increase – 18.2 in 1890; now 23.5. – The Translator.]

222

Herr Eugen Richter in his "Irrelehren" is also raving mad over the idea of abolishing the private kitchen. As far as we know, Herr Richter is a bachelor. Obviously he does not miss his own kitchen: to judge from the rotundity of his body, he does not fare ill. If Herr Richter were a married man and possessed a wife, who had herself to administer the kitchen department and to perform in it the needed work, instead of leaving all that to servants, as is the fashion with the women of the property classes, then, a hundred to one his wife would nicely prove to him how happy she would be if she only could be freed from the bondage of the kitchen through the large and thoroughly equipped communal institute for meals.

223

Niemeyer, "Gesundheitslehre."

224

"Frauenrecht und Frauenpflilcht. Eine Antwort auf Fanny Lewald's Briefe 'Fuer und wider die Frauen.'"

225

In his work "Bau und Leben des sozialen Koerpers" (The Structure and Life of the Social Body), Dr. Schaeffle says: "A loosening of the bonds of matrimony by the facilitation of divorce is certainly undesirable. It flies in the face of the moral objects of human pairing, and would be injurious to the preservation of the population as well as the education of the children." After what has been said herein it follows that we not only consider this view wrong, but are inclined to regard it as "immoral." Nevertheless, Dr. Schaeffle will allow that the idea of introducing and maintaining institutions that do violence to its own conceptions of morality, is simply unimaginable in a society of much higher culture than the present.

226

Quoted in Haeckel's "Natuerliche Schoepfungsgeschichte."

227

Morgan's "Ancient Society."

228

"National and human interests stand to-day opposed to each other. At a higher stage of civilization these interests will coincide and become one." – v. Thuenen, "Der Isolirte Staat."

229

That Darwin and others also became devotees of Malthus only proves how the lack of economic knowledge leads to one-sided views.

230

Fred. Freiligrath sings in his fervid poem "Ireland":

Thus naught the Irish landlord cares,While hart and ox by peasant's toilFor him are raised – he leaves undriedGreat bogs and swamps on Erin's soil —Extensive mirelands unreclaimed,Where sheaf by sheaf rich crops could wave;He vilely leaves – a wanton waste —Where water-fowl and wild ducks lave.Four million acres feels his rod;A wilderness accursed of God.