The German Classics of the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Volume 10

Thus great had been the changes brought about, unnoticed in the heart of society, by the revolutionary and all-pervading activity of industrialism, even before the end of the eighteenth century.

Though the men of the Peasant Wars had not ventured any other conception than that of founding the State upon land ownership, though they had not, even in thought, been able to free themselves from the view that land ownership is necessarily the element which holds sovereignty over the State and that participation in that ownership is the condition for participation in that sovereignty, yet the quiet, imperceptible, revolutionary progress of industrialism had brought about the condition that, long before the end of the eighteenth century, land ownership had become an element stripped entirely of its former importance, and had fallen to a subordinate position, in the face of the development of new methods of production, of the wealth which this development bore in its bosom and increased from day to day, and of the influence which it clearly had on all the people and their affairs—even upon the largely impoverished nobility.

The revolution was therefore an accomplished fact in the actual relations of society long before it broke out in France; and it was only necessary to bring this reversal of conditions to outward recognition to give it legal sanction. This is always the case in all revolutions. You can never make a revolution. You can only give external legal recognition and logical embodiment in practice to a revolution which has already become an actuality in the essential relations of society. Trying to make a revolution is the folly of immature men who have no conception of the laws of history.

Precisely for this reason it is just as immature and childish to suppress a revolution already fully formed in the womb of society and to oppose its legal recognition, or to reproach those who assist at its birth with being revolutionary. If the revolution is at hand in the actual conditions of society, nothing can prevent its appearing and passing into legislation.

How these things were related, and how far they had already gone in this direction in the period of which I speak, you will best see from another matter which I will mention.

I have already spoken about the division of labor, the development of which consists of separating all production into a series of entirely simple mechanical operations requiring no thought on the part of the operator. As this separation progresses farther and farther, the discovery is finally made that these single operations, because they are quite simple and call for no thought, can be accomplished just as well, and even better, by unthinking agents; and so in 1775, fourteen years before the French Revolution, Arkwright invented the first machine, his famous spinning-jenny.

We can see that the machine in itself was not the cause of the revolution. Too little time intervened between this invention, which furthermore was not immediately introduced into France, and the revolution; but it embodied in itself the actually incipient and fully ripe revolution. This machine, however innocent it seemed, was in fact the revolution personified. The reasons for this are simple. You, of course, have heard of the guild system, by which production in the Middle Ages was directed. The guild system of the Middle Ages was inseparably connected with other institutions. The guilds lasted through the whole medieval period up to the French Revolution; but as early as 1672 the matter of their abolition was considered in the German parliament, though without result. Even in 1614, in the French États Généraux, the abolition of the guilds was demanded by the middle class, whose production the guilds everywhere restricted; but also without result. Indeed thirteen years before the Revolution, in 1776, a minister of the Reformed party in France, the famous Turgot, abolished the guilds, but the privileged world of medieval feudalism considered itself, and with perfect justice, in mortal danger if its vital principle of privilege did not extend to all classes of society; and so, six months after the abolition of the guilds, the king was empowered to revoke this edict and to reestablish the guilds. Nothing but the Revolution could overthrow (and it did overthrow in one day, by the capture of the Bastille) that which in Germany had been vainly assailed since 1672 and in France since 1614—for almost two centuries—by legal means.

You see from this, Gentlemen, that however great the advantages of reformation by legal means are, such means have nevertheless in all the more important points one great disadvantage—that of being absolutely powerless for whole centuries; and, furthermore, that the revolutionary means, undeniable as its disadvantages are, has as a compensation the advantage of attaining quickly and effectively a practical result.

If you will now keep in mind that the guilds were connected in an inseparable manner with the whole social arrangement of the Middle Ages, you will see at once how the first machine, Arkwright's spinning-jenny, embodied a complete revolution in those social conditions.

For how could machine production be possible under the guild system, in which the number of journeymen and apprentices a master workman could employ was determined by law in each locality; or how, under the guild system, in which the different trades were distinguished by law from one another in the most exact manner, and each master could carry on only one of them—so that, for instance, the tailors and the nail-makers of Paris for centuries had lawsuits with the menders of clothes and the locksmiths, in order to draw lines between their respective trades—how, under such a guild system, could production be possible with a system of machines which requires the union of the most varied departments of work under the control of one and the same management?

It had come to the point, then, that production itself had called into being, by its constant and gradual development, instruments of production which must necessarily destroy the existing condition of things—instruments and methods of production which, under the guild system, could no longer find place and opportunity for development.

Thus considered, I call the first machine in itself a revolution; for it bore in its wheels and cogs, little as this could be seen on external observation, the germ of the new condition of things, based upon free competition, which must necessarily develop from this germ with the power and irresistibility of life itself.

And so, if I am not greatly mistaken, it may be true today that there exist various phenomena which imply a new condition that must inevitably develop from them—phenomena which, at this time also, cannot be understood from external conditions; so that the authorities themselves, while persecuting insignificant agitators, not only overlook these phenomena, but even let them stand as necessary accompaniments of our civilization, hail them as the climax of prosperity, and, on occasion, make appreciative and approving speeches in their honor.

After all these discussions you will now understand the true meaning of the famous pamphlet published by Abbé Sieyes in 1788—and so before the French Revolution—which was summed up in these words: "Qu'est-ce que c'est que le tiers état? rien! qu' est qu'il doit être? Tout!" Tiers état, or third class, is what the middle class in France was called, because they formed, in contrast to the two privileged classes, the nobility and the clergy, a third class, which meant all the people without privilege. This pamphlet brings together the two questions raised by Sieyes, and their answers: "What is the third class? Nothing! What ought it to be? Everything." This is how Sieyes formulates these two questions and answers. But from all that has been said, the true meaning of these questions and answers would be more clearly and correctly expressed as follows: "What is the third class de facto—in reality? Everything! But what is it de jure—legally? Nothing!"

What was to be done, then, was to bring the legal position of the third class into harmony with its actual meaning; to clothe its importance, already existing in fact, with legal sanction and recognition; and just this is the achievement and significance of the victorious revolution which broke out in France in 1789 and exerted its transforming influence on the other countries of Europe.

This question arises here: What was this third class, or bourgeoisie, that through the French Revolution obtained victory over the privileged classes and gained control of the State? Since this third class stood in contrast to the privileged classes of society with legal vested rights, it considered itself at that time as equivalent to the whole people, and its cause as the cause of all humanity. This explains the exalting and mighty enthusiasm which was general in that period. The rights of man were proclaimed; and it seemed as if, with the liberation and sovereignty of this third class, all legal privileges in society were ended, and as if every legally privileged distinction had been replaced by its principle of the universal liberty of man.

At that time, however, in the very beginning of the movement, in April, 1789, on the occasion of the elections to a parliament which was summoned by the king under the condition that the third class should this time send as many representatives as the nobility and clergy together, a newspaper of a character anything but revolutionary writes as follows: "Who can tell us whether a despotism of the bourgeoisie will not follow the so-called aristocracy of the nobles?"

But such cries at that time were drowned in the general enthusiasm.

Nevertheless we must come back to that question, we must put the question definitely: Was the cause of the third class really the cause of all humanity; or did this third class, the bourgeoisie, bear within it a fourth class, from which it wished to distinguish itself clearly, and subject it to its sovereignty?

I must now, if I do not wish to run the risk of subjecting my presentation to great misunderstandings, explain my own conception of the word bourgeoisie, or upper bourgeoisie, as a term for a political party. The word bourgeoisie may be translated into German by Bürgertum (body of citizens). In my opinion this is not what it means. We are all Bürger (citizens)—the working man, the Kleinbürger (lower middle class), Grossbürger (upper middle class), etc. But in the course of history the word bourgeoisie has acquired the significance of a definite political tendency, which I will now explain.48

The whole class of commoners outside the nobility was divided, when the French Revolution began, and is still divided in general, into two subordinate classes—first, those who get their living chiefly or entirely from their labor, and are supported in this by very little capital, or none at all, which might give them the possibility of actively engaging in production for the support of themselves and their families; to this class, accordingly, belong the laborers, the lower middle class, the artisans, and, in general, the peasants; second, those who control a large amount of property and capital, and on that basis engage in production or receive an income from it. These can be called the capitalists; but no capitalist is a bourgeois merely because of his wealth.

No commoner has any objection to a nobleman's rejoicing privately over his ancestry and his landed estates. But if the nobleman tries to make these ancestors or these landed estates the condition of special influence and privilege in the government, of control over public policy, then the anger of the commoner rises against the nobleman and he calls him a feudalist.

Conditions are the same with reference to the actual difference of property within the class of commoners. If the capitalist rejoices in private over the great convenience and advantage which a large estate implies for the holder, nothing is more simple, more moral, and more lawful.

To whatever extent the laborer and the poorer citizen—in a word, all classes outside the capitalists—are entitled to demand from the State that its whole thought and effort be directed toward improving the lamentable and poverty-stricken material condition of the working classes and toward assuring to them, through whose hands all the wealth is produced of which our civilization boasts, to whose hands all products owe their being, without whom society as a whole could not exist another day, a more abundant and less uncertain revenue, and thus the possibility of intellectual culture, and, in time, an existence really worthy of a human being—however much, I say, the working classes are entitled to demand this from the State and to establish this as its true object, the workingmen must and will never forget that all property once lawfully acquired is completely inviolable and legitimate.

But if the capitalist, not satisfied with the actual advantages of large property, tries to establish the possession of capital as a condition for participation in the control of the State and in the determination of public policy, then the capitalist becomes a bourgeois, then he makes the fact of possession the legal condition of political control, then he characterizes himself as a new privileged class which attempts to put the controlling stamp of its privileges upon all social institutions in as full a degree as the nobility in the Middle Ages did with the privilege of landholding.

The question therefore which we must raise with reference to the French Revolution and the period of history inaugurated by it, is the following: Has the third class, which came into control through the French Revolution, looked upon itself as a bourgeoisie in this sense, and has it attempted successfully to subject the people to its privileged political control?

The answer is given by the great facts of history, and this answer is definitely in the affirmative. In the very first constitution which followed the French Revolution—the one of September 3, 1791—the difference between citoyen actif and citoyen passif—the "active" and "passive" citizen—is set forth. Only the active citizens received the franchise, and the active citizen, according to this constitution, is no other than one who pays a direct tax of a definitely stated amount.

This tax was at that time very moderate. It was only the value of three days' work: but what was more important was that all those were declared passive citizens who were serviteurs à gages (wage earners), a definition by which the working class was expressly excluded from the franchise. After all, in such questions the essential point is not the extent, but the principle.

This meant the introduction of a property qualification, the establishment of a definite amount of property as the condition of the franchise—this first and most important of all political rights—and in the determination of public policy.

All those who paid no direct tax at all, or less than this fixed amount, and those who were wage earners, were excluded from control of the State and were made a subject body. The ownership of capital had become the condition for control over the State, as was nobility, or ownership of land, in the Middle Ages.

This principle of property qualification remains (with the exception of a very short period during the French Republic of 1793, which perished from its own indefiniteness and from the whole state of society at the time, which I cannot here discuss further) the leading principle of all constitutions which originated in the French Revolution.

In fact, with the consistency which all principles have, this one was soon forced to develop into a different quantitative scope. In the constitution of 1814, according to the classified list promulgated by Louis XVIII., a direct tax of three hundred francs (eighty thalers) was established, in place of the value of three days' work, as a condition of the franchise. The July Revolution of 1830 broke out, and nevertheless, by the law of April 19, 1831, a direct tax of two hundred francs (about fifty-three thalers) was required as a condition of the franchise.

What under Louis Philippe and Guizot was called the pays légal—that is, the country as a legal entity—consisted of 200,000 men; for there were not more than 200,000 electors in France who could meet the property requirement, and these exercised sovereignty over more than 30,000,000 inhabitants. It is here to be noted that it makes no difference whether the principle of property qualification, the exclusion of those without property from the franchise, appears, as in the constitutions referred to, in direct and open form, or in a form in one way or another disguised. The effect is always the same.

So the second French Republic in 1850 could not possibly revoke the general direct franchise, once proclaimed, which we shall later consider, but adopted the expedient of granting the franchise (law of May 31,1850) only to such citizens as had been domiciled in a place without interruption for at least three years. For, because workingmen in France are frequently compelled by conditions to change their domicile and to look for work in another commune, it was hoped, and with good reason, that extremely large numbers of workingmen, who could not bring proof of three years uninterrupted residence in the same place, would be excluded from the franchise.

Here you have a property qualification in disguised form. It is still worse in our country, since the promulgation of the three-class election law, under which, with variations according to locality, three, ten, thirty, or more voters without property, of the third class of electors, have only the same franchise as one single capitalist who belongs to the first class; so that, in fact, if the proportion were only one to ten, nine men out of every ten who had the franchise in 1848 have lost it through the three-class election law of 1849, and exercise it only in appearance.49

But this is only the average situation. In reality, conditions vary greatly in different localities, and they are often still more unfavorable, most unfavorable in fact where the inequality of property is most developed; thus for instance, in Düsseldorf twenty-six voters of the third class have no more power than one rich man.

If we return from this discussion to our main thought, we have shown, and shall continue to show, in what manner, since the time when, through the French Revolution, the capitalist element obtained sovereignty, its principle, the possession of capital, has now become the controlling principle of all social institutions; how the capitalist class, proceeding in just the same manner as the nobility in the Middle Ages with land ownership, impresses now the controlling and exclusive stamp of its particular principle, the possession of capital, upon all institutions of society. The parallel between the nobility and the capitalist class is, in this respect, complete. We have already seen this with regard to the most important fundamental point, the constitution of the Empire. As in the Middle Ages landholding was the prevailing principle of representation in the German parliaments, so now, by a direct or disguised property qualification, the amount of tax, and therefore, since this is determined by the capital of an individual, the holding of capital, is what, in the last instance, determines the right of election to legislative bodies and therefore of participation in the control of the State.

Just so in reference to all other institutions in which I have demonstrated to you that land ownership was the controlling principle in the Middle Ages. I called your attention then to the exemption from taxation of the noble landholders of the Middle Ages, and told you that every privileged ruling class tries to throw the burden for the maintenance of public welfare upon the oppressed propertyless class. Just so the capitalists. To be sure they cannot declare publicly that they wish to be exempt from taxation. Their expressed principle is rather the rule that everybody shall be taxed in proportion to income; but, on the other hand, they attain, at least fairly well, the same result in disguised form by the distinction between direct and indirect taxes.

Direct taxes are those which, like the classified income tax, are collected, and therefore are determined, according to the amount of income and capital. Indirect taxes, however, are those which are laid upon any necessity—for instance, salt, grain, beer, meat, fuel; or on the necessity for legal protection—law costs, stamp taxes, etc., and which the individual very frequently pays in the price of the commodity without knowing or perceiving that he is being taxed, that the tax increases the price.

Now no man, of course, who is twenty, fifty, or a hundred times as rich as another eats by any means twenty, fifty or a hundred times as much salt, or bread, or meat; or drinks fifty or a hundred times as much beer or wine; or has fifty or a hundred times as much need for heat, and therefore for fuel, as the workingman or the relatively poor man.

The result of this is that all indirect taxes, instead of falling upon individuals according to the proportion of their capital and income, are paid in the main by the propertyless classes, the poorer classes of the nation. It is true that the capitalists did not invent indirect taxes—they were already in existence—but they were the first to develop them into a monstrous system and to throw upon them nearly the whole cost of government. To make this clear to you, I will simply allude to the Prussian financial administration of 1855. (Shows by official statistics that out of a budget of 109,000,000 thalers all but 12,800,000 were derived from indirect taxes.)

Indirect taxation is therefore the institution through which the capitalistic class obtains the privilege of exemption for its capital and lays the cost of the government upon the poorer classes of society.

Observe, at the same time, Gentlemen, the peculiar contradiction and the strange kind of justice of the procedure of laying the whole expense upon indirect taxation, and therefore upon the poor people, and of setting up as a test and a condition of the franchise, and therefore of political control, the direct taxes, which contribute for the total need of the State only the insignificant sum of twelve million out of one hundred and eight million.

I said further with reference to the nobility of the Middle Ages, that they held in contempt all activity and industry of the commoners. The situation is the same today. All kinds of work, to be sure, are equally esteemed today, and if anybody became a millionaire by rag-picking he would be sure of obtaining a highly esteemed position in society.

But what social contempt falls upon those who, no matter at what they labor or how hard they toil, have no capital to back them—that is a matter which you, Gentlemen, do not need to be told by me, but can find often enough, unfortunately, in your daily life. Indeed, in many respects, the capitalist class asserts the supremacy of its special privilege with even stricter consistency than the nobility of the Middle Ages did with its land ownership. The instruction of the people—I mean here of the adult people—was in the Middle Ages the work of the clergy. Since then the newspapers have assumed this function; but through the securities a newspaper must give, and still more through the stamp tax which is laid in our country, as in France and elsewhere, on newspapers, a daily newspaper has become a very expensive institution, which cannot be established without very considerable capital, with the result that, for this very reason, even the opportunity to mold public opinion, instruct it, and guide it has become the privilege of the capitalist class.

Were this not the case, you would have much different and very much better papers. It is interesting to see how early this attempt of the bourgeoisie to make the press a privilege of capital appears, and in what frank and undisguised form. On July 24, 1789, a few days after the capture of the Bastille, during the first days after the middle class obtained political supremacy, the representatives of the city of Paris passed a resolution by which they declared printers responsible if they published pamphlets or sheets by writers sans existence connue (without visible means of support). The newly won freedom of the press, then, was to exist only for writers who had visible means of support. Property thus appears as the condition of the freedom of the press, indeed of the morality of the writer. The straightforwardness of the first days of citizen sovereignty only expresses in a childishly frank manner what is today artfully obtained by bonding and stamp taxes. With these main characteristic facts corresponding to our consideration of the Middle Ages we shall have to be satisfied here.