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

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.