Page 87

152

THE EGO AND HIS OWN

for the " good citizens," and the " good citizens "
gladly pay high tax-rates to it in order to pay so
much lower rates to their laborers.

But the class of laborers, because unprotected in

what they essentially are (for they do not enjoy the
protection of the State as laborers, but as its subjects
they have a share in the enjoyment of the police, a so-
called protection of the law), remains a power hostile
to this State, this State of possessors, this " citizen
kingship." Its principle, labor, is not recognized as
to its value ; it is exploited,* a spoil of the possess-
ors, the enemy.

The laborers have the most enormous power in their

hands, and, if they once became thoroughly conscious
of it and used it, nothing would withstand them ; they
would only have to stop labor, regard the product
of labor as theirs, and enjoy it. This is the sense of
the labor disturbances which show themselves here and
there.

The State rests on the--slavery of labor. If labor

becomes free, the State is lost.

§ 2.--S

OCIAL

IBERALISM

We are freeborn men, and wherever we look we see

ourselves made servants of egoists! Are we therefore
to become egoists too? Heaven forbid! we want
rather to make egoists impossible ! We want to
make them all " ragamuffins " ; all of us must have
nothing, that " all may have."

So say the Socialists.

* [ausgebeutet]

[Kriegsbeute]

MEN OF THE OLD TIME AND THE NEW 153

Who is this person that you call " All " ?--It is

" society " ! --But is it corporeal, then?--We are its
body!--You? Why, you are not a body yourselves;
--you, sir, are corporeal to be sure, you too, and you,
but you all together are only bodies, not a body.
Accordingly the united society may indeed have bodies
at its service, but no one body of its own. Like the
" nation " of the politicians, it will turn out to be
nothing but a " spirit," its body only semblance.

The freedom of man is, in political liberalism, free-

dom from persons, from personal dominion, from the
master; the securing of each individual person against
other persons, personal freedom.

No one has any orders to give; the law alone gives

orders.

But, even if the persons have become equal, yet

their possessions have not. And yet the poor man
needs the rich, the rich the poor, the former the rich
man's money, the latter the poor man's labor. So no
one needs another as a person, but needs him as a
giver, and thus as one who has something to give, as
holder or possessor. So what he has makes the man.
And in having, or in " possessions," people are un-
equal.

Consequently, social liberalism concludes, no one

must have, as according to political liberalism no one
was to give orders ; i. e., as in that case the State
alone obtained the command, so now society alone
obtains the possessions.

For the State, protecting each one's person and

property against the other, separates them from one
another; each one is his special part and has his