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154
THE EGO AND HIS OWN
special part. He who is satisfied with what he is and
has finds this state of things profitable ; but he who
would like to be and have more looks around for this
" more," and finds it in the power of other persons.
Here he comes upon a contradiction ; as a person no
one is inferior to another, and yet one person has
what another has not but would like to have. So, he
concludes, the one person is more than the other, after
all, for the former has what he needs, the latter has
not; the former is a rich man, the latter a poor man.
He now asks himself further, are we to let what we
rightly buried come to life again? are we to let this
circuitously restored inequality of persons pass ? No ;
on the contrary, we must bring quite to an end what
was only half accomplished. Our freedom from
another's person still lacks the freedom from what the
other's person can command, from what he has in his
personal power,--in short, from " personal property."
Let us then do away with personal property. Let no
one have anything any longer, let every one be a--
ragamuffin. Let property be impersonal, let it belong
to--society.
Before the supreme ruler, the sole commander, we
had all become equal, equal persons, i. e. nullities.
Before the supreme proprietor we all become equal
--ragamuffins. For the present, one is still in an-
other's estimation a " ragamuffin," a " have-nothing " ;
but then this estimation ceases. We are all ragamuf-
fins together, and as the aggregate of Communistic
society we might call ourselves a " ragamuffin crew."
When the proletarian shall really have founded his
purposed " society " in which the interval between rich
MEN OF THE OLD TIME AND THE NEW 155
and poor is to be removed, then he will be a raga-
muffin, for then he will feel that it amounts to some-
thing to be a ragamuffin, and might lift " Ragamuf-
fin " to be an honorable form of address, just as the
Revolution did with the word "Citizen." Ragamuf-
fin is his ideal; we are all to become ragamuffins.
This is the second robbery of the "personal" in
the interest of "humanity." Neither command nor
property is left to the individual; the State took the
former, society the latter.
Because in society the most oppressive evils make
themselves felt, therefore the oppressed especially, and
consequently the members in the lower regions of
society, think they find the fault in society, and make
it their task to discover the right society. This is
only the old phenomenon,--that one looks for the
fault first in everything but himself, and conse-
quently in the State, in the self-seeking of the rich,
etc., which yet have precisely our fault to thank for
their existence.
The reflections and conclusions of Communism look
very simple. As matters lie at this time,--in the
present situation with regard to the State, therefore,--
some, and they the majority, are at a disadvantage
compared to others, the minority. In this state of
things the former are in a state of prosperity, the lat-
ter in a state of need. Hence the present state of
things, i. e. the State, must be done away with. And
what in its place? Instead of the isolated state of
prosperity--a general state of prosperity, a prosperity
of all.
Through the Revolution the bourgeoisie became