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156
THE EGO AND HIS OWN
omnipotent, and all inequality was abolished by every
one's being raised or degraded to the dignity of a
citizen : the common man--raised, the aristocrat--
degraded; the third estate became sole estate,--viz.,
the estate of--citizens of the State. Now Communism
responds: Our dignity and our essence consist not in
our being all--the equal children of our mother, the
State, all born with equal claim to her love and her
protection, but in our all existing for each other.
This is our equality, or herein we are equal, in that
we, I as well as you and you and all of you, are active
or "labor" each one for the rest; in that each of us is
a laborer, then. The point for us is not what we are
for the State {viz., citizens), not our citizenship
therefore, but what we are for each other,--viz., that
each of us exists only through the other, who, caring
for my wants, at the same time sees his own satisfied
by me. He labors, e. g., for my clothing (tailor), I
for his need of amusement (comedy-writer, rope-
dancer, etc.), he for my food (farmer, etc.), I for his
instruction (scientist, etc.). It is labor that consti-
tutes our dignity and our--equality.
What advantage does citizenship bring us ? Bur-
dens ! And how high is our labor appraised ? As
low as possible ! But labor is our sole value all the
same; that we are laborers is the best thing about us,
this is our significance in the world, and therefore it
must be our consideration too and must come to
receive consideration. What can you meet us with ?
Surely nothing but--labor too. Only for labor or
services do we owe you a recompense, not for your
bare existence ; not for what you are for yourselves
MEN OF THE OLD TIME AND THE NEW l57
either, but only for what you are for us. By what
have you claims on us ? Perhaps by your high birth,
etc. ? No, only by what you do for us that is desir-
able or useful. Be it thus then: we are willing to be
worth to you only so much as we do for you ; but you
are to be held likewise by us. Services determine
value,--i. e. those services that are worth something to
us, and consequently labors for each other, labors for
the common good. Let each one be in the other's eyes
a laborer. He who accomplishes something useful is
inferior to none, or--all laborers (laborers, of course,
in the sense of laborers "for the common good," i. e.
communistic laborers) are equal. But, as the laborer
is worth his wages,* let the wages too be equal.
As long as faith sufficed for man's honor and dig-
nity, no labor, however harassing, could be objected to
if it only did not hinder a man in his faith. Now, on
the contrary, when every one is to cultivate himself
into man, condemning a man to machine-like labor
amounts to the same thing as slavery. If a factory-
worker must tire himself to death twelve hours and
more, he is cut off from becoming man. Every labor
is to have the intent that the man be satisfied.
Therefore he must become a master in it too, i. c. be
able to perform it as a totality. He who in a pin-fac-
tory only puts on the heads, only draws the wire, etc.,
works, as it were, mechanically, like a machine; he
remains half-trained, does not become a master: his
labor cannot satisfy him, it can only fatigue him.
His labor is nothing taken by itself, has no object in
* [In German an exact quotation of Luke 10 7.]