“The end of the development of the state resembles the beginnings of human existence. Primitive equality is reinstated. The maternal material existence opens and closes the cycle of human affairs.” Thus Backofen, in his book on The Matriarchate; and Morgan says: “Since the advent of civilization, the increase of wealth has been so enormous, its forms so varied, its application so extensive, and its administration so skillful in the interest of the owners, that this wealth has become an invincible power against the people. The human mind is helpless and bewildered in the face of its own creation. And yet the time will come, when human intelligence will be sufficiently strong to master wealth, when it will determine both the relation of the state to the property that it protects, and the limit of the rights of individual owners. The interests of society are absolutely paramount to individual interests, and both must be placed into a just and harmonious relation. Pursuit of wealth is not the ultimate aim of man, if progress is to remain the law of the future as it has been the law of the past. The time that has elapsed since the advent of civilization is only a small fraction of the past existence of humanity; it is only a small fraction of its coming existence. We are threatened by the dissolution of society as the termination of a historic career, whose sole aim is wealth; for a career of this sort contains the elements of its own destruction. Democracy in administration, fraternity in social relations, general education,—these will initiate the next, higher stage of society, toward which experience, reason and science are constantly leading us. It will be a resurrection, only in a higher form, of the liberty, equality and fraternity of the old gens.”[274]
So men, proceeding from the most varied standpoints, arrive at the same conclusions, as a result of their scientific investigations. The complete emancipation of woman, and her establishment of equal rights with man is one of the aims of our cultured development, whose realization no power on earth can prevent. But it can be accomplished only by means of a transformation that will abolish the rule of man over man, including the rule of the capitalist over the laborer. Then only can humanity attain its fullest development. The “golden age” of which men have been dreaming, and for which they have been yearning for thousands of years, will come at last. Class rule will forever be at an end, and with it the rule of man over woman.
[271] “Rights of Women and Duties of Women.” A Reply to Fanny Lewald’s Epistles: “For and against Women.”
[272] George Brandes: The literature of the Nineteenth Century. Leipsic, 1883.
[273] Quoted by Ernst Haeckel in his “Natural Story of Creation.”
[274] Morgan: Ancient History.
[CHAPTER XXIX.
Internationality.]
But an existence worthy of human beings cannot be the manner of living of a single privileged nation, for, being isolated from all other nations, it could neither establish nor maintain this condition. Our entire development is the product of the combined action of national and international forces and relations. Altho the national ideal still dominates the minds to a great extent and is used as a means for maintaining political and social rulership,—for this is possible only within national bounds,—we are already deeply imbued with internationalism.
Treaties of commerce, tariff and navigation, the world postal union, international expositions, congresses on international law and international measurements of degrees, other international scientific congresses and associations, international expeditions of exploration, commerce and trade, and especially the international conventions of workingmen, who are the heralds of the new era, and to whose influence it is due that, during the spring of 1890, upon an invitation from the German Empire, the first international conference on workingmen’s protective legislation was held in Berlin,—all this proves the international character that the relations of civilized nations have assumed, notwithstanding their national seclusion. Beside speaking of national economy, we speak of international economy, and consider the latter more important, because the welfare of the different nations depends upon it to a great extent. A great many of our domestic products are exchanged for foreign products, that we can no longer dispense with. As one branch of industry suffers when another flags, so the entire national production of a given country is very materially injured by a crisis in another country. The relations of the different countries to one another are constantly becoming more cordial, regardless of the passing disturbances, like wars and the instigations of national hatred, because these relations are dominated by material interests, the strongest of all. Every new highway, every improvement in the means of transportation, every invention or improvement in the process of production which leads to a cheapening of commodities, strengthens these relations. The ease with which personal relations are established between widely separated countries and nations, is a new, important link in the chain of connections. Emigration and colonization are other powerful levers. Nations learn from one another and strive to excel each other. Beside the exchange of all kinds of material products, an exchange of intellectual products takes place, both in their original forms of expression and in translations. To millions of people it becomes a necessity to learn foreign languages, and beside material advantages, nothing is more likely to remove prejudice and to arouse sympathy, than an acquaintance with the language and intellectual products of a foreign nation.