Woman under socialism

by August Bebel

In the course of this work we often spoke of an over-production of goods, which brings on the crises. This is a phenomenon peculiar to the capitalist world only; it was seen at no previous period of human development.

But the capitalist world yields not merely an over-production of goods and of men, it also yields an over-production of intelligence. Germany is the classic land in which this over-production of intelligence, which the bourgeois world no longer knows what to do with, is yielded on a large scale. A circumstance, that for centuries was a misfortune to Germany's development, has largely contributed to this state of things. It consisted in the multiplicity of small States and the check exercised by these political formations upon the development of upper capitalism. The multiplicity of small States decentralized the intellectual life of the nation: it raised numerous small centers of culture, and these exercised their influence upon the whole. In comparison with a large central government, the numerous small ones required an extraordinarily large administrative apparatus, whose members needed a certain degree of higher culture. Thus high schools and universities sprung up more numerous than in any other country of Europe. The jealousy and ambition of the several governments played in this no small role. The same thing repeated itself when some governments began introducing compulsory education for the people. The passion not to be left behind a neighboring State had here its good effect. The demand for intelligence rose when increasing culture, hand in hand with the material progress of the bourgeoisie, quickened the longing for political activity, popular representation and self-government on the part of municipalities. These were small governmental bodies for small countries and circles, nevertheless they contributed towards the general schooling, and caused the sons of the bourgeoisie to covet seats in them and to adapt their education accordingly.

As science, so did art fare.—No country of Europe has, relatively speaking, so many painting and other art academies, technical schools, museums and art collections, as Germany. Other countries may be able to make better showings in their capitals, but none has such a distribution over its whole territory as Germany. In point of art, Italy is the only exception.

While the bourgeoisie of England had conquered a controlling power over the State as early as the middle of the seventeenth, and the bourgeoisie of France towards the end of the eighteenth century, the bourgeoisie of Germany did not succeed until 1848 to secure for itself a comparatively moderate influence over the government. That was the birth year of the German bourgeoisie as a self-conscious class: it now stepped upon the stage as an independent political party, in the trappings of "liberalism." The peculiar development that Germany had undergone now manifested itself. It was not manufacturers, merchants, men of commerce and finance who came forward as leaders, but chiefly professors, squires of liberal proclivities, writers, jurists and doctors of all academic faculties. It was the German ideologists: And so was their work. After 1848 the German bourgeoisie was temporarily consigned to political silence; but they utilized the period of the sepulchral silence of the fifties in the promotion of their task. The breaking-out of the Austro-Italian war and the commencement of the Regency of Prussia, stirred the bourgeoisie anew to reach after political power. The "National Verein" (National Union) movement began. The bourgeoisie was now too far developed to tolerate within the numerous separate States the many political barriers, that were at the same time economic—barriers of taxation, barriers of communication. It assumed a revolutionary air. Herr von Bismarck understood the situation and turned it to account in his own manner so as to reconcile the interests of the bourgeoisie with those of the Prussian Kingdom, towards which the bourgeoisie never had been hostile, seeing it feared the revolution and the masses. The barriers finally came down that had hampered its material progress. Thanks to Germany's great wealth in coal and minerals, together with an intelligent and easily satisfied working class, the bourgeoisie made within few decades such gigantic progress as was made by the bourgeoisie of no other country, the United States excepted, within the same period. Thus did Germany reach the position of the second industrial and commercial State in Europe; and she covets the first.

This rapid material development had its obverse. The system of mutual exclusion, that existed between the German States up to the establishment of German unity, had until then furnished a living to an uncommonly numerous class of artisans and small peasants. With the precipitous tearing down of all the protective barriers, these people suddenly found themselves face to face with an unbridled process of capitalist production and development. At first, the prosperity epoch of the early seventies caused the danger to seem slighter, but it raged all the more fearful when the crisis set in. The bourgeoisie had used the prosperity period to make marvelous progress, and thus now caused the distress to be felt ten-fold. From now on the chasm between the property-holding and the propertyless classes widened rapidly. This process of decomposition and of absorption, which—promoted by the growth of material power on the one hand, and the declining power of resistance on the other—proceeds with ever increasing rapidity, throws whole classes of the population into ever more straitened circumstances. They find themselves from day to day more powerfully threatened in their position and their condition of life; and they see themselves doomed with mathematical certainty.

In this desperate struggle many seek possible safety in a change of profession. The old men can no longer make the change: only in the rarest instances are they able to bequeath an independence to their children: the last efforts are made, the last means applied towards placing sons and daughters in positions with fixed salaries, which require no capital to carry on. These are mainly the civil service offices in the Empire, States or municipalities—teacherships, the Post Office and railroad positions, and also the higher places in the service of the bourgeoisie in the counting rooms, stores and factories as managers, chemists, technical overseers, engineers, constructors, etc.; finally the so-called liberal professions: law, medicine, theology, journalism, art, architecture and lastly pedagogy.

Thousands upon thousands, who had previously taken up a trade, now—the possibility of independence and of a tolerable livelihood having vanished—seek for any position in the said offices. The pressure is towards higher education and learning. High schools, gymnasiums, polytechnics, etc., spring up like mushrooms, and those in existence are filled to overflowing. In the same measure the number of students at the universities, at the chemical and physical laboratories, at the art schools, trade and commercial schools and the higher schools of all sorts for women are on the increase. In all departments, without exception, there is a tremendous overcrowding, and the stream still swells: fresh demands are constantly raised for the establishment of more gymnasiums and high schools to accommodate the large number of pupils and students.[237] From official and private sources warnings upon warnings are issued, now against the choice of one then against that of another career. Even theology, that a few decades ago threatened to dry up for want of candidates, now receives its spray from the superabundance, and again sees its livings filled. "I am ready to preach belief in ten thousand gods and devils, if required, only procure me a position that may support me"—that is the song that re-echoes from all corners. Occasionally, the corresponding Cabinet Minister refuses his consent to the establishment of new institutions of higher education "because those in existence amply supply the demand for candidates of all professions."

This state of things is rendered all the more intolerable by the circumstance that the competitive and mutually destructive struggle of the bourgeoisie compels its own sons to seek for public places. Furthermore, the ever increasing standing army with its swarms of officers, whose promotion is seriously paralyzed after a long peace, leads to the placing of large numbers of men in the best years of their lives upon the pension lists, who thereupon, favored by the State, seek all manner of appointments. Another swarm of lower grade in the army, takes the bread from the mouths of the other stratas. Lastly, the still larger swarm of children of the Imperial, State and municipal officials of all degrees are and can not choose but be trained especially for such positions in the civil service. Social standing, culture and pretensions—all combine to keep the children of these classes away from the so-called low occupations, which, however, as a result of the capitalist system, are themselves overcrowded.

The system of One Year Volunteers, which allows the reduction of the compulsory military service to one instead of two or three years for those who have obtained a certain degree of education and can make the material sacrifice, is another source from which the candidates for public office is swollen. Many sons of well-to-do peasants, who do not fancy a return to the village and to the pursuit of their fathers, come under this category.