General military conscription is not a political accident, but the extreme limit of contradiction contained in the social life-conception—Rise of power in society—The basis of power is personal violence—The organization of armed men, an army, is required by power to enable it to accomplish violence—The rise of power in society, that is, of violence, destroys by degrees the social life-conception—Attitude of power toward the masses, that is to say, the oppressed—Governments endeavor to make workmen believe in the necessity of State violence for their preservation from external foes—But the army is needed principally to defend government from its own subjects, the oppressed working-men—Address of Caprivi—All the privileges of the ruling classes are assured by violence—Increase of armies leads to a general military conscription—General military conscription destroys all the advantages of social life which it is the duty of the State to guard—General military conscription is the extreme limit of obedience, as it demands in the name of the State the abnegation of all that may be dear to man—Is the State needed?—The sacrifices which it requires from citizens through the general military conscription have no longer any basis—Hence it is more advantageous for man to rebel against the demands of the State than to submit to them.
The efforts which the educated men of the upper classes are making to silence the growing consciousness that the present system of life must be changed, are constantly on the increase, while life itself, continuing to develop and to become more complex without changing its direction, as it increases the incongruities and suffering of human existence, brings men to the extreme limit of this contradiction. An example of this uttermost limit is found in the general military conscription.
It is usually supposed that this conscription, together with the increasing armaments and the consequent increase of the taxes and national debts of all countries, are the accidental results of a certain crisis in European affairs, which might be obviated by certain political combinations, without change of the interior life.
This is utterly erroneous. The general conscription is nothing but an internal contradiction which has crept into the social life-conception, and which has only become evident because it has arrived at its utmost limits at a period when men have attained a certain degree of material development.
The social life-conception transfers the significance of life from the individual to mankind in general, through the unbroken continuity of the family, the tribe, and the State.
According to the social life-conception it is supposed that as the significance of life is comprised in the sum total of mankind, each individual will of his own accord sacrifice his interests to those of the whole. This in fact has always been the case with certain aggregates, like the family or the tribe.
In consequence of custom, transmitted by education and confirmed by religious suggestion, and without compulsion, the individual merges his interests in those of the group, and sacrifices himself for the benefit of the whole.
But the more complex became societies, the larger they grew,—conquest especially contributing to unite men in social organizations,—the more individuals would be found striving to attain their ends at the expense of their fellow-men; and thus the necessity for subjugation by power, or, in other words, by violence, became more and more frequent.
The advocates of the social life-conception usually attempt to combine the idea of authority, otherwise violence, with that of moral influence; but such a union is utterly impossible.
The result of moral influence upon man is to change his desires, so that he willingly complies with what is required of him. A man who yields to moral influence takes pleasure in conforming his actions to its laws; whereas authority, as the word is commonly understood, is a means of coercion, by which a man is forced to act in opposition to his wishes. A man who submits to authority does not do as he pleases, he yields to compulsion, and in order to force a man to do something for which he has an aversion, the threat of physical violence, or violence itself, must be employed: he may be deprived of his liberty, flogged, mutilated, or he may be threatened with these punishments. And this is what constitutes power both in the past and in the present.