The abolition by this only possible means of that law which under present conditions assigns to the workingman his wages—that part of the product which is necessary for bare existence—and the whole remainder to the employer—this is the only real, non-visionary, just improvement in the position of the working class.
But how? Look at the railroads, machine shops, ship yards, cotton and woolen mills, etc., etc., and the millions required for these establishments; then look into your own empty pockets and ask yourself where you will ever get the enormous capital necessary for these establishments, and how therefore you can ever make possible the carrying on of wholesale production on your own account!
And surely there is no fact more true, more thoroughly established, than that you would never accomplish this if you were reduced exclusively and essentially to your own isolated efforts as individuals alone.
Just for this reason it is the business and the duty of the State to make it possible for you to take in hand the great cause of the free, individual association of the working class in such a way as to help its development, and make it its solemn duty to offer you the means and the opportunity for this association.
Now, do not allow yourselves to be deceived and misled by the cry of those who will tell you that any such intervention by the State destroys social incentive. It is not true that I hinder anybody from climbing a tower by his own strength if I hand him a ladder or a rope. It is not true that the State prevents children from educating themselves by their own powers if it provides them with teachers, schools and libraries. It is not true that I hinder anybody from plowing a field by his own strength if I give him a plow. It is not true that I hinder anyone from defeating a hostile enemy by his own strength if I put a weapon into his hand for the purpose.
Although it is true that now and then someone may have climbed a tower without a rope or a ladder; that individuals have acquired an education without teachers, schools, or public libraries; that the peasants in the Vendée in the wars of the Revolution now and then defeated an enemy even without weapons; yet all these exceptions do not vitiate the rule—they only prove it; and therefore, although it is true that under certain special conditions single groups of workingmen in England have been able to improve their condition, to a certain limited extent, in certain minor branches of wholesale production, by an association based chiefly upon their own exertions, nevertheless the law stands that the real improvement of the situation of the workingman, which he has a just right to demand, and to demand for the whole working class as such, can be accomplished only by this aid of the State. No more should you allow yourselves to be misled and deceived by the cry of those who talk about Socialism or Communism and try to oppose this demand of yours by such cheap phrases; but be firmly convinced regarding such people that they are only trying to deceive you, or else they themselves do not know what they are talking about. Nothing is further from so-called Socialism and Communism than this demand according to which, if realized, the working classes, just as they do today, would maintain their individual liberty, individual manner of living, and individual compensation for work, and would stand in no different relation to the State, except that the necessary capital, or credit, for their association would be provided for them by it. But that is exactly the office and the destiny of the State—to make easy and provide means for the great cultural progress of humanity. This is its ultimate purpose. For this it exists. It has always served this purpose and always must.
I will give you a single example among hundreds—the canals, highways, postoffices, steamboat lines, telegraph lines, banking institutions, agricultural improvements, the introduction of new branches of industry, etc., in all of which the intervention of the State was necessary—a single example, but one which is worth a hundred others, and one which is especially near at hand. When railroads were to be built, in all German as well as in all foreign states except in some few isolated lines, the State had to intervene in one way or another—chiefly by undertaking to guarantee at least the dividends on the stock, in many countries going much further than this.
The guarantee of dividends constitutes a one-sided contract of the rich stockholder with the State—namely, if the new enterprises are unprofitable, then the loss falls upon the State, and consequently upon all taxpayers, and, consequently again, especially upon you, Gentlemen, upon the great class of the propertyless. If, on the other hand, the new enterprises are profitable, then the profit, the large dividends, come to us, the rich stockholders, and this is not obviated by the fact that in many countries—for instance in Prussia—certain very uncertain advantages for the State in a very distant future are stipulated, advantages which would result much sooner and much more abundantly from an association of the working class.
Without this intervention of the State, of which, as I have said, the guarantee of dividends was the weakest form, we should perhaps have no railroads on the whole continent today.
The fact is also unquestionable that the State was obliged to take this step; that the guarantee of dividends was a most pronounced intervention of the State, that, furthermore, this intervention took place in favor of the rich and well-to-do class, which also controls all capital and all credit, and which therefore could dispense with the intervention of the State far more easily than you; and that this intervention was called for by the whole capitalist class.