reaction which I have been describing to you, there had appeared in
the community a totally different kind of work, and therefore of all
relations of life. There had already appeared the germ of the same
characteristic which today marks, in a differently developed but
enormously extended manner, the production of the community. In the
tremendous development which it has today this characteristic, in
contrast to that previously described, can be indicated as follows:
Whereas, formerly, need preceded production, made it a consequence of
itself, determined it, and formed a criterion and well-known standard
for it--production and supply now go in advance of the demand and try
to develop it. Production is no longer for the locality, no longer for
the well-known need of neighboring markets, but for the world-market.
Production goes on for remote regions and for a general market, for
all continents, for an actually unknown and not definitely calculated
need; and in order that the product may arouse need a weapon is
supplied it--cheapness. Cheapness is the weapon of a product, with
which, on the one hand, it obtains customers, and, on the other,
drives from the field other goods of the same nature, which are likewise
urged upon the consumers; so that under the system of free
competition any producer may hope, no matter what enormous quantities
he may produce, to find a market for them all if he only succeeds, by
making his goods exceedingly cheap, in keeping out of the market the
goods of his competitors. The predominant character of such a society
is vast and boundless wealth, but, on the other hand, a great
instability of all relations, an almost continual, anxious insecurity
in the position of each individual, together with a very unequal
sharing of the returns of production among those taking part in it.
Thus great had been the changes brought about, unnoticed in the heart
of society, by the revolutionary and all-pervading activity of
industrialism, even before the end of the eighteenth century.
Though the men of the Peasant Wars had not ventured any other
conception than that of founding the State upon land ownership, though
they had not, even in thought, been able to free themselves from the
view that land ownership is necessarily the element which holds
sovereignty over the State and that participation in that ownership is
the condition for participation in that sovereignty, yet the quiet,
imperceptible, revolutionary progress of industrialism had brought
about the condition that, long before the end of the eighteenth
century, land ownership had become an element stripped entirely of its
former importance, and had fallen to a subordinate position, in the
face of the development of new methods of production, of the wealth
which this development bore in its bosom and increased from day to
day, and of the influence which it clearly had on all the people and
their affairs--even upon the largely impoverished nobility.
The revolution was therefore an accomplished fact in the actual
relations of society long before it broke out in France; and it was
only necessary to bring this reversal of conditions to outward
recognition to give it legal sanction. This is always the case in
all revolutions. You can never make a revolution. You can only give
external legal recognition and logical embodiment in practice to a
revolution which has already become an actuality in the essential
relations of society. Trying to make a revolution is the folly of
immature men who have no conception of the laws of history.
Precisely for this reason it is just as immature and childish to
suppress a revolution already fully formed in the womb of society and
to oppose its legal recognition, or to reproach those who assist at
its birth with being revolutionary. If the revolution is at hand in
the actual conditions of society, nothing can prevent its appearing
and passing into legislation.
How these things were related, and how far they had already gone in
this direction in the period of which I speak, you will best see from
another matter which I will mention.
I have already spoken about the division of labor, the development of
which consists of separating all production into a series of entirely
simple mechanical operations requiring no thought on the part of the
operator. As this separation progresses farther and farther, the
discovery is finally made that these single operations, because they
are quite simple and call for no thought, can be accomplished just as
well, and even better, by unthinking agents; and so in 1775, fourteen
years before the French Revolution, Arkwright invented the first
machine, his famous spinning-jenny.
We can see that the machine in itself was not the cause of the
revolution. Too little time intervened between this invention, which
furthermore was not immediately introduced into France, and the
revolution; but it embodied in itself the actually incipient and fully
ripe revolution. This machine, however innocent it seemed, was in fact
the revolution personified. The reasons for this are simple. You, of
course, have heard of the guild system, by which production in the
Middle Ages was directed. The guild system of the Middle Ages was
inseparably connected with other institutions. The guilds lasted
through the whole medieval period up to the French Revolution; but as
early as 1672 the matter of their abolition was considered in the
German parliament, though without result. Even in 1614, in the French
_États Généraux_, the abolition of the guilds was demanded by the
middle class, whose production the guilds everywhere restricted; but
also without result. Indeed thirteen years before the Revolution, in
1776, a minister of the Reformed party in France, the famous Turgot,
abolished the guilds, but the privileged world of medieval feudalism
considered itself, and with perfect justice, in mortal danger if its
vital principle of privilege did not extend to all classes of society;
and so, six months after the abolition of the guilds, the king was
empowered to revoke this edict and to reestablish the guilds. Nothing
but the Revolution could overthrow (and it did overthrow in one day,
by the capture of the Bastille) that which in Germany had been vainly
assailed since 1672 and in France since 1614--for almost two
centuries--by legal means.
You see from this, Gentlemen, that however great the advantages of
reformation by legal means are, such means have nevertheless in all
the more important points one great disadvantage--that of being
absolutely powerless for whole centuries; and, furthermore, that the
revolutionary means, undeniable as its disadvantages are, has as a
compensation the advantage of attaining quickly and effectively a
practical result.
If you will now keep in mind that the guilds were connected in an
inseparable manner with the whole social arrangement of the Middle
Ages, you will see at once how the first machine, Arkwright's
spinning-jenny, embodied a complete revolution in those social
conditions.
For how could machine production be possible under the guild system,
in which the number of journeymen and apprentices a master workman
could employ was determined by law in each locality; or how, under
the guild system, in which the different trades were distinguished by
law from one another in the most exact manner, and each master could
carry on only one of them--so that, for instance, the tailors and the
nail-makers of Paris for centuries had lawsuits with the menders of
clothes and the locksmiths, in order to draw lines between their
respective trades--how, under such a guild system, could production be
possible with a system of machines which requires the union of the
most varied departments of work under the control of one and the same
management?
It had come to the point, then, that production itself had called into
being, by its constant and gradual development, instruments of
production which must necessarily destroy the existing condition of
things--instruments and methods of production which, under the guild
system, could no longer find place and opportunity for development.
Thus considered, I call the first machine in itself a revolution; for
it bore in its wheels and cogs, little as this could be seen on
external observation, the germ of the new condition of things, based
upon free competition, which must necessarily develop from this germ
with the power and irresistibility of life itself.
And so, if I am not greatly mistaken, it may be true today that there
exist various phenomena which imply a new condition that must
inevitably develop from them--phenomena which, at this time also,
cannot be understood from external conditions; so that the authorities
themselves, while persecuting insignificant agitators, not only
overlook these phenomena, but even let them stand as necessary
accompaniments of our civilization, hail them as the climax of
prosperity, and, on occasion, make appreciative and approving speeches
in their honor.
After all these discussions you will now understand the true meaning
of the famous pamphlet published by Abbé Sieyes in 1788--and so before
the French Revolution--which was summed up in these words: _"Qu'est-ce
que c'est que le tiers état? rien! qu' est qu'il doit être? Tout!"
Tiers état_, or third class, is what the middle class in France was
called, because they formed, in contrast to the two privileged
classes, the nobility and the clergy, a third class, which meant all
the people without privilege. This pamphlet brings together the two
questions raised by Sieyes, and their answers: "What is the third
class? Nothing! What ought it to be? Everything." This is how Sieyes
formulates these two questions and answers. But from all that has been
said, the true meaning of these questions and answers would be more
clearly and correctly expressed as follows: "What is the third class
_de facto_--in reality? Everything! But what is it _de jure_--legally?
Nothing!"
What was to be done, then, was to bring the legal position of the
third class into harmony with its actual meaning; to clothe its
importance, already existing in fact, with legal sanction and
recognition; and just this is the achievement and significance of the
victorious revolution which broke out in France in 1789 and exerted
its transforming influence on the other countries of Europe.
This question arises here: What was this third class, or
_bourgeoisie_, that through the French Revolution obtained victory
over the privileged classes and gained control of the State? Since
this third class stood in contrast to the privileged classes of
society with legal vested rights, it considered itself at that time as
equivalent to the whole people, and its cause as the cause of all
humanity. This explains the exalting and mighty enthusiasm which was
general in that period. The rights of man were proclaimed; and it
seemed as if, with the liberation and sovereignty of this third class,
all legal privileges in society were ended, and as if every legally
privileged distinction had been replaced by its principle of the
universal liberty of man.
At that time, however, in the very beginning of the movement, in
April, 1789, on the occasion of the elections to a parliament which
was summoned by the king under the condition that the third class
should this time send as many representatives as the nobility and
clergy together, a newspaper of a character anything but revolutionary
writes as follows: "Who can tell us whether a despotism of the
bourgeoisie will not follow the so-called aristocracy of the nobles?"
But such cries at that time were drowned in the general enthusiasm.
Nevertheless we must come back to that question, we must put the
question definitely: Was the cause of the third class really the cause
of all humanity; or did this third class, the _bourgeoisie_, bear
within it a fourth class, from which it wished to distinguish itself
clearly, and subject it to its sovereignty?
I must now, if I do not wish to run the risk of subjecting my
presentation to great misunderstandings, explain my own conception of
the word _bourgeoisie_, or upper _bourgeoisie_, as a term for a
political party. The word _bourgeoisie_ may be translated into German
by _Bürgertum_ (body of citizens). In my opinion this is not what it
means. We are all _Bürger_ (citizens)--the working man, the
_Kleinbürger_ (lower middle class), _Grossbürger_ (upper middle
class), etc. But in the course of history the word _bourgeoisie_ has
acquired the significance of a definite political tendency, which I
will now explain.[47]
The whole class of commoners outside the nobility was divided, when the
French Revolution began, and is still divided in general, into two
subordinate classes--first, those who get their living chiefly or
entirely from their labor, and are supported in this by very little
capital, or none at all, which might give them the possibility of
actively engaging in production for the support of themselves and their
families; to this class, accordingly, belong the laborers, the lower
middle class, the artisans, and, in general, the peasants; second, those
who control a large amount of property and capital, and on that basis
engage in production or receive an income from it. These can be called
the capitalists; but no capitalist is a _bourgeois_ merely because of
his wealth.
No commoner has any objection to a nobleman's rejoicing privately over
his ancestry and his landed estates. But if the nobleman tries to make
these ancestors or these landed estates the condition of special
influence and privilege in the government, of control over public
policy, then the anger of the commoner rises against the nobleman and
he calls him a feudalist.
Conditions are the same with reference to the actual difference of
property within the class of commoners. If the capitalist rejoices in
private over the great convenience and advantage which a large estate
implies for the holder, nothing is more simple, more moral, and more
lawful.
To whatever extent the laborer and the poorer citizen--in a word, all
classes outside the capitalists--are entitled to demand from the State
that its whole thought and effort be directed toward improving the
lamentable and poverty-stricken material condition of the working
classes and toward assuring to them, through whose hands all the
wealth is produced of which our civilization boasts, to whose hands
all products owe their being, without whom society as a whole could
not exist another day, a more abundant and less uncertain revenue, and
thus the possibility of intellectual culture, and, in time, an
existence really worthy of a human being--however much, I say, the
working classes are entitled to demand this from the State and to
establish this as its true object, the workingmen must and will never
forget that all property once lawfully acquired is completely
inviolable and legitimate.
But if the capitalist, not satisfied with the actual advantages of
large property, tries to establish the possession of capital as a
condition for participation in the control of the State and in the
determination of public policy, then the capitalist becomes a
_bourgeois_, then he makes the fact of possession the legal condition
of political control, then he characterizes himself as a new
privileged class which attempts to put the controlling stamp of its
privileges upon all social institutions in as full a degree as the
nobility in the Middle Ages did with the privilege of landholding.
The question therefore which we must raise with reference to the
French Revolution and the period of history inaugurated by it, is the
following: Has the third class, which came into control through the
French Revolution, looked upon itself as a _bourgeoisie_ in this
sense, and has it attempted successfully to subject the people to its
privileged political control?
The answer is given by the great facts of history, and this answer is
definitely in the affirmative. In the very first constitution which
followed the French Revolution--the one of September 3, 1791--the
difference between _citoyen actif_ and _citoyen passif_--the "active"
and "passive" citizen--is set forth. Only the active citizens received
the franchise, and the active citizen, according to this constitution,
is no other than one who pays a direct tax of a definitely stated
amount.
This tax was at that time very moderate. It was only the value of
three days' work: but what was more important was that all those were
declared passive citizens who were _serviteurs à gages_ (wage
earners), a definition by which the working class was expressly
excluded from the franchise. After all, in such questions the
essential point is not the extent, but the principle.
This meant the introduction of a property qualification, the
establishment of a definite amount of property as the condition of the
franchise--this first and most important of all political rights--and
in the determination of public policy.
All those who paid no direct tax at all, or less than this fixed
amount, and those who were wage earners, were excluded from control of
the State and were made a subject body. The ownership of capital had
become the condition for control over the State, as was nobility, or
ownership of land, in the Middle Ages.
This principle of property qualification remains (with the exception
of a very short period during the French Republic of 1793, which
perished from its own indefiniteness and from the whole state of
society at the time, which I cannot here discuss further) the leading
principle of all constitutions which originated in the French
Revolution.
In fact, with the consistency which all principles have, this one was
soon forced to develop into a different quantitative scope. In the
constitution of 1814, according to the classified list promulgated by
Louis XVIII., a direct tax of three hundred francs (eighty thalers)
was established, in place of the value of three days' work, as a
condition of the franchise. The July Revolution of 1830 broke out, and
nevertheless, by the law of April 19, 1831, a direct tax of two
hundred francs (about fifty-three thalers) was required as a condition
of the franchise.
What under Louis Philippe and Guizot was called the _pays légal_--that
is, the country as a legal entity--consisted of 200,000 men; for there
were not more than 200,000 electors in France who could meet the
property requirement, and these exercised sovereignty over more than
30,000,000 inhabitants. It is here to be noted that it makes no
difference whether the principle of property qualification, the
exclusion of those without property from the franchise, appears, as in
the constitutions referred to, in direct and open form, or in a form
in one way or another disguised. The effect is always the same.
So the second French Republic in 1850 could not possibly revoke the
general direct franchise, once proclaimed, which we shall later
consider, but adopted the expedient of granting the franchise (law of
May 31,1850) only to such citizens as had been domiciled in a place
without interruption for at least three years. For, because workingmen
in France are frequently compelled by conditions to change their
domicile and to look for work in another commune, it was hoped, and
with good reason, that extremely large numbers of workingmen, who
could not bring proof of three years uninterrupted residence in the
same place, would be excluded from the franchise.
Here you have a property qualification in disguised form. It is still
worse in our country, since the promulgation of the three-class
election law, under which, with variations according to locality,
three, ten, thirty, or more voters without property, of the third
class of electors, have only the same franchise as one single
capitalist who belongs to the first class; so that, in fact, if the
proportion were only one to ten, nine men out of every ten who had the
franchise in 1848 have lost it through the three-class election law of
1849, and exercise it only in appearance.[48]
But this is only the average situation. In reality, conditions vary
greatly in different localities, and they are often still more
unfavorable, most unfavorable in fact where the inequality of property
is most developed; thus for instance, in Düsseldorf twenty-six voters
of the third class have no more power than one rich man.
If we return from this discussion to our main thought, we have shown,
and shall continue to show, in what manner, since the time when, through
the French Revolution, the capitalist element obtained sovereignty, its
principle, the possession of capital, has now become the controlling
principle of all social institutions; how the capitalist class,
proceeding in just the same manner as the nobility in the Middle Ages
with land ownership, impresses now the controlling and exclusive stamp
of its particular principle, the possession of capital, upon all
institutions of society. The parallel between the nobility and the
capitalist class is, in this respect, complete. We have already seen
this with regard to the most important fundamental point, the
constitution of the Empire. As in the Middle Ages landholding was the
prevailing principle of representation in the German parliaments, so
now, by a direct or disguised property qualification, the amount of tax,
and therefore, since this is determined by the capital of an individual,
the holding of capital, is what, in the last instance, determines the
right of election to legislative bodies and therefore of participation
in the control of the State.
Just so in reference to all other institutions in which I have
demonstrated to you that land ownership was the controlling principle
in the Middle Ages. I called your attention then to the exemption from
taxation of the noble landholders of the Middle Ages, and told you
that every privileged ruling class tries to throw the burden for the
maintenance of public welfare upon the oppressed propertyless class.
Just so the capitalists. To be sure they cannot declare publicly that
they wish to be exempt from taxation. Their expressed principle is
rather the rule that everybody shall be taxed in proportion to income;
but, on the other hand, they attain, at least fairly well, the same
result in disguised form by the distinction between direct and
indirect taxes.
Direct taxes are those which, like the classified income tax, are
collected, and therefore are determined, according to the amount of
income and capital. Indirect taxes, however, are those which are laid
upon any necessity--for instance, salt, grain, beer, meat, fuel; or on
the necessity for legal protection--law costs, stamp taxes, etc., and
which the individual very frequently pays in the price of the
commodity without knowing or perceiving that he is being taxed, that
the tax increases the price.
Now no man, of course, who is twenty, fifty, or a hundred times as
rich as another eats by any means twenty, fifty or a hundred times as
much salt, or bread, or meat; or drinks fifty or a hundred times as
much beer or wine; or has fifty or a hundred times as much need for
heat, and therefore for fuel, as the workingman or the relatively poor
man.
The result of this is that all indirect taxes, instead of falling
upon individuals according to the proportion of their capital and
income, are paid in the main by the propertyless classes, the poorer
classes of the nation. It is true that the capitalists did not invent
indirect taxes--they were already in existence--but they were the
first to develop them into a monstrous system and to throw upon them
nearly the whole cost of government. To make this clear to you, I will
simply allude to the Prussian financial administration of 1855. (Shows
by official statistics that out of a budget of 109,000,000 thalers all
but 12,800,000 were derived from indirect taxes.)
Indirect taxation is therefore the institution through which the
capitalistic class obtains the privilege of exemption for its capital
and lays the cost of the government upon the poorer classes of
society.
Observe, at the same time, Gentlemen, the peculiar contradiction and
the strange kind of justice of the procedure of laying the whole
expense upon indirect taxation, and therefore upon the poor people,
and of setting up as a test and a condition of the franchise, and
therefore of political control, the direct taxes, which contribute for
the total need of the State only the insignificant sum of twelve
million out of one hundred and eight million.
I said further with reference to the nobility of the Middle Ages, that
they held in contempt all activity and industry of the commoners. The
situation is the same today. All kinds of work, to be sure, are
equally esteemed today, and if anybody became a millionaire by
rag-picking he would be sure of obtaining a highly esteemed position
in society.