Property as the civic liberals understand it deserves the attacks of the Communists and Proudhon: it is untenable, because the civic proprietor is in truth nothing but a propertyless man, one who is everywhere _shut out_. Instead of owning the world, as he might, he does not own even the paltry point on which he turns around.
Proudhon wants not the _propriétaire_ but the _possesseur_ or _usufruitier_.[179] What does that mean? He wants no one to own the land; but the benefit of it--even though one were allowed only the hundredth part of this benefit, this fruit--is at any rate one's property, which he can dispose of at will. He who has only the benefit of a field is assuredly not the proprietor of it; still less he who, as Proudhon would have it, must give up so much of this benefit as is not required for his wants; but he is the proprietor of the share that is left him. Proudhon, therefore, denies only such and such property, not _property_ itself. If we want no longer to leave the land to the landed proprietors, but to appropriate it to _ourselves_, we unite ourselves to this end, form a union, a _société_, that makes _itself_ proprietor; if we have good luck in this, then those persons cease to be landed proprietors. And, as from the land, so we can drive them out of many another property yet, in order to make it _our_ property, the property of the--_conquerors_. The conquerors form a society which one may imagine so great that it by degrees embraces all humanity; but so-called humanity too is as such only a thought (spook); the individuals are its reality. And these individuals as a collective mass will treat land and earth not less arbitrarily than an isolated individual or so-called _propriétaire_. Even so, therefore, _property_ remains standing, and that as "exclusive" too, in that _humanity_, this great society, excludes the _individual_ from its property (perhaps only leases to him, gives him as a fief, a piece of it) as it besides excludes everything that is not humanity, _e. g._ does not allow animals to have property.--So too it will remain, and will grow to be. That in which _all_ want to have a _share_ will be withdrawn from that individual who wants to have it for himself alone: it is made a _common estate_. As a _common estate_ every one has his _share_ in it, and this share is his _property_. Why, so in our old relations a house which belongs to five heirs is their common estate; but the fifth part of the revenue is each one's property. Proudhon might spare his prolix pathos if he said: "There are some things that belong only to a few, and to which we others will from now on lay claim or--siege. Let us take them, because one comes to property by taking, and the property of which for the present we are still deprived came to the proprietors likewise only by taking. It can be utilized better if it is in the hands of _us all_ than if the few control it. Let us therefore associate ourselves for the purpose of this robbery (_vol_)."--Instead of this, he tries to get us to believe that society is the original possessor and the sole proprietor, of imprescriptible right; against it the so-called proprietors have become thieves (_La propriété c'est le vol_); if it now deprives of his property the present proprietor, it robs him of nothing, as it is only availing itself of its imprescriptible right.--So far one comes with the spook of society as a _moral person_. On the contrary, what man can obtain belongs to him: the world belongs to _me_. Do you say anything else by your opposite proposition, "The world belongs to _all_"? All are I and again I, etc. But you make out of the "all" a spook, and make it sacred, so that then the "all" become the individual's fearful _master_. Then the ghost of "right" places itself on their side.
Proudhon, like the Communists, fights against _egoism_. Therefore they are continuations and consistent carryings-out of the Christian principle, the principle of love, of sacrifice for something general, something alien. They complete in property, _e. g._, only what has long been extant as a matter of fact,--_viz._, the propertylessness of the individual. When the law says, _Ad reges potestas omnium pertinet, ad singulos proprietas; omnia rex imperio possidet, singuli dominio_, this means: The king is proprietor, for he alone can control and dispose of "everything," he has _potestas_ and _imperium_ over it. The Communists make this clearer, transferring that _imperium_ to the "society of all." Therefore: Because enemies of egoism, they are on that account--Christians, or, more generally speaking, religious men, believers in ghosts, dependents, servants of some generality (God, society, etc.). In this too Proudhon is like the Christians, that he ascribes to God that which he denies to men. He names him (_e. g._, page 90) the Propriétaire of the earth. Herewith he proves that he cannot think away the _proprietor as such_; he comes to a proprietor at last, but removes him to the other world.
Neither God nor Man ("human society") is proprietor, but the individual.
* * * * * Proudhon (Weitling too) thinks he is telling the worst about property when he calls it theft (_vol_). Passing quite over the embarrassing question, what well-founded objection could be made against theft, we only ask: Is the concept "theft" at all possible unless one allows validity to the concept "property"? How can one steal if property is not already extant? What belongs to no one cannot be _stolen_; the water that one draws out of the sea he does _not steal_. Accordingly property is not theft, but a theft becomes possible only through property. Weitling has to come to this too, as he does regard everything as the _property of all_: if something is "the property of all," then indeed the individual who appropriates it to himself steals.
Private property lives by grace of the _law_. Only in the law has it its warrant--for possession is not yet property, it becomes "mine" only by assent of the law--; it is not a fact, not _un fait_ as Proudhon thinks, but a fiction, a thought. This is legal property, legitimate property, guaranteed property. It is mine not through _me_ but through the--_law_.
Nevertheless, property is the expression for _unlimited dominion_ over somewhat (thing, beast, man) which "I can judge and dispose of as seems good to me." According to Roman law, indeed, _jus utendi et abutendi re sua, quatenus juris ratio patitur_, an _exclusive_ and _unlimited right_; but property is conditioned by might. What I have in my power, that is my own. So long as I assert myself as holder, I am the proprietor of the thing; if it gets away from me again, no matter by what power, _e. g._ through my recognition of a title of others to the thing,--then the property is extinct. Thus property and possession coincide. It is not a right lying outside my might that legitimizes me, but solely my might: if I no longer have this, the thing vanishes away from me. When the Romans no longer had any might against the Germans, the world-empire of Rome _belonged_ to the latter, and it would sound ridiculous to insist that the Romans had nevertheless remained properly the proprietors. Whoever knows how to take and to defend the thing, to him it belongs till it is again taken from him, as liberty belongs to him who _takes_ it.-- Only might decides about property, and, as the State (no matter whether State of well-to-do citizens or of ragamuffins or of men in the absolute) is the sole mighty one, it alone is proprietor; I, the unique,[180] have nothing, and am only enfeoffed, am vassal and, as such, servitor. Under the dominion of the State there is no property of _mine_.
I want to raise the value of myself, the value of ownness, and should I cheapen property? No, as I was not respected hitherto because people, mankind, and a thousand other generalities were put higher, so property too has to this day not yet been recognized in its full value. Property too was only the property of a ghost, _e. g._ the people's property; my whole existence "belonged to the fatherland": _I_ belonged to the fatherland, the people, the State, and therefore also everything that I called _my own_. It is demanded of States that they make away with pauperism. It seems to me this is asking that the State should cut off its own head and lay it at its feet; for so long as the State is the ego the individual ego must remain a poor devil, a non-ego. The State has an interest only in being itself rich; whether Michael is rich and Peter poor is alike to it; Peter might also be rich and Michael poor. It looks on indifferently as one grows poor and the other rich, unruffled by this alternation. As _individuals_ they are really equal before its face; in this it is just: before it both of them are--nothing, as we "are altogether sinners before God"; on the other hand, it has a very great interest in this, that those individuals who make it their ego should have a part in its wealth; it makes them partakers in _its property_. Through property, with which it rewards the individuals, it tames them; but this remains _its_ property, and every one has the usufruct of it only so long as he bears in himself the ego of the State, or is a "loyal member of society"; in the opposite case the property is confiscated, or made to melt away by vexatious lawsuits. The property, then, is and remains _State property_, not property of the ego. That the State does not arbitrarily deprive the individual of what he has from the State means simply that the State does not rob itself. He who is a State-ego, _i. e._ a good citizen or subject, holds his fief undisturbed as _such an ego_, not as being an ego of his own. According to the code, property is what I call mine "by virtue of God and law." But it is mine by virtue of God and law only so long as--the State has nothing against it.
In expropriations, disarmaments, and the like (as, _e. g._, the exchequer confiscates inheritances if the heirs do not put in an appearance early enough) how plainly the else-veiled principle that only the _people_, "the State," is proprietor, while the individual is feoffee, strikes the eye!
The State, I mean to say, cannot intend that anybody should _for his own sake_ have property or actually be rich, nay, even well-to-do; it can acknowledge nothing, grant nothing to me as me. The State cannot check pauperism, because the poverty of possession is a poverty of me. He who _is_ nothing but what chance or another--to wit, the State--makes out of him also _has_ quite rightly nothing but what another gives him. And this other will give him only what he _deserves_, _i. e._ what he is worth by _service_. It is not he that realizes a value from himself; the State realizes a value from him.
National economy busies itself much with this subject. It lies far out beyond the "national," however, and goes beyond the concepts and horizon of the State, which knows only State property and can distribute nothing else. For this reason it binds the possession of property to _conditions_,--as it binds everything to them, _e. g._ marriage, allowing validity only to the marriage sanctioned by it, and wresting this out of my power. But property is _my_ property only when I hold it _unconditionally_: only I, as _unconditioned_ ego, have property, enter a relation of love, carry on free trade.
The State has no anxiety about me and mine, but about itself and its: I count for something to it only as _its child_, as "a son of the country"; as _ego_ I am nothing at all for it. For the State's understanding, what befalls me as ego is something accidental, my wealth as well as my impoverishment. But, if I with all that is mine am an accident in the State's eyes, this proves that it cannot comprehend _me_: _I_ go beyond its concepts, or, its understanding is too limited to comprehend me. Therefore it cannot do anything for me either.
Pauperism is the _valuelessness of me_, the phenomenon that I cannot realize value from myself. For this reason State and pauperism are one and the same. The State does not let me come to my value, and continues in existence only through my valuelessness: it is forever intent on _getting benefit_ from me, _i. e._ exploiting me, turning me to account, using me up, even if the use it gets from me consists only in my supplying a _proles_ (_prolétariat_); it wants me to be "its creature."
Pauperism can be removed only when I as ego _realize value_ from myself, when I give my own self value, and make my price myself. I must rise in revolt to rise in the world.
What I produce, flour, linen, or iron and coal, which I toilsomely win from the earth, etc., is _my_ work that I want to realize value from. But then I may long complain that I am not paid for my work according to its value: the payer will not listen to me, and the State likewise will maintain an apathetic attitude so long as it does not think it must "appease" me that _I_ may not break out with my dreaded might. But this "appeasing" will be all, and, if it comes into my head to ask for more, the State turns against me with all the force of its lion-paws and eagle-claws: for it is the king of beasts, it is lion and eagle. If I refuse to be content with the price that it fixes for my ware and labor, if I rather aspire to determine the price of my ware myself, _i. e._ "to pay myself," in the first place I come into a conflict with the buyers of the ware. If this were stilled by a mutual understanding, the State would not readily make objections; for how individuals get along with each other troubles it little, so long as therein they do not get in its way. Its damage and its danger begin only when they do not agree, but, in the absence of a settlement, take each other by the hair. The State cannot endure that man stand in a direct relation to man; it must step between as--_mediator_, must--_intervene_. What Christ was, what the saints, the Church were, the State has become,--to wit, "mediator." It tears man from man to put itself between them as "spirit." The laborers who ask for higher pay are treated as criminals as soon as they want to _compel_ it. What are they to do? Without compulsion they don't get it, and in compulsion the State sees a self-help, a determination of price by the ego, a genuine, free realization of value from his property, which it cannot admit of. What then are the laborers to do? Look to themselves and ask nothing about the State?-- -- But, as is the situation with regard to my material work, so it is with my intellectual too. The State allows me to realize value from all my thoughts and to find customers for them (I do realize value from them, _e. g._, in the very fact that they bring me honor from the listeners, and the like); but only so long as my thoughts are--_its_ thoughts. If, on the other hand, I harbor thoughts that it cannot approve (_i. e._ make its own), then it does not allow me at all to realize value from them, to bring them into _exchange_, into _commerce_. _My_ thoughts are free only if they are granted to me by the State's _grace_, _i. e._ if they are the State's thoughts. It lets me philosophize freely only so far as I approve myself a "philosopher of State"; _against_ the State I must not philosophize, gladly as it tolerates my helping it out of its "deficiencies," "furthering" it.--Therefore, as I may behave only as an ego most graciously permitted by the State, provided with its testimonial of legitimacy and police pass, so too it is not granted me to realize value from what is mine, unless this proves to be its, which I hold as fief from it. My ways must be its ways, else it distrains me; my thoughts its thoughts, else it stops my mouth.
The State has nothing to be more afraid of than the value of me, and nothing must it more carefully guard against than every occasion that offers itself to me for _realizing value_ from myself. _I_ am the deadly enemy of the State, which always hovers between the alternatives, it or I. Therefore it strictly insists not only on not letting _me_ have a standing, but also on keeping down what is _mine_. In the State there is no--property, _i. e._ no property of the individual, but only State property. Only through the State have I what I have, as I am only through it what I am. My private property is only that which the State leaves to me of _its, cutting off_ others from it (depriving them, making it private); it is State property.
But, in opposition to the State, I feel more and more clearly that there is still left me a great might, the might over myself, _i. e._ over everything that pertains only to me and that _exists_ only in being my own.
What do I do if my ways are no longer its ways, my thoughts no longer its thoughts? I look to myself, and ask nothing about it! In _my_ thoughts, which I get sanctioned by no assent, grant, or grace, I have my real property, a property with which I can trade. For as mine they are my _creatures_, and I am in a position to give them away in return for _other_ thoughts: I give them up and take in exchange for them others, which then are my new purchased property.
What then is _my_ property? Nothing but what is in my _power_! To what property am I entitled? To every property to which I--_empower_ myself.[181] I give myself the right of property in taking property to myself, or giving myself the proprietor's _power_, full power, empowerment.
Everything over which I have might that cannot be torn from me remains my property; well, then let might decide about property, and I will expect everything from my might! Alien might, might that I leave to another, makes me an owned slave: then let my own might make me an owner. Let me then withdraw the might that I have conceded to others out of ignorance regarding the strength of my _own_ might! Let me say to myself, what my might reaches to is my property; and let me claim as property everything that I feel myself strong enough to attain, and let me extend my actual property as far as _I_ entitle, _i. e._--empower, myself to take.
Here egoism, selfishness, must decide; not the principle of _love,_ not love-motives like mercy, gentleness, good-nature, or even justice and equity (for _justitia_ too is a phenomenon of--love, a product of love): love knows only _sacrifices_ and demands "self-sacrifice."
Egoism does not think of sacrificing anything, giving away anything that it wants; it simply decides, What I want I must have and will procure.
All attempts to enact rational laws about property have put out from the bay of _love_ into a desolate sea of regulations. Even Socialism and Communism cannot be excepted from this. Every one is to be provided with adequate means, for which it is little to the point whether one socialistically finds them still in a personal property, or communistically draws them from the community of goods. The individual's mind in this remains the same; it remains a mind of dependence. The distributing _board of equity_ lets me have only what the sense of equity, its _loving_ care for all, prescribes. For me, the individual, there lies no less of a check in _collective wealth_ than in that of _individual others_; neither that is mine, nor this: whether the wealth belongs to the collectivity, which confers part of it on me, or to individual possessors, is for me the same constraint, as I cannot decide about either of the two. On the contrary, Communism, by the abolition of all personal property, only presses me back still more into dependence on another, _viz._, on the generality or collectivity; and, loudly as it always attacks the "State," what it intends is itself again a State, a _status_, a condition hindering my free movement, a sovereign power over me. Communism rightly revolts against the pressure that I experience from individual proprietors; but still more horrible is the might that it puts in the hands of the collectivity.
Egoism takes another way to root out the non-possessing rabble. It does not say: Wait for what the board of equity will--bestow on you in the name of the collectivity (for such bestowal took place in "States" from the most ancient times, each receiving "according to his desert," and therefore according to the measure in which each was able to _deserve_ it, to acquire it by _service_), but: Take hold, and take what you require! With this the war of all against all is declared. _I_ alone decide what I will have.
"Now, that is truly no new wisdom, for self-seekers have acted so at all times!" Not at all necessary either that the thing be new, if only _consciousness_ of it is present. But this latter will not be able to claim great age, unless perhaps one counts in the Egyptian and Spartan law; for how little current it is appears even from the stricture above, which speaks with contempt of "self-seekers." One is to know just this, that the procedure of taking hold is not contemptible, but manifests the pure deed of the egoist at one with himself.
Only when I expect neither from individuals nor from a collectivity what I can give to myself, only then do I slip out of the snares of--love; the rabble ceases to be rabble only when it _takes hold_. Only the dread of taking hold, and the corresponding punishment thereof, makes it a rabble. Only that taking hold is _sin_, crime,--only this dogma creates a rabble. For the fact that the rabble remains what it is, it (because it allows validity to that dogma) is to blame as well as, more especially, those who "self-seekingly" (to give them back their favorite word) demand that the dogma be respected. In short, the lack of _consciousness_ of that "new wisdom," the old consciousness of sin, alone bears the blame.
If men reach the point of losing respect for property, every one will have property, as all slaves become free men as soon as they no longer respect the master as master. _Unions_ will then, in this matter too, multiply the individual's means and secure his assailed property.
According to the Communists' opinion the commune should be proprietor. On the contrary, _I_ am proprietor, and I only come to an understanding with others about my property. If the commune does not do what suits me, I rise against it and defend my property. I am proprietor, but property is _not sacred_. I should be merely possessor? No, hitherto one was only possessor, secured in the possession of a parcel by leaving others also in possession of a parcel; but now _everything_ belongs to me, I am proprietor of _everything that I require_ and can get possession of. If it is said socialistically, society gives me what I require,--then the egoist says, I take what I require. If the Communists conduct themselves as ragamuffins, the egoist behaves as proprietor.
All swan-fraternities,[182] and attempts at making the rabble happy, that spring from the principle of love, must miscarry. Only from egoism can the rabble get help, and this help it must give to itself and--will give to itself. If it does not let itself be coerced into fear, it is a power. "People would lose all respect if one did not coerce them so into fear," says bugbear Law in "_Der gestiefelte Kater_."
Property, therefore, should not and cannot be abolished; it must rather be torn from ghostly hands and become _my_ property; then the erroneous consciousness, that I cannot entitle myself to as much as I require, will vanish.-- "But what cannot man require!" Well, whoever requires much, and understands how to get it, has at all times helped himself to it, as Napoleon did with the Continent and France with Algiers. Hence the exact point is that the respectful "rabble" should learn at last to help itself to what it requires. If it reaches out too far for you, why, then defend yourselves. You have no need at all to good-heartedly--bestow anything on it; and, when it learns to know itself, it--or rather: whoever of the rabble learns to know himself, he--casts off the rabble-quality in refusing your alms with thanks. But it remains ridiculous that you declare the rabble "sinful and criminal" if it is not pleased to live from your favors because it can do something in its own favor. Your bestowals cheat it and put it off. Defend your property, then you will be strong; if, on the other hand, you want to retain your ability to bestow, and perhaps actually have the more political rights the more alms (poor-rates) you can give, this will work just as long as the recipients let you work it.[183] In short, the property question cannot be solved so amicably as the Socialists, yes, even the Communists, dream. It is solved only by the war of all against all. The poor become free and proprietors only when they--_rise_. Bestow ever so much on them, they will still always want more; for they want nothing less than that at last--nothing more be bestowed.
It will be asked, But how then will it be when the have-nots take heart? Of what sort is the settlement to be? One might as well ask that I cast a child's nativity. What a slave will do as soon as he has broken his fetters, one must--await.
In Kaiser's pamphlet, worthless for lack of form as well as substance ("_Die Persoenlichkeit des Eigentuemers in Bezug auf den Socialismus und Communismus_," etc.), he hopes from the _State_ that it will bring about a leveling of property. Always the State! Herr Papa! As the Church was proclaimed and looked upon as the "mother" of believers, so the State has altogether the face of the provident father.
* * * * * * * * * * _Competition_ shows itself most strictly connected with the principle of civism. Is it anything else than _equality_ (_égalité_)? And is not equality a product of that same Revolution which was brought on by the commonalty, the middle classes? As no one is barred from competing with all in the State (except the prince, because he represents the State itself) and working himself up to their height, yes, overthrowing or exploiting them for his own advantage, soaring above them and by stronger exertion depriving them of their favorable circumstances,--this serves as a clear proof that before the State's judgment-seat every one has only the value of a "simple individual" and may not count on any favoritism. Outrun and outbid each other as much as you like and can; that shall not trouble me, the State! Among yourselves you are free in competing, you are competitors; that is your _social_ position. But before me, the State, you are nothing but "simple individuals"![184] What in the form of principle or theory was propounded as the equality of all has found here in competition its realization and practical carrying out; for _égalité_ is--free competition. All are, before the State,--simple individuals; in society, or in relation to each other,--competitors.
I need be nothing further than a simple individual to be able to compete with all others aside from the prince and his family: a freedom which formerly was made impossible by the fact that only by means of one's corporation, and within it, did one enjoy any freedom of effort.
In the guild and feudality the State is in an intolerant and fastidious attitude, granting _privileges_; in competition and liberalism it is in a tolerant and indulgent attitude, granting only _patents_ (letters assuring the applicant that the business stands open [patent] to him) or "concessions." Now, as the State has thus left everything to the _applicants_, it must come in conflict with _all_, because each and all are entitled to make application. It will be "stormed," and will go down in this storm.
Is "free competition" then really "free"? nay, is it really a "competition,"--to wit, one of _persons_,--as it gives itself out to be because on this title it bases its right? It originated, you know, in persons becoming free of all personal rule. Is a competition "free" which the State, this ruler in the civic principle, hems in by a thousand barriers? There is a rich manufacturer doing a brilliant business, and I should like to compete with him. "Go ahead," says the State, "I have no objection to make to your _person_ as competitor." Yes, I reply, but for that I need a space for buildings, I need money! "That's bad; but, if you have no money, you cannot compete. You must not take anything from anybody, for I protect property and grant it privileges." Free competition is not "free," because I lack the THINGS for competition. Against my _person_ no objection can be made, but because I have not the things my person too must step to the rear. And who has the necessary things? Perhaps that manufacturer? Why, from him I could take them away! No, the State has them as property, the manufacturer only as fief, as possession.
But, since it is no use trying it with the manufacturer, I will compete with that professor of jurisprudence; the man is a booby, and I, who know a hundred times more than he, shall make his class-room empty. "Have you studied and graduated, friend?" No, but what of that? I understand abundantly what is necessary for instruction in that department. "Sorry, but competition is not 'free' here. Against your person there is nothing to be said, but the _thing_, the doctor's diploma, is lacking. And this diploma I, the State, demand. Ask me for it respectfully first; then we will see what is to be done."
This, therefore, is the "freedom" of competition. The State, _my lord_, first qualifies me to compete.
But do _persons_ really compete? No, again _things_ only! Moneys in the first place, etc.
In the rivalry one will always be left behind another (_e. g._ a poetaster behind a poet). But it makes a difference whether the means that the unlucky competitor lacks are personal or material, and likewise whether the material means can be won by _personal energy_ or are to be obtained only by _grace_, only as a present; as when, _e. g._, the poorer man must leave, _i. e._ present, to the rich man his riches. But, if I must all along wait for the _State's approval_ to obtain or to use (_e. g._ in the case of graduation) the means, I have the means by the _grace of the State_.[185] Free competition, therefore, has only the following meaning: To the State all rank as its equal children, and every one can scud and run to _earn the State's goods and largess_. Therefore all do chase after havings, holdings, possessions (be it of money or offices, titles of honor, etc.), after the _things_.
In the mind of the commonalty every one is possessor or "owner." Now, whence comes it that the most have in fact next to nothing? From this, that the most are already joyful over being possessors at all, even though it be of some rags, as children are joyful in their first trousers or even the first penny that is presented to them. More precisely, however, the matter is to be taken as follows. Liberalism came forward at once with the declaration that it belonged to man's essence not to be property, but proprietor. As the consideration here was about "man," not about the individual, the how-much (which formed exactly the point of the individual's special interest) was left to him. Hence the individual's egoism retained room for the freest play in this how-much, and carried on an indefatigable competition.
However, the lucky egoism had to become a snag in the way of the less fortunate, and the latter, still keeping its feet planted on the principle of humanity, put forward the question as to the how-much of possession, and answered it to the effect that "man must have as much as he requires."
Will it be possible for _my_ egoism to let itself be satisfied with that? What "man" requires furnishes by no means a scale for measuring me and my needs; for I may have use for less or more. I must rather have so much as I am competent to appropriate.
Competition suffers from the unfavorable circumstance that the _means_ for competing are not at every one's command, because they are not taken from personality, but from accident. Most are _without means_, and for this reason _without goods_.
Hence the Socialists demand the _means_ for all, and aim at a society that shall offer means. Your money value, say they, we no longer recognize as your "competence"; you must show another competence,--to wit, your _working force_. In the possession of a property, or as "possessor," man does certainly show himself as man; it was for this reason that we let the possessor, whom we called "proprietor," keep his standing so long. Yet you possess the things only so long as you are not "put out of this property."
The possessor is competent, but only so far as the others are incompetent. Since your ware forms your competence only so long as you are competent to defend it (_i. e._, as _we_ are not competent to do anything with it), look about you for another competence; for we now, by our might, surpass your alleged competence.
It was an extraordinarily large gain made, when the point of being regarded as possessors was put through. Therein bondservice was abolished, and every one who till then had been bound to the lord's service, and more or less had been his property, now became a "lord." But henceforth your having, and what you have, are no longer adequate and no longer recognized; _per contra_, your working and your work rise in value. We now respect your _subduing_ things, as we formerly did your possessing them. Your work is your competence! You are lord or possessor only of what comes by _work_, not by _inheritance_. But as at the time everything has come by inheritance, and every copper that you possess bears not a labor-stamp but an inheritance stamp, everything must be melted over.
But is my work then really, as the Communists suppose, my sole competence? or does not this consist rather in everything that I am competent for? And does not the workers society itself have to concede this, _e. g._ in supporting also the sick, children, old men,--in short, those who are incapable of work? These are still competent for a good deal, _e. g._ to preserve their life instead of taking it. If they are competent to cause you to desire their continued existence, they have a power over you. To him who exercised utterly no power over you, you would vouchsafe nothing; he might perish.
Therefore, what you are _competent_ for is your _competence_! If you are competent to furnish pleasure to thousands, then thousands will pay you an honorarium for it; for it would stand in your power to forbear doing it, hence they must purchase your deed. If you are not competent to _captivate_ any one, you may simply starve.
Now am I, who am competent for much, perchance to have no advantage over the less competent?
We are all in the midst of abundance; now shall I not help myself as well as I can, but only wait and see how much is left me in an equal division?
Against competition there rises up the principle of ragamuffin society,--_partition_.
To be looked upon as a mere _part_, part of society, the individual cannot bear--because he is _more_; his uniqueness puts from it this limited conception.