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326 THE EGO AND HIS OWN |
more than the other for "man." He who has best grasped
this concept knows best what is "man's." The State still
grasps this concept in political restriction, society in social;
mankind, so it is said, is the first to comprehend it entirely,
or "the history of mankind develops it." But, if "man
is discovered," then we know also what pertains to man as
his own, man's property, the human.
But let the individual man lay claim
to ever so many rights because Man or the concept man "entitles"
him to them, because his being man does it: what do I care for
his right and his claim? If he has his right only from Man and
does not have it from me, then for me he has
no right. His life, e. g., counts to me only
for what it is worth to me. I respect neither
a so-called right of property (or his claim to tangible goods)
nor yet his right to the "sanctuary of his inner nature"
(or his right to have the spiritual goods and divinities, his
gods, remain un-aggrieved). His goods, the sensuous as well as
the spiritual, are mine, and I dispose of them as proprietor,
in the measure of my -- might.
In the property question
lies a broader meaning than the limited statement of the question
allows to be brought out. Referred solely to what men call our
possessions, it is capable of no solution; the decision is to
be found in him "from whom we have everything." Property
depends on the owner.
The Revolution directed its weapons
against everything which came "from the grace of God,"
e. g., against divine right, in whose place the human
was confirmed. To that which is granted by the grace of
|
THE OWNER 327 |
God, there is opposed that which is derived "from the essence
of man."
Now, as men's relation to each other,
in opposition to the religious dogma which commands a "Love
one another for God's sake," had to receive its human position
by a "Love each other for man's sake," so the revolutionary
teaching could not do otherwise than, first, as to what concerns
the relation of men to the things of this world, settle it that
the world, which hitherto was arranged according to God's ordinance,
henceforth belongs to "Man."
The world belongs to "Man,"
and is to be respected by me as his property.
Property is what is mine!
Property in the civic sense means
sacred property, such that I must respect your
property. "Respect for property!" Hence the politicians
would like to have every one possess his little bit of property,
and they have in part brought about an incredible parcellation
by this effort. Each must have his bone on which he may find something
to bite.
The position of affairs is different
in the egoistic sense. I do not step shyly back from your property,
but look upon it always as my property, in which I need to "respect"
nothing. Pray do the like with what you call my property!
With this view we shall most easily
come to an understanding with each other.
The political liberals are anxious
that, if possible, all servitudes be dissolved, and every one
be free lord on his ground, even if this ground has only so much
area as can have its requirements adequately filled by
| 328 THE EGO AND HIS OWN |
the manure of one person. (The farmer in the story married even
in his old age "that he might profit by his wife's dung.")
Be it ever so little, if one only has somewhat of his own -- to
wit, a respected property! The more such owners, such
cotters,* the more "free people and good patriots" has
the State.
Political liberalism, like everything
religious, counts on respect, humaneness, the virtues
of love. Therefore does it live in incessant vexation. For in
practice people respect nothing, and every day the small possessions
are bought up again by greater proprietors, and the "free
people" change into day- laborers.
If, on the contrary, the "small
proprietors" had reflected that the great property was also
theirs, they would not have respectfully shut themselves out from
it, and would not have been shut out.
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 property-less 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.** 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
*[The words "cot" and "dung"
are alike in German.]
**e. g., "Qu'est-ce
que la Propriété?"
p. 83
|
THE OWNER 329 |
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 his 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
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330 THE EGO AND HIS OWN |
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
|
THE OWNER 331 |
what has long been extant as a matter of fact -- to wit, the propertylessness
of the individual. When the laws 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
|
332 THE EGO AND HIS OWN |
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, guarantied 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
| THE OWNER 333 |
from him, as liberty belongs to him who takes it.--
Only might decides about property,
and, as the State (no matter whether State or 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,* 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
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334 THE EGO AND HIS OWN |
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 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,
etc. (as, when 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, yield 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
|
THE OWNER 335 |
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 possessions 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, an unconditional
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.
|
336 THE EGO AND HIS OWN |
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 (proletariat); 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, 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, e. g., "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
| THE OWNER 337 |
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, etc.);
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 "defi-
|
338 THE EGO AND HIS OWN |
ciencies," "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
|
THE OWNER 339 |
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.*
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,
*[A German idiom for "take upon myself," "assume."]
|
340 THE EGO AND HIS OWN |
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
| THE OWNER 341 |
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 prop-
|
342 THE EGO AND HIS OWN |
erty, 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, 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
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
*[Apparently some benevolent scheme of the day; compare note on p. 343.]
|
THE OWNER 343 |
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.*
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
*In a registration bill for Ireland the government made the proposal to let those be electors who pay £5 sterling of poor-rates. He who gives alms, therefore, acquires political rights, or elsewhere becomes a swan-knight. [See p. 342.]
|
344 THE EGO AND HIS OWN |
-- 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 Persönlichkeit
des Eigentümers 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
| THE OWNER 345 |
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"!*
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
*Minister Stein used this expression about Count von Reisach, when he cold-bloodedly left the latter at the mercy of the Bavarian government because to him, as he said, "a government like Bavaria must be worth more than a simple individual." Reisach had written against Montgelas at Stein's bidding, and Stein later agreed to the giving up of Reisach, which was demanded by Montgelas on account of this very book. See Hinrichs, "Politische Vorlesungen," I, 280.
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346 THE EGO AND HIS OWN |
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
|
THE OWNER 347 |
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.*
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 largesse. 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
*In colleges and universities poor men compete with
rich. But they are able to do in most eases only through scholarships,
which -- a significant point -- almost all come down to us from
a time when free competition was still far from being a controlling
principle. The principle of competition founds no scholarship,
but says, Help yourself; provide yourself the means. What the
State gives for such purposes it pays out from interested motives,
to educate "servants" for itself.
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348 THE EGO AND HIS OWN |
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 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 prop-
| THE OWNER 349 |
erty, 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 con-
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350 THE EGO AND HIS OWN |
cede 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. for instance,
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.
Hence he does not await his competence
from the sharing of others, and even in the workers' society there
arises the misgiving that in an equal partition the strong will
be exploited by the weak; he awaits his competence rather from
himself, and says now, what I am competent to have, that is my
competence.
What competence does not the child
possess in its