{"collection":"philosophy-ethics","full_text_available":true,"graph_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/api/page/gutenberg_20936/graph","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/page/gutenberg_20936","id":"gutenberg_20936","license":"Public Domain (US)","rights_basis":"gutenberg_metadata_copyright_false","source":"gutenberg","source_url":"https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/20936","summary":null,"tags":["Category: Philosophy & Ethics","Category: Politics","Category: Sociology","Germany -- Social conditions","Reconstruction (1914-1939) -- Germany","Socialism"],"text":"Produced by Markus Brenner, Irma Spehar and the Online\nDistributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This\nfile made using scans of public domain works at the\nUniversity of Georgia.)\n\n\n\n\n\n                    THE NEW SOCIETY\n\n                          BY\n\n                   WALTHER RATHENAU\n\n               AUTHORIZED TRANSLATION BY\n                    ARTHUR WINDHAM\n\n\n                       NEW YORK\n               HARCOURT, BRACE AND COMPANY\n                         1921\n\n\n\n\nPREFACE\n\n\nWalther Rathenau, author of _Die neue Gesellschaft_ and other studies\nof economic and social conditions in modern Germany, was born in 1867.\nHis father, Emil Rathenau, was one of the most distinguished figures\nin the great era of German industrial development, and his son was\nbrought up in the atmosphere of hard work, of enterprise, and of\npublic affairs. After his school days at a _Gymnasium_, or classical\nschool, he studied mathematics, physics and chemistry at the\nUniversities of Berlin and of Strassburg, taking his degree at the age\nof twenty-two. Certain discoveries made by him in chemistry and\nelectrolysis led to the establishment of independent manufacturing works,\nwhich he controlled with success, and eventually to his connexion with\nthe world-famous A.E.G.--_Allgemeine Electrizitaetsgesellschaft_--at\nthe head of which he now stands. During the war he scored a very\nremarkable and exceptional success as controller of the organization\nfor the supply of raw materials. He is thus not merely a scholar and\nthinker, but one who has lived and more than held his own in the thick\nof commercial and industrial life, and who knows by actual experience\nthe subject-matter with which he deals.\n\nThe present study, with its wide outlook and its resolute\ndetermination to see facts as they are, should have much value for all\nstudents of latter-day politics and economics in Europe; for though\nRathenau is mainly concerned with conditions in his own land the same\nconditions affect all countries to a greater or less degree, and he\ndeals with general principles of human psychology and of economic law\nwhich prevail everywhere in the world. It is not too much to say that\n\"The New Society\" constitutes a landmark in the history of economic\nand social thought, and contains matter for discussion, for sifting,\nfor experiment and for propaganda which should occupy serious thinkers\nand reformers for many a day to come. His suggestions and conclusions\nmay not be all accepted, or all acceptable, but few will deny that\nthey constitute a distinct advance in the effort to bring serious and\ndisinterested thought to the solution of our social problems, and in\nthis conviction we offer the present complete and authorized\ntranslation to English readers.\n\n\n\n\nTHE NEW SOCIETY\n\n\nI\n\nIs there any sign or criterion by which we can tell that a human\nsociety has been completely socialized?\n\nThere is one and one only: it is when no one can have an income\nwithout working for it.\n\nThat is the sign of Socialism; but it is not the goal. In itself it is\nnot decisive. If every one had enough to live on, it would not matter\nfor what he received money or goods, or even whether he got them for\nnothing. And relics of the system of income which is not worked for\nwill always remain--for instance, provision for old age.\n\nThe goal is not any kind of division of income or allotment of\nproperty. Nor is it equality, reduction of toil, or increase of the\nenjoyment of life. It is the abolition of the proletarian condition;\nabolition of the lifelong hereditary serfage, the nameless hereditary\nservitude, of one of the two peoples who are called by the same name;\nthe annulment of the hereditary twofold stratification of society, the\nabolition of the scandalous enslavement of brother by brother, of that\nWestern abuse which is the basis of our civilization as slavery was\nof the antique, and which vitiates all our deeds, all our creations,\nall our joys.\n\nNor is even this the final goal--no economy, no society can talk of a\nfinal goal--the only full and final object of all endeavour upon earth\nis the development of the human soul. A final goal, however, points\nout the direction, though not the path, of politics.\n\nThe political object which I have described as the abolition of the\nproletarian condition may, as I have shown in _Things that are to\nCome_,[1] be closely approached by a suitable policy in regard to\nproperty and education; above all, by a limitation of the right of\ninheritance. Of socialization in the strict sense there is, for this\npurpose, no need. Yet a far-reaching policy of socialization--and I do\nnot here refer to a mere mechanical nationalization of the means of\nproduction but to a radical economic and social resettlement--is\nnecessary and urgent, because it awakens and trains responsibilities,\nand because it withdraws from the sluggish hands of the governing\nclasses the determination of time and of method, and places it in the\nhands that have a better title, those of the whole commonalty, which,\nat present, stands helpless through sheer democracy. For only in the\nhands of a political people does democracy mean the rule of the\npeople; in those of an untrained and unpolitical people it becomes\nmerely an affair of debating societies and philistine chatter at the\ninn ordinary. The symbol of German bourgeois democracy is the tavern;\nthence enlightenment is spread and there judgments are formed; it is\nthe meeting place of political associations, the forum of their\norators, the polling-booth for elections.\n\nBut the sign that this far-reaching socialization has been actually\ncarried out is the cessation of all income without work. I say the\nsign, but not the sole postulate; for we must postulate a complete and\ngenuine democratization of the State and public economy, and a system\nof education equally accessible to all: only then can we say that the\nmonopoly of class and culture has been smashed. But the cessation of\nthe workless income will show the downfall of the last of\nclass-monopolies, that of the Plutocracy.\n\nIt is not very easy to imagine what society will be like when these\nobjects have been realised, at least if we are thinking not of a brief\nperiod like the present Russian regime, or a passing phase as in\nHungary, but an enduring and stationary condition. A dictatorial\noligarchy, like that of the Bolshevists, does not come into\nconsideration here, and the well-meaning Utopias of social romances\ncrumble to nothing. They rest, one and all, on the blissfully ignorant\nassumption of a state of popular well-being exaggerated tenfold beyond\nall possibility.\n\nThe knowledge of the sort of social condition towards which at present\nwe Germans, and then Europe, and finally the other nations are tending\nin this vertical Migration of the Peoples, will not only decide for\neach of us his attitude towards the great social question, but our\nwhole political position as well. It is quite in keeping with German\ntraditions that in fixing our aims and forming our resolves we should\nbe guided not by positive but by negative impulses--not by the effort\nto get something but to get away from it. To this effort, which is\nreally a flight, we give the positive name of Socialism, without\ntroubling ourselves in the least how things will look--not in the\nsense of popular watchwords but in actual fact--when we have got what\nwe are seeking.\n\nThis is not merely a case of lack of imagination; it is that we\nGermans have, properly speaking, no understanding of political\ntendencies. We are more or less educated in business, in science, in\nthought, but in politics we are about on the same level as the East\nSlavonic peasantry. At best we know--and even that not always--what\noppresses, vexes and tortures us; we know our grievances, and think we\nhave conceived an aim when we simply turn them upside down. Such\nprocesses of thought as \"the police are to blame, the war-conditions\nare to blame, the Prussians are to blame, the Jews are to blame, the\nEnglish are to blame, the priests are to blame, the capitalists are to\nblame\"--all these we quite understand. Just as with the Slavs, if our\ngood-nature and two centuries of the love of order did not forbid it,\nour primitive political instincts would find expression in a pogrom in\nthe shape of a peasant-war, of a religious war, of witch-trials, or\nJew-baiting. Our blatant patriotism bore the plainest signs of such a\ntemper; half nationalism, half aggression against some bugbear or\nother; never a proud calm, an earnest self-dedication, a struggle for\na political ideal.\n\nWe have now a Republic in Germany: no one seriously desired it. We\nhave at last established Parliamentarianism: no one wanted it. We have\nset up a kind of Socialism: no one believed in it. We used to say:\n\"The people will live and die for their princes; our last drop of\nblood for the Hohenzollerns\"--no one denied it. \"The people mean to be\nruled by their hereditary lords; they will go through fire for their\nofficers; rather death than yield a foot of German soil to the foe.\"\nWas all this a delusion? By no means; it was sincere enough, only it\ndid not go deep. It was the kind of sincerity which depends on not\nknowing enough of the alternative possibilities.\n\nWhen the alternatives revealed themselves as possible and actual, then\nwe all turned republican, even to the cottagers in Pomerania. When the\nmilitary strike had broken down discipline, the officers were\nmishandled; when the war was lost, the fleet disgraced, and the\nhomeland defiled, then we began to play and dance.\n\nBut was this frivolity? Not at all; it was a childish want of\npolitical imagination. The Poles, a people not remotely comparable to\nthe German in depth of soul and the capacity for training talent, have\nfor a century cherished no other thought than that of national unity,\nwhile we passively resign our territories. No Englishman or Japanese\nor American will ever understand us when we tell him that this\nmilitary discipline of ours, this war-lust, did not represent a\npassion for dominion and aggression, but was merely the docility of a\nchildish people which wants nothing, and can imagine nothing, but that\nthings should go on as they happen, at the moment, to be.\n\nWe Germans know but little of the laws which govern the formation of\nnational character. The capacity of a people for profundity is not\nprofundity, either of the individual or of the community. It may\nexpress itself in the masses as mere plasticity and softness of\nspirit. The capacity for collective sagacity and strength of will\ndemands from the individual merely a dry intelligence in human\naffairs, and egoism. It would be too much to say that our political\nweakness may be merely the expression of spiritual power, for the\nlatter has not proved an obstacle to success in business. Indolence\nand belief in authority have their share in it.\n\nBut have we not been the classic land of social democracy, and have we\nnot become that of Radicalism? Well, we have been, indeed, and are,\nwith our submissiveness to authority and our capacity for discipline,\nthe classic land of organized grumbling; and the classic land, too, of\nanti-semitism which deprived us of the very forces we stood most in\nneed of--productive scepticism and the imagination for concrete\nthings. Organized grumbling is not the same thing as political\ncreation. A Socialism and Radicalism poorer in ideas than the\npost-Marxian German Socialism has never existed. Half of it was merely\nclerical work, and the other half was agitators' Utopianism of the\ncheapest variety.\n\nNothing was more significant than the fact that the mighty event of\nthe German Revolution was not the result of affection but of\ndisaffection. It is not we who liberated ourselves, it was the enemy;\nit was our destruction that set us free. On the day before we asked\nfor the armistice, perhaps even on the day before the flight of the\nKaiser, a plebiscite would have yielded an overwhelming majority for\nthe monarchy and against Socialism. What I so often said before the\nwar came true: \"He who trains his children with the rod learns only\nthrough the rod.\"\n\nAnd to-day, when everything is seething and fermenting--no thanks to\nSocialism for that--all intellectual work has to be done outside of\nthe ranks of social-democracy, which stumbles along on its two\ncrutches of \"Socialization\" and \"Soviets.\"[2] Orthodox Socialism is\nstill a case of the \"lesser evil,\" what the French call a _pis aller_.\n\"Things are so bad that any change must be for the better.\" What is to\nmake them better we are told in the socialist catechism; but _how_ it\nis to do so, how and what anything is to become, this, the only\nquestion that matters, is regarded as irrelevant. It is answered by\nsome halting and insincere stammer about \"surplus value\" which is to\nmake everybody well off--and which would yield all round, as I have\nelsewhere shown, just twenty-five marks a head. Fifteen millions of\ngrown men are pressing forward into a Promised Land revealed through\nthe fog of political assemblies and in the thunder of parrot-phrases--a\nland from which no one will ever bring back a bunch of grapes.\n\nIf one would interrogate not the agitators, but their hearers, and\nfind out what they instinctively conceive this land to look like, we\nshould get the answer, timid and naive but at the same time the\ndeepest and shrewdest that it is possible to give--that it is a land\nwhere there are no longer any rich.\n\nA most true and truthful reply! And yet a profound error silently\nlurks in it. You imagine, do you not, that in a land where there are\nno more rich people there will also be no more poor? \"Why, of course\nnot! How can there be poor people when there are no more rich?\" And\nyet there will be. In the land where there are no more rich there will\nbe _only_ poor, only very poor, people.\n\nWhoever does not know this and is a Socialist, that man is merely one\nof the herd or he is a dupe. He who knows it and conceals it is a\ndeceiver. He who knows it, and in spite of that, nay, on account of\nthat, is a Socialist, is a man of the future.\n\nThough the crowd be satisfied with some dim feeling that this, anyhow,\nis the tendency of the times and that with this stream one must swim;\nthough the more thoughtful contemplate the evils of the time and\ndecide to put up with the _pis aller_; the responsible thinker is\nunder the obligation of investigating the land into which the people\nare being led. We must know what it looks like, where there are no\nrich people and where no one can have an income without working for\nit, we must understand what we call the \"new society\" so as to be able\nto shape it aright.\n\nFOOTNOTES:\n\n[Footnote 1: _Von Kommenden Dingen_, by Walther Rathenau. Berlin. S.\nFischer.]\n\n[Footnote 2: Workers' and Soldiers' Councils.]\n\n\n\n\nII\n\n\nThe question is not very urgent.\n\nAs surely as the hundred years' course of the social World-Revolution\ncannot be arrested, so surely can we prophesy that the process cannot\nmaintain all along the line the rapid movement of its beginning. The\nvictorious and the defeated countries will have to work out to the end\nthe changes and interchanges of their various phases, for in the\nhistorical developments which we witness to-day, we find mingled\ntogether the phenomena of organic growth and of disease; already we\nsee that the Socialism of the healthy nations is different from that\nof the sick ones. It is in vain that those who are sick with the\nBolshevist disease dream that they can infect the world.\n\nThe small daily and yearly movements in our realm of Central Europe\ncannot be determined beforehand, because they depend upon small,\naccidental, local, and external forces. The great and necessary issues\nof events can be predicted, but it would be folly to discuss their\naccidental flux and reflux. When an unguarded house is filled with\nexplosives from the cellar to the roof, then we know that it will one\nday be blown up; but whether this will happen on a Sunday or a\nMonday, in the morning or in the evening, or whether the left door\npost will be left standing or no, it would be idle to inquire.\n\nFrom the historical point of view it is of no consequence whether\nRadicalism may make an inroad here and there, or whether here and\nthere the forces of reaction and restoration may collect themselves\nfor a transitory triumph. The great movement of history, as we always\nfind when a catastrophe has worked itself out, grows slower, and this\nretardation in itself looks like reaction. We, who are not accustomed\nto catastrophes, and who did not produce this first one, but rather\nsuffered it, we, who easily get sea-sick after every rapid\nmovement--think, for instance, of the former Reichstag--we shall\ncertainly experience, as the first deep wave of the Revolution sinks\ninto us, an aristocratic, dynastic, and plutocratic Romanticism, a\nyearning for the colour and glitter of the time of glory, a revolt\nagainst the spiritless, mechanical philanthrophy of unemployed orators\nof about fourth-form standard intellectually; against the monotonous\nand insincere tirades of paid agitators and their restless disciples;\nagainst laziness; ignorance, greed, and exaggeration masquerading as\npopular scientific economy; and against the brutal and extortionate\nupthrust from below. And so we shall arrive at the reverse kind of\nfolly, an admiration and bad imitation of foreign pride and pomp, an\narrogant individualism and a hardening of our human feeling. The\nintellectual war profiteers, who are all for radicalism to-day, will\nsoon be wearing cornflowers[3] in their button-holes.\n\nFor the third time we shall see an illustration of the naive\nshamelessness of the turn-coat. The spiritual process of conversion is\nworth noticing; Paul was converted to be a converter. But the\nscurrying of the intellectual speculator from the position which has\nfailed into the position which has won, with the full intention of\nscurrying back again if necessary, and always with the claim to\ninstruct other people, is an expression of the alarming fact that life\nhas become not an affair of inward conviction, but of getting the\nright tip.\n\nThe turn-coat movement began when a shortsighted crowd, incapable of\njudgment, and with their minds clouded with a few cheap phrases,\nexpected from a quick and victorious war the strengthening of all the\nelements of Force, and feared to be left stranded. Even the most\nthreadbare kind of liberalism appeared to be compromising, they\nclamoured for \"shining armour.\" The most wretched victims in soul and\nbody, who were obliged to flee forwards because they could not flee in\nany other direction, were called heroes, and the manliest word in our\nlanguage, a word of which only the freest and the greatest are worthy,\nwas degraded. One who has experienced the hate and fury of the\nturn-coats who poured contempt upon every word against the war and the\n\"great days,\" is unable to understand how a whole people can throw\nits errors overboard without shame and sorrow--or he understands it\nonly too well. At this day we are being mocked and preached at by the\nturn-coats of the second transformation, and to-morrow we shall be\nsmiled at by those of the third.\n\nBut it does not matter. The moving forces of our epoch do not come\nfrom business offices nor from the street, the rostrum, the pulpit, or\nthe professorial chair. The noisy rush of yesterday, to-day and\nto-morrow is only the furious motion of the outermost circle, the\ncentre moves upon its way, quietly as the stars.\n\nWe have in our survey to leap over several periods of forward and\nbackward movement and we shall earn the thanks of none of them. What\nis too conservative for one will be too revolutionary for another, and\nthe aesthete will scornfully tell us that we have no fibre. When we\nshow that what awaits us is no fools' paradise, but the danger of a\ntemporary reverse of humanity and culture, then the facile Utopianist\nwill shout us down with his two parrot-phrases,[4] and when we, out of\na sense of duty, of harmony with the course of the world and\nconfidence in justice at the soul of things, tread the path of danger,\nprecipitous though it be, then we shall be scorned by all the\nworshippers of Force and despisers of mankind.\n\nBut we for our part shall not pander either to the force-worshippers\nor to the masses. We serve no powers that be. Our love goes out to the\nPeople; but the People are not a crowd at a meeting, nor a sum-total\nof interests, nor are they the newspapers or debating-clubs. The\nPeople are the waking or sleeping, the leaking, frozen, choked, or\ngushing well of the German spirit. It is with that spirit, in the\npresent and in the future, as it runs its course into the sea of\nhumanity, that we have here to do.\n\nFOOTNOTES:\n\n[Footnote 3: The emblem of the Hohenzollerns.]\n\n[Footnote 4: The reference, apparently, is to the argument that any\nchange must be for the better, and to the reliance on surplus value.\nSee pp. 13, 14.]\n\n\n\n\nIII\n\n\nThe criterion which we have indicated for the socialized society of\nthe future is a material one. But is the spiritual condition of an\nepoch to be determined by material arrangements? Is this not a\nconfession of faith in materialism?\n\nWe are speaking of a criterion, not of a prime moving force. I have no\ndesire, however, to avoid going into the material, or rather we should\nsay mechanical, interpretation of history. I have done it more than\nonce in my larger works, and for the sake of coherence I may repeat it\nin outline here.\n\nThe laws which determine individual destinies are reproduced in the\nhistory of collective movements. A man's career is not prescribed by\nhis bodily form, his expression, or his environment; but there is in\nthese things a certain connexion and parallelism, for the same laws\nwhich determine the course of his intellectual and spiritual life\nreflect themselves in bodily and practical shape. Every instant of our\nexperience, all circumstances in which we find ourselves, every limb\nthat we grow, every accident that happens to us, is an expression or\nproduct of our character. We are indeed subject to human limitations;\nwe are not at liberty to live under water or in another planet; but\nwithin these wide boundaries each of us can shape his own life. To\nobserve a man, his work, his fate, his body and expression, his\nconnexions and his marriage, his belongings and his associations, is\nto know the man.\n\nFrom this point of view all social, economic and political schemes\nbecome futile, for if man is so sovereign a being there is no need to\nlook after him. But these schemes re-acquire a relative importance\nwhen we consider the average level of man's will-power, as we meet it\nin human experience--a power which, as a rule, shows itself unable to\nmake head against a certain maximum of pressure from external\ncircumstances. And again, these schemes are really a part of the\nexpression of human will, for through them collective humanity battles\nwith its surroundings, its contemporary world, and freely shapes its\nown destinies.\n\nThe inner laws of the community harmonize with those of the\nindividuals who compose it. The fact that certain national traits of\nwill and character are conditioned or even enforced by poverty or\nwealth, soil and climate, an inland or maritime position, tends to\nobscure the fact that these external conditions are not really laid on\nthe people but have been willed by themselves. A people _wills_ to\nhave a nomadic life, or wills to have a sea-coast, or wills\nagriculture, or war; and has the power, if its will be strong enough,\nto obtain its desire, or failing that to break up and perish. It is\nthe same will and character which decides for well-being and culture,\nor indolence and dependence, or labour and spiritual development. The\nVenetians did not have architecture and painting bestowed upon them\nbecause they happened to have become rich, nor the English sea-power\nbecause they happened to live on an island: no, the Venetians willed\nfreedom, power and art, and the Anglo-Saxons willed the sea.\n\nThere is a grain of truth in the popular political belief that war\nembodies a judgment of God. At any rate character is judged by it; not\nindeed in the sense of popular politics, that one can \"hold out\" in a\nhopeless position, but because all the history that went before the\nwar, the capacity or incapacity of politics and leadership is a\nquestion of character--and with us it was a question of indolence, of\npolitical apathy, of class-rule, philistinish conceit and greed of\ngain. Nowhere was this conception of the judgment of God so\nblasphemously exaggerated as with us Germans, when the lord of our\narmed hosts, at the demand of the barracks greedy for power, of the\ntavern-benches, the state-bureaus and the debating societies was\nsummoned, and charged with the duty, forsooth, of chastising\nEngland--England, which they only knew out of newspaper reports!\nTo-day this exaggeration is being paid for in humiliation, for God did\nnot prove controllable, and His naive blasphemers must silently and\nwith grinding teeth admit that their foes are in the right when they,\nin their turn, appeal to the same judgment to justify, without limit,\neverything they desire to do.\n\nAfter these brief observations on the psycho-physical complex, Spirit\nand Destiny, we hope we shall not be misunderstood when for the sake\nof brevity we speak as if the spirit of the new order were determined\nby its material construction, while in reality it incorporates itself\ntherein. The structure is the easier to survey, and we therefore make\nit the starting-point of our discussion.\n\n\n\n\nIV\n\n\nAll civilisations known to us have sprung from peoples which were\nnumerous, wealthy and divided into two social strata. They reached\ntheir climax at the moment when the two strata began to melt into one.\n\nIt is not enough, therefore, that a people should be numerous and\nwealthy; it must, with all its wealth and its power, contain a large\nproportion of poor and even oppressed and enslaved subjects. If it has\nnot got these, it must master and make use of other foreign cultures\nas a substitute. That is what Rome did; it is what America is doing.\n\nIt is terrible, but comprehensible. For up to this point the\nunconscious processes of Nature, the law of mutual strife, has\nprevailed. So far, collective organizations have been beasts of prey;\nonly now are they about to cross the boundaries of the human order.\n\nComprehensible and explicable. For all creations of culture hold\ntogether; one cannot pursue the cheaper varieties while renouncing the\nmore costly. There is no cheap culture. In their totality they demand\noutlay, the most tremendous outlay known to history, the only outlay\nby which human toil is recompensed, over and above the supply of\nabsolute necessaries.\n\nThe creations of civilisation, like all things living and dead, follow\non each other--plants, men, beasts and utensils have their sequence\ngeneration after generation. Men must paint and look at pictures for\nten thousand years before a new picture comes into existence. Our\npoetry and our research are the fruit of thousands of years. This is\nno disparagement to genius in work and thought, genius is at once new,\nancient and eternal, even as the blossom is a new thing on the old\nstem, and belongs to an eternal type. When we hear that a native in\nCentral Africa or New Zealand has produced an oil-painting we know\nthat somehow or other he must have got to Paris. When a European\nartist writes or paints in Tahiti, what he produces is not a work of\nTahitian culture. When civilisation has withered away on some\nsterilized soil, it can only be revived by new soil and foreign seed.\n\nThe continuity of culture, even in civilized times, can only, however,\nbe maintained by constant outlay, just as in arid districts a\nluxuriant vegetation needs continuous irrigation. The flood of\nOriental wealth had to pour itself into Italy in order to bring forth\nthe bloom of Renaissance art. Thousands of patricians, hundreds of\ntemporal and spiritual princes, had to found and to adorn temples and\npalaces, gardens, monuments, pageants, games and household goods in\norder that art and science, schooling, mastership, discipleship and\ntradition might grow up. The worship of foreign culture which\ncharacterized Germany in the seventeenth and half of the eighteenth\ncenturies only meant that our soil was grown too poor to yield a crop\nof its own. The culture of the Middle Ages remained international only\nso long as the population of Europe was too sparse and the\nopportunities of work too scanty to occupy local energies; even in the\nthinly populated, Homeric middle-ages of Greece, the builder and the\npoet were not settled in one place, they were wandering artists. If\nto-day the Republic of Guatemala or Honduras should want a\nsenate-house or a railway-station they will probably send to London or\nParis for an architect.\n\nEven technique in handicraft and industry, that typical art of\ncivilization, cannot dispense with a great and continuous outlay on\ntraining, commissioning and marketing in order to maintain itself.\nAlthough it has not happened yet, there is no reason why a Serb or a\nSlovak should not make some important discovery if he has been trained\nat a European University and learnt the technical tradition. That will\nnot, however, give rise to an independent and enduring Serbian or\nSlovakian technique, even though the costliest Universities and\nlaboratories should be established in the country and foreign teachers\ncalled to teach in them. After all that, one must have a market in the\ncountry itself; expert purchasers, manufacturers, middle-men, a\ntrained army of engineers, craftsmen, masters, workmen and a foreign\nmarket as well--in short, the technical atmosphere--in order to keep\nup the standard of manufacture and production.\n\nA poor country cannot turn out products of high value for a rich one;\nit has not had the education arising from demand. In products relating\nto sport and to comfort, for instance, England was a model, but in\nFrance these products were ridiculously misunderstood and imitated\nwith silly adornments, while on the other hand French products of\nluxury and art-industry were sought for by all countries. German wares\nwere considered to be cheap and nasty, until the land grew rich, and\nbrought about the co-operation of its forces of science and technique,\nproduction and marketing, auxiliary industries and remote profits,\nfinance and commerce, education and training, judgment and criticism,\nhabits of life and a sense of comparative values.\n\nBut human forces need the same nurture, the same outlay and the same\nhigh training, as institutions and material products. Delicate work\ndemands sensitive hands and a sheltered way of life; discovery and\ninvention demand leisure and freedom; taste demands training and\ntradition, scientific thinking and artistic conception demand an\nenvironment with an unbroken continuity of cultivation, thought and\nintelligence. A dying civilisation can live for a while on the\nexisting humus of culture, on the existing atmosphere of thought, but\nto create anew these elements of life is beyond its powers.\n\nDo not let us deceive ourselves, but look the facts in the face! All\nthese excellent Canadians, with or without an academic degree, who\ninnocently pride themselves on a proletarian absence of prejudice, are\nadoptive children of a plutocratic and aristocratic cultivation. It is\nall the same even if they lay aside their stiff collars and\neye-glasses; their every word and argument, their forms of thought,\ntheir range of knowledge, their strongly emphasized intellectuality\nand taste for art and science, their whole handiwork and industry, are\nan inheritance from what they supposed they had cast off and a tribute\nto what they pretend to despise. Genuine radicalism is only to be\nrespected when it understands the connexion of things and is not\nafraid of consequences. It must understand--and I shall make it\nclear--that its rapid advance will kill culture; and the proper\nconclusion is that it ought to despise culture, not to sponge on it.\nThe early Christians abolished all the heathen rubbish and\nabominations, the early Radicals would have hurried, in the first\ninstance, to pick out the plums.\n\nCulture and civilization, as we see, demand a continuous and enormous\noutlay; an outlay in leisure, an outlay in working power, an outlay in\nwealth. They need patronage and a market, they need the school, they\nneed models, tradition, comparison, judgment, intelligence,\ncultivation, disposition, the right kind of nursery--an atmosphere.\nOne who stands outside it can serve it, often more powerfully with\nhis virgin strength than one who is accustomed to it--but he must be\ncarried along and animated by the breath of the same atmosphere.\nCulture and civilization require a rich soil.\n\nBut the richness of the soil is not sufficient; culture must be based\nupon, and increased by, contrast. Wealth must have at its disposal\ngreat numbers of men who are poor and dependent. How otherwise shall\nthe outlay of culture be met? One man must have many at his disposal;\nbut how can he, if they are all his equals? The outlay will be large,\nbut it must be feasible; how can it, if the labour of thousands is not\ncheap? The few, the exalted, must develop power and splendour, they\nmust offer types for imitation: how can they do that without a\nretinue, without spectators, without the herd? A land of well-being,\nthat is to say, of equally distributed well-being, remains petty and\nprovincial. When a State and its authorities, councils of solid and\nthrifty members of societies for this or that, take over the office of\na Maecenas or a Medici, with their proposals, their calculations, their\nobjections, their control, then we get things that look like\nwar-memorials, waiting-rooms, newspaper-kiosks and drinking-saloons.\nIt was not always so? No; but even in the most penurious times it was\nkings who were the patrons.\n\nBut if culture is such a poison-flower, if it flourishes only in the\nswamp of poverty and under the sun of riches, it must and ought to be\ndestroyed. Our sentiment will no longer endure the happiness and\nbrilliance of the few growing out of the misery of the many; the days\nof the senses are over, and the day of conscience is beginning to\ndawn.\n\nAnd now a timid and troubled puritanism makes itself heard: Is there\nno middle way? Will not half-measures suffice? No, it will not do; let\nthis be said once for all as plainly as possible, you champions of the\nsupply of \"bare necessities\" who talk about \"daily bread\" and want to\nbutter it with the \"noblest pleasures of art.\" It will not do!\n\nNo, half-measures will not do, nor quarter-measures. They might, if\nthe whole world, the sick, the healthy and the bloated all together\nwere of the same mind as ourselves. In Moscow it is said that people\nare expecting the world-revolution every hour, but the world declines\nto oblige. Therefore, if culture and civilization are to remain what\nthey were, is there nothing for it but with one wrench to tear the\npoisoned garment from our body? Or--is there then an \"or\"? Let us see.\nWe have a long way before us. First of all we must know how rich or\nhow poor we and the world are going to be, on the day when there will\nbe no income without working for it and no rich people any more.\n\nIf our economic system made us self-supporting we might arrange\nmatters on the model of the Boer Republic which had all it needed, and\nnow and then traded a load of ostrich feathers for coffee and hymn\nbooks. But we, alas! in order to find nourishment for twenty\nmillions[5] have to export blood and brains. And if, in order to buy\nphosphates, we offer cotton stockings and night-caps as the highest\nproducts of our artistic energies, and declare that they are all the\nsoundest hand-work--for in our \"daily bread\" economy we shall have\nlong forgotten how to work such devil's tools as the modern\nknitting-machine--then people will reply to us: in the first place we\ndon't want night-caps, and if we did we can supply them for one-tenth\nof the cost; and our cotton goods will be sent back to us as\nunsaleable.\n\nA world-trade, even of modest dimensions, can only be carried on upon\nthe basis of high technical accomplishment, but this height of\naccomplishment cannot be attained on the basis of any penny-wise\neconomy. Whoever wills the part must also will the whole, but to this\nwhole belongs not merely the conception of a technique, but of a\ncivilization, and indeed of a culture. One might as well demand of a\nmusic-hall orchestra which plays ragtime all the year round that once\nin the year, and once only, on Good Friday, it should pull itself\ntogether to give an adequate performance of the Passion Music of Bach.\n\n\nFOOTNOTES:\n\n[Footnote 5: By this figure the author seems to be referring to the\npopulation of the impoverished Germany of the future if the course of\nSocialism proceeds on wrong lines.]\n\n\n\n\nV\n\n\nFor some decades Germany will be one of the poorest of countries. How\npoor she will be does not depend on herself alone, but on the power\nand the will for mischief of others--who hate us.\n\nHowever, poverty and wealth are relative terms; Germans are still\nricher on the average than their forefathers; richer than the Romans\nor Greeks. The standard of well-being is set by the best-off of the\ncompetitors, for he it is who determines the current standard of\ntechnique and industry, the methods of production, the minimum of\nlabour and skill. We cannot, as we have already seen, keep aloof from\nworld-competition, for Germany needs cheap goods. We must therefore\ntry to keep step so far as we can.\n\nEven if we shut our eyes and take no more account of our debt to\nforeign lands than we do of the war-tribute, we must admit that the\naverage standard of well-being in America far surpasses the German.\nGoods are not so dear as with us, and the wages of the skilled worker\namounts to between seven and ten dollars a day--more than 100 marks in\nour money; and many artisans drive to their workshops in their own\nautomobiles.\n\nIf, now, we ask our Radicals how they envisage the problem of\ncompetition with such a country, which in one generation will be\ntwenty-or thirty-fold as rich as we are, they will blurt out a few\nsentences in which we shall catch the word \"Soviet system,\" \"surplus\nvalue,\"[6] \"world revolution.\" But in truth the question will never\noccur to them--it is not ventilated at public meetings.\n\nAmong themselves they talk, albeit without much conviction, about\n\"surplus value\"--which has nothing whatever to do with the present\nquestion, and in regard to which it has been proved to them often\nenough that so far as it can be made use of at all, it only means\nabout a pound of butter extra per head of the population.\n\nThe economic superiority of the Western powers, however, goes on\ngrowing, inasmuch as to all appearance they are getting to work\nseriously to establish the new economy (which we have buried) in the\nform of State Socialism. A healthy, or what is to-day the same thing,\na victorious economy, does not leap over any of its stages; it will\nwork gradually through the apparently longer, but constant, movement\nfrom Capitalism to State Socialism and thence to full Socialism; while\nwe, it seems, want to take a shortcut, and to miss out the intervening\nstage. And we lose so much time and energy in restless fluctuations\nforward and backward, hither and thither, that this leap in advance\nmay fall short.\n\nIf anything could be more stupid and calamitous than the war itself it\nwas the time when it broke out. There was one thing which the big\ncapitalism of the world was formed to supply, which it was able to\nsupply, and, in fact, was supplying: the thing which not only\njustified capitalism, but showed it to be an absolutely necessary\nstage in the development of a denser population. This was the\nenrichment of the peoples, the rapid, and even anticipatory\nrestoration of equilibrium between the growing population and the\nindispensable increase in the means of production; in other words,\ngeneral well-being. The unbroken progress of America, and the almost\nunbroken progress of England will demonstrate that in one, or at most\ntwo, generations the power of work and the output of mechanism would\nhave risen to such a pitch that we could have done anything we liked\nin the direction of lightening human labour and reconciling social\nantagonisms.\n\nAlas, it was in vain! The rapid advance to prosperity of the people of\nCentral Europe, who had been accustomed to thrift and economy, went to\ntheir heads; they fell victims to the poison of capitalism and of\nmechanism; they were unable, like America in its youthful strength, to\nmake their new circumstances deepen their sense of responsibility; in\ntheir greedy desire to store as much as possible of the heavenly manna\nin their private barns they abandoned their destinies to a\nsuperannuated, outworn feudal class and to aspiring magnates of the\nbourgeoisie; they would not be taught by political catastrophes, and\nat last, in the catastrophe of the war, they lost at once their\nimaginary hopes, their traditional power and the economic basis of\ntheir existence.\n\nThose who are now pursuing a policy of desperation are unconsciously\nbuilding their hopes on the breakdown which brought them to the top:\nthey are avowedly making the hoped-for revolution in the West the\ncentral point of their system. If the West holds out, they will be\nfalse prophets; but it will not only hold out, it will in the\nbeginning at all events, witness a great and passionate uprising of\nimperialistic and capitalistic tendencies. If there is any one who did\nnot understand that a policy based on hopes of other peoples'\nbankruptcy is the most flimsy and frivolous of all policies, he might\nwell have learned it from the war.\n\nGermany must forge her own destinies for herself, without side-glances\nat the good or ill fortune of others. Had time only been given us to\npass naturally from the stage of a prolonged and corrupted childhood\ninto that of a manly responsibility, our ultimate recovery would be\nassured. But we have to accomplish in months what ought to be the\nevolution of decades; our national training has left us without\nconvictions, we have no eye for the true boundaries of rights, claims\nand responsibilities, and we hesitate as to how far we must or ought\nto go. Unprepared, weakened, impoverished and sick, we are required,\nat the most unlucky moment, to work out a new and unprecedented order\nof life. Before even the educated classes are capable of forming a\njudgment on the question, the most incapable masses of the rawest\nyouth, of the lowest classes of society, are let loose, and sit upon\nthe judgment-seat.\n\nIt is not only that we have been rich and have become very poor, but\nwe were always politically immature, and are so still. If the order of\nSociety is to be that of root-and-branch Socialism, it will mean the\nproletarian condition for all of us, and for a long time to come.\nThere is no use in flattering ourselves and painting the future better\nthan it is; the truth must be spoken with all plainness. If we work\nhard, and under capable guidance, each of us will at most have an\neffective income of 500 marks in pre-war values, or, say, 2000 marks\nfor the family. This average will be higher if we proceed on the\nprinciples of the New Economy,[7] but again will be reduced by the\nnecessity for allowing extra pay for work of higher value. If to-day\nthe average income available is markedly higher than the above, the\nreason is that we are living on our capital; we are living on the\nproducts of work which ought to be reserved for the maintenance and\nrenewal of the means of production; in other words we are exhausting\nthe soil and slaughtering our stock. We are also consuming what\nforeign countries give us on credit; in other words, we are living on\nborrowed money.\n\nIt is childish lying and deception to act on the tacit assumption that\nthoroughgoing Socialism means something like a garden-city idyll, with\nplay-houses, open-air theatres, excursions, picturesque raiment and\nfire-side art. This in itself quite decent ideal of the average\narchitect, art-craftsman and art-reformer if expressed in dry figures\nwould, \"at the lowest estimate\" as they say, demand about fivefold the\ncapacity for production attainable by the utmost exertions and with a\nten hours' day _before the war_--before the downfall of our economy\nand our exploitation by the enemy.\n\nTo place one-third of our working-class in decent, freehold dwellings\nwould alone, if the material and means of production sufficed, require\nthe whole working-capacity of the country for two years. Even after\nthe last manufacturer's villa-residence, the last palace-hotel, have\nlong been turned into tenements, the solution of the most urgent part\nof the housing-question will still be an affair of decades. For the\nsake of the last remnant of our self-respect we must finally tear\nasunder that web of economic falsehood, woven out of ignorance, mental\nlethargy, concealment and illusion, which has taken the place of the\npolitical. Let us see any one attempt to prove that Germany can carry\non, I do not say a well-off, but even a petty tradesman's kind of\nexistence, unless our means of production can by some stroke of magic\nbe multiplied tenfold--on paper it can be done with ease--or unless\nthe production value (not turnover), which an adult working-man can\nwith the utmost exertion bring into being in the course of a year does\nnot many times exceed the average value of 2000 marks.\n\nNo doubt the young folk of our big cities promise themselves a merry\ntime for six weeks when they have got power, the shops, the wardrobes\nand the wine-cellars into their hands. For the leaders, it may last a\nlittle longer than for the rank-and-file. And then, for those of the\nformer who have any sense of honesty, will come a question of\nconscience, which may be delayed by printing paper-money, but cannot\nbe solved by any appeal to the people.\n\nIf Bolshevism were the contrary to what it is--if it were a success, a\nthing not absolutely impossible in a peasant-State, we might\nunderstand the self-assurance of those who, in opposition to our\nforecast, expect everything from the will of the people, the Soviet\nsystem and the inspirations of the future. We do understand it in the\ncase of the drawing-room communists, and the profiteer-extremists who\nare out not for the cause, but for power, and perhaps only for\nmaterial objects.\n\nI know that by these observations I am favouring the cause of those\nsorry dignitaries of a day, the Majority Socialists, but I cannot help\nthat. The truth is not false because it favours one party, nor is\nfalsehood truth because it harms the other. The Socialism now in\npower is doing the right thing, although it is doing it out of\nignorance and helplessness--it is waiting, and getting steam up. It is\nbetter to do the right thing out of error than to do the wrong thing\nout of wisdom. Out of error: for besides omitting to do what ought not\nto be done it also omits the things it ought to do--among others, the\nintroduction of the New Economy.[8] It is like mankind before the\nFall; it does not know good from evil, what is useful and what is\nnoxious, what can be done and what cannot. Well--let it take its time;\nit shall have time enough.\n\nThis time must be turned to good account. When we have come to the end\nof these observations we shall understand what a huge task lies\nbetween us and the realization of the new social order. In this case\nthe longest way round is the shortest way home. And even if Germany\nshould choose the mountain road with its broad loops and windings, we\nshall stray often enough, and go backward now and then; while if, in\nimpatient revolt, we try to climb straight up, we shall slip down\nlower than where we started. Let us never forget how mysteriously our\nsocial and political immaturity seems to be bound up with our once\nlofty and even now remarkable intellectuality and morality.[9] We have\nnot won our liberties, they have fallen into our laps; it was by the\ngeneral breakdown, by a strike, by a flight, that Germany and her\nformer rulers have parted company. These liberties, social and\npolitical, are not rooted in the soil, they can hardly be said to be\nprized among the treasures of life, it is not their ideal, but their\nmaterial side which attracts us. Those who used to shout Hurrah! now\ncry \"All power to the Soviets!\" and the day will come when they will\nagain shout Hurrah! Then we shall witness a real sundering of our\ndifferent visions of the world, visions now buried under a mass of\ninterests and speculations.\n\nIn any case, whether the change is to be catastrophic or evolutionary,\nthe journey will be a long one, and every attempt to hurry it will\nonly prolong it further; it will throw us back for years, or it may be\ndecades. Above all things, we must know whither we are going. In order\nto adapt ourselves to a new form of society we must know what it _may_\nlook like, what it _ought_ to look like, and what it _will_ look like.\nWe shall find that Germany is not going to be landed in an earthly\nParadise, but in a world of toil, and one which for a long period will\nbe a world of poverty, of a penurious civilization and of a\ndeeply-endangered culture. The unproved, parrot-phrases of a cheap\nUtopianism will grow dumb--those phrases which offer us entrance into\nthe usual Garden of Eden with its square-cut, machine-made culture and\ngaudy, standardized enjoyments--phrases which assure us that when we\nhave introduced the six-hours' working day and abolished private\nproperty, the cinema horrors will be replaced by classical concerts,\nthe gin-shops by popular reading-rooms, the gaming-hells by edifying\nlectures, highway robberies by gymnastic exercises, detective novels\nby Gottfried Keller, bazaar-trifles and comic vulgarities by works of\nrefined handicraft; and that out of boxing contests, racecourse\nbetting, bomb exercises, and profiteering in butter, we shall see the\nrise of an era of humility and philanthropy.\n\nIn the Promised Land as we conceive it, the classes which are now the\nbearers of German culture will lose almost everything, while the gain\nof the proletariat will be scarcely visible. And yet for the sake of\nthis scarcely visible gain we must tread the stony path that lies\nbefore us. Willingly and joyfully shall we tread it; for out of this,\nat first, dubious conquest of equal rights for all men will grow the\nmight of justice, of human dignity, of human solidarity and unity.\n\nThat is truly work for a century, and yet for that very reason the\nhard path will lead to its reward. We must learn to know it, and to\nunderstand that it is a path of sacrifice. We must not accept the\ninvitation of fools to a Christmas party--fools who will make the\nwelkin ring with their outcries when they find out their\nself-deception. Let us tread our path of suffering with a pride which\ndisdains to be consoled by illusions.\n\nFOOTNOTES:\n\n[Footnote 6: By surplus-value (_Mehrwert_) the author means all that\nis produced above and beyond the bare necessities of life.]\n\n[Footnote 7: _Die Neue Wirtschaft_, by Walther Rathenau (S. Fischer).\nIn this brief study, Rathenau urges (1) the unification and\nstandardization of the whole of German industry and commerce in one\ngreat Trust, working under a State charter, and armed with very\nextensive powers; and (2) a great intensification of the application\nof science and mechanism to production.]\n\n[Footnote 8: See p. 37, _note_.]\n\n[Footnote 9: Morality, _Sittlichkeit_, a word of broader meaning than\n\"morality,\" for it comprehends not only matters of ethical right and\nwrong, but the general temper and habit of mind of a people as\nexpressed in social life.]\n\n\n\n\nVI\n\n\nIn order to throw some light into the obscurity of that social\ndreamland which no one seriously discusses because no one honestly\nbelieves in it, let us, as it were, cut out and examine a section from\nthe fully socialized Germany of the future. Let us suppose that\ncertain economic and social conditions have lasted for a generation or\nso, and have therefore become more or less stabilized. At a normal\nrate of progress this state of things should be reached about the end\nof this century.\n\nTo begin with, let us make two very optimistic assumptions--first,\nthat technical progress in Germany shall have developed to a point at\nwhich we are no longer impossibly outclassed and distanced by foreign\nnations, and, secondly, that by a timely and far-reaching reform of\neducation and culture (the lowest cost of which must be set down at\nabout three milliards of marks) the complete breakdown of civilisation\nmay be averted. This reform is one which must be taken in hand very\nearly, for _after_ the event its adoption is improbable. A third, less\noptimistic but on that account more probable assumption may be added\nto this--namely, that the Western countries shall have progressed\ntowards Socialism more steadily and therefore more slowly, and that\nat the period of our comparison America shall find itself at the stage\nof State-Socialism, not of full socialization. We know that in making\nthis assumption we are smoothing the way for attack to our\nprofessional opponents, uncritical and self-interested, who with one\nblast of the fanfare of world-revolution can scatter our further\nobservations to the winds.\n\nFull Socialism is characterized, as we have seen, by the abolition of\nall incomes that are not worked for, and the fact that there are no\nmore rich. But this criterion must be limited in its application, for\nit can never be fully realized.\n\nAccording to the theory and the laws every one must hold some\nappointment and be paid for his work, or for not working. What he is\npaid, however, he can at will utilize, or waste, or hoard up, or give,\nor gamble away, or destroy. He cannot invest it, or get interest on it\nor turn into capital, because these private undertakings or means of\nproduction will no longer exist.\n\nNow each of these assumptions is so shaky that not only must trifling\ndivergences and shortcomings be winked at, but the meshes of the\nsystem are so wide that only a rough approximation to the ideal is\npossible.\n\nIt is true that every one can be made to hold some appointment and be\npaid for some minimum of work, but no one can be prevented from\ndevoting his leisure hours to some work of rare quality and turning it\ninto value for his own purposes. He can make himself useful by\nsubsidiary employment of an artistic, scientific or technical\ncharacter, by rendering services or assistance of various kinds, by\nadvising, or entertaining, or acting as a guide to strangers, or going\non employment abroad, and no law can prevent him from turning his\nservices into income even if he was merely paid in kind. Gaming and\nbetting will flourish and many will grow rich by them. A man who has\nlost his money and who has exhausted his rights to an advance from the\npublic institutions for that object will have recourse to lenders who\nwill supply him with bread and meat and clothes, and who will make\nmoney by it. Similarly with people who are tempted to make\nacquisitions beyond their standard remuneration. On every side we\nshall see private stores of goods of all kinds, which will take the\nplace of property as formerly understood.\n\nThere will be an enormous temptation to smuggling and profiteering\nwhich will reach a height far surpassing all scandals of the war and\nrevolution periods. Foreigners and their agents, who look after the\nexport trade \"from Government to Government,\" will help hoarders and\nsavers to turn their goods to account. Suppose citizens are attacked\nbecause their senseless expenditure is a mockery of their legal\nremuneration, they will say: I got this from friends--that I got by\nexchange--this came from abroad--my relatives in America sent me that.\nLaw, control, terrorism, are effective just so long as there is not a\nblade of grass in the land--once remove the fear of hunger and they\nare useless. Great properties will arise, drawing interest both abroad\nand at home, and they will grow by evasions and bribery. The\nprofiteer, the true child of the \"great days,\" will not perish from\nthe land, on the contrary, he will grow tougher the more he is\npersecuted, he will be the rich man of the future, and he will form a\nconstant political danger if he and his fellows combine.\n\nSo long as we have not acquired an entirely new mentality, one which\ndetaches men from possessions, which points them towards the Law,\nwhich binds the passions, and sharpens the conscience, so long will\nthe principle of \"No rich people and no workless income\" have to be\ncontracted into the formula, \"There ought to be none.\"\n\nWithout this profound alteration of mentality, even the legally\nprescribed incomes will exhibit quite grotesque variations, and will\nadapt themselves to the rarity-value of special gifts, to\nindispensable qualities, to favouritism, with a crudity quite unknown\nto-day. A scarcity of Ministers, a Professor's nourishment, and\nsoldiers' supplies, will then as now be met according to the law of\nsupply and demand. Consider what ten years' practice in the war for\nwages and strike-management, with the public in it as partisans, will\nbring with it in the way of favouritisms, celebrities, and\nindispensabilities. Popular jockeys, successful surgeons, managers of\nsports' clubs, tenors, demimondaines, farce-writers and champion\nathletes could, even to-day, if they were class-conscious and joined\ntogether to exploit their opportunities, demand any income they liked.\nEven as a matter of practical political economy, the cinema-star (or\nwhatever may succeed her) will be able to prescribe to the Government\nwhat amount of adornments, drawn from Nature or Art, are necessary for\nher calling, and what standard of life she must maintain in order to\nkeep herself in the proper mood.\n\nOrganizers, popular leaders, authors and artists will announce and\nenforce their demands to the full limit of their rarity-value. At a\nconsiderable distance below these come the acquired and more or less\ntransferable powers and talents. The Russians for the first few months\nbelieved in a three-fold order of allowances, rising within a limit of\nabout one to two. If the ideas now prevailing have not undergone a\nradical change, then we may, in the society of the future, look for\ndivergences of income in the limit of one to a thousand.\n\nTherefore the principle that there shall be no more rich people must\nagain be substantially limited. We must say, \"There will be people\nreceiving extraordinary incomes in kind to which must be added the\nclaims to personal service which these favoured persons will lay down\nas conditions of their work.\"\n\nIn its external, arithmetical structure, the fabric of life and its\nrequirements in the new order will resemble that of to-day far more\nclosely than most of us imagine--on the other hand, the inward and\npersonal constitution of man will be far more different. Already we\ncan observe the direction of the movement.\n\nExtravagance and luxury will continue to exist, and those who practise\nit will be, as they are to-day, and more than to-day, the profiteers,\nthe lucky ones, and the adventurers. Excessive wealth will be more\nrepulsive than it is now; whether it will be less valued depends upon\nthe state of public ethics, a topic which we shall have to consider\nlater. It is probable that in defiance of all legislation wealth will\nturn itself into expenditure and enjoyment more rapidly and more\nrecklessly than to-day.\n\nBut the relics of middle-class well-being will by that time have been\nconsumed; the families which for generations have visibly incorporated\nthe German spirit will less than others contrive to secure special\nadvantages by profiteering and evading the laws; as soon as their\nmodest possessions are taxed away or consumed they will melt into the\ngeneral mass of needy people who will form the economic average of the\nfuture.\n\nThe luxury which will exhibit itself in streets and houses will have a\ndubious air; every one will know that there is something wrong with\nit, people will spy and denounce, and find to their disgust that\nnothing can be proved; the well-off will be partly despised, partly\nenvied; the question how to suppress evasions of the law will take up\na good half of all public discussions, just as that of capitalism does\nnow. The hateful sight of others' prosperity cannot, even at home,\nnot to mention foreign countries, be withdrawn from the eyes of the\nneedy masses; capitalism will have merely acquired another name and\nother representatives.\n\nThe fact that the average of more or less cultivated and responsible\nfolk are plunged in poverty will not be accepted as the consequence of\nan unalterable natural law, nor as a case of personal misfortune; it\nwill be set down to bad government, and the rising revolutionary\nforces of the fifth, sixth and seventh classes will nourish the\nprevailing discontent in favour of a new revolt. For the greater\nuniformity of the average way of life and its general neediness will\nnot in itself abolish the division of classes. I have already often\nenough pointed out that no mechanical arrangements can avail us here.\n\nAt first there will be three, or more probably four classes who, in\nspite of poverty, will not dissolve in the masses, and who, through\ntheir coherence and their intellectual heritage are by no means\nwithout power. The Bolshevist plan of simply killing them out will not\nbe possible in Germany, they are relatively too numerous; persecution\nwill weld them closer together, and their traditional experiences,\nhabits of mind, and capacity, will make it necessary to have recourse\nto them and employ them again and again.\n\nThe first of these classes is that of the feudal nobility. Their\nancient names cannot be rooted out of the history of Germany, and even\nin their poverty the bearers of these names will be respected--all\nthe more if, as we may certainly assume, they maintain the effects of\ntheir bodily discipline, and the visible tradition of certain forms of\nlife and thought. They will be strengthened by their mutual\nassociation, their relationship with foreign nobility will give them\nimportant functions in diplomacy; these are two elements which they\nhave in common with Catholicism and Judaism. They will retain their\ninclination and aptitude for the calling of arms and for\nadministration; their reactionary sentiments will lead now to success,\nnow to failure, and by both the inner coherence of the class will be\nfortified. Finally, the inevitable reversion to an appreciation of the\nromantic values of life will make a connexion with names of ancient\nlineage desirable to the leading classes, and especially to the\naristocracy of officialism.\n\nThis aristocracy of officialism forms the second of the new strata\nwhich will come to light. The first office-bearers of the new era, be\ntheir achievements great or small, are not to be forgotten. Their\ndescendants are respected as the bearers of well-known names; in their\nfamilies the practice of politics, the knowledge of persons and\nconnexions are perpetuated; fathers, in their lifetime, look after the\ninterests of sons and daughters and launch them on the same path. From\nthese, and from the first stratum, the representatives of Germany in\nforeign lands are chosen, and in this way a certain familiarity with\ninternational life and society will be maintained. They will have the\nprovision necessary for their position abroad, and will also find\nways and means to keep up a higher standard of life at home. Persons\nin possession of irregular means of well-being will offer a great deal\nto establish connexions with these circles, which control so many\nlevers in the machine of State.\n\nThe third group consists of the descendants of what was once the\nleading class in culture and in economics. Here we find a spirit\nsimilar to that of the refugees, _emigres_ and Huguenots of the past.\nThe lower they sink in external power, the more tenaciously they hold\nto their memories. Every family knows every other and cherishes the\nlustre of its name, a lustre augmented by legendary recollections, all\nthe more when the achievements of their class are ostentatiously\nignored in the new social order. People spare and save to the last\nextremity in order to preserve and hand down some heirloom--a musical\ninstrument, a library, a manuscript, a picture or two. A puritanical\nthrift is exercised in order, as far as possible, to maintain\neducation, culture and intellectuality on the old level; to this class\nculture, refinement of life as an end in itself, the practice of\nreligion, classical music, and artistic feeling will fly for refuge.\nNo other class understands this one; it holds itself aloof, it looks\ndifferent from the rest in its occupations, its habits, its garb and\nits forms of life. It supplies the new order with its scholars, its\nclergy, its higher teaching power, its representatives of the most\ndisinterested and intellectual callings. Like the monasteries of the\nMiddle Ages, it forms an island of the past. Its influence rises and\nfalls periodically, according to the current ideas of the time, but\nits position is assured by its voluntary sacrifices, by its knowledge\nand by the purity of its motives.\n\nA fourth inexpugnable and influential stratum will in all probability\nbe formed by the middle-class landowners and the substantial peasants.\nEven though the socialization of the land should be radically carried\nthrough--which is not likely to be the case--it will remain on paper.\nA class of what may be called State-tenants, estate-managers, or\nleaders of co-operative organizations will very much resemble a\nlandowning class. Its traditional experience and the ties that bind it\nto the soil make it a closed and well-defined body, self-conscious and\nmasterful through the importance of its calling, its indispensability\nand its individualism. It suffers no dictation as regards its manner\nof life. Here we shall see the conservative traditions of the country\nstrongly mustered for defence, incapable of being eliminated as a\npolitical force, and forming a counterpoise to the radical democracy\nof the towns.\n\nEverywhere we find a state of strain and of cleavage. The\nsingle-stratum condition of society cannot be reached without a\nprofound inward change; politics are still stirred and shaken by\nconflicts, and society by the strife of classes. A very different\npicture from the promised Utopian Paradise of a common feeding-ground\nfor lions and sheep!\n\nWe are all aggrieved by the illegal opulence of the profiteers, but we\nare all liable to the infection. The feudalistic Fronde awaits its\nopportunity. The aristocracy of office endeavours to monopolize the\nState-machine. The _emigres_ of culture find themselves looked askance\nat, on suspicion of intellectual arrogance, and they insist that the\ncountry cannot get on without them. The agriculturalists are feared,\nwhen they show a tendency to revolt against the towns. The ruling\nclass, that is to say the more or less educated masses of the\ncity-democracy, looks in impatient discontent for the state of general\nwell-being which refuses to be realized, lays the blame alternately on\nthe four powerful strata and on the profiteers, and fights now this\ngroup now that, for better conditions of living.\n\nBut the conditions of living do not improve--they get worse. The level\nof the nation's output has been sinking from the first day of the\nRevolution onwards. The absolute productivity of work, the relative\nefficacy and the quality of the product, have all deteriorated. With a\nsmaller turnover we have witnessed a falling-off in the excellence of\nthe goods, in research-work, and in finish. Industrial plant has been\nworked to death and has not yet recovered. Auxiliary industries,\naccessories and raw materials have fallen back. High-quality\nworkmanship has suffered from defective schooling, youthful\nindiscipline and the loss of manual dexterity. The new social order\nhas lost a generation of leaders in technique, scholarship and\neconomics. Universities, with all institutions of research and\neducation, have suffered from this blank. Technical leadership is\ngone, and the deterioration in quality has reacted detrimentally on\noutput. We can now turn out nothing except what is cheap and easy, and\nwhat can be produced without traditional skill of hand, without\nserious calculation and research. For all innovations, all work of\nsuperior quality, Germany is dependent on the foreigner. The\natmosphere of technique has vanished, and the stamp of cheap hireling\nlabour is on the whole output of the country.\n\nIn the weeks of the Revolution street orators used to tell us that\nfive hundred Russian professors had signed a statement that the level\nof culture had never been so high as under Bolshevism. And Berlin\nbelieved them! To educate Russia it would take, to begin with, a\nmillion elementary schools with a yearly budget of several dozen\nmilliards of roubles, and a corresponding number of higher schools and\nuniversities: if every educated Russian for the next twenty years were\nto become a teacher, there would not be enough of them--not to speak\nof the requirements of transport, of raw materials and of agriculture.\nThe fabric of a civilization and a culture cannot be annihilated at\none blow, nor can it grow up save in decades and centuries. The\nmaintenance of the structure demands unceasing toil and unbroken\ntradition; the breach that has been made in it in Germany can only be\nhealed by the application in manifold forms of work, intellect and\nwill; and this hope we cannot entertain.[10]\n\nBut we have not yet done with the question of social strata and inward\ncleavage. Revolutionary threats are causing strife every day.\nRevolution against revolution--how is this possible? We are not\nspeaking of a reactionary revolution but of the \"activist.\"\n\nIn an earlier work I discussed the theory of continuous\nrevolution.[11] Behind every successful revolutionary movement there\nstands another, representing one negation more than its predecessor.\nBehind the revolt of the aristocracy stood that of the bourgeoisie,\nbehind that of the bourgeoisie stood Socialism. Behind the now ruling\nfourth class[12] rises the fifth, and a sixth is coming into sight. If\na ninth should represent pure Anarchism, we may see an eleventh\nproclaiming a dictatorship, and a twelfth standing for absolute\nmonarchy.\n\nTo-day the Majority Socialists are in power, that is to say the Right\nsection of the fourth class. This is composed of the older, trained\nand work-willing Trade Unionists, who are amazed at the Revolution,\nwho do not regard it as quite legitimate, but who are determined to defend\nthe _status quo_ in so far as a certain degree of self-determination\nand elbow-room in the material conditions of life still remain to them.\n\nThe Left section consists of youths and of persons disgusted with\nmilitarism, ignorant of affairs but cherishing a certain independence\nof judgment; still ready for work but equally so for politics. To\nthese, as a \"forward\" party, the doctrinaire theorists have allied\nthemselves. The designation of the party \"The Independents\" is\ncharacteristic; its goal, \"All power to the Soviets,\" is a catchword\nfrom Russia.\n\nA fifth class is now emerging--the work-shy. The others call them the\ntramp-proletariat, the disgruntled, the declassed, who set their hopes\non disorder. Their goal is still undetermined--their favourite\nexpression is \"bloodhound,\" when those in power, or Government troops,\nare referred to.\n\nThen comes the sixth class, still partly identified with the Left of\nthe fourth and embryonically attached to the fifth. These are the\nindomitable loafers and shirkers, physically and mentally unsound,\naliens in the social order, excluded by their sufferings, their\npunishments, their vices and passions; self-excluded, repudiators of\nlaw and morality, born of the cruelty of the city, pitiable beings,\nnot so much cast out of society as cast up against it, as a living\nreproach to its mechanical organization. If these ever come into the\nlight in politics, they will demand a kind of syndicalistic\ncommunism.\n\nThat is as far as we can see at present into the as yet unopened germs\nof continuous revolutionary movement. In these are contained the\ninfinite series of all principles that can conceivably be supported;\nand it would be wholly false to see in this series merely so many\nsuccessive steps in moral degeneration, even though the earlier stages\nshould proceed on a flat denial of ethical principles. Later on will\ncome revivals and restorations, political, ethical and religious, and\neach time we shall see the rising stratum attaching to itself strays\nand converts, above all, the disappointed and ambitious, from those\nthat went before.\n\nBut the number of revolutions will grow till we lose count of them,\nand each, however strenuously it may profess its horror of bloodshed,\nwill have only one hope and possibility: that of defending itself by\narmed force against its successor. The game is a grotesquely dishonest\none, because every aspirant movement will cast against its forerunner\nthe charge of ruling by bloodshed, while it itself is already\npreparing its armed forces for the conflict.\n\nIt is therefore wholly vain to hope that an advanced social\norganization implies stability, that a brotherhood mechanically\ndecreed will exclude further revolutions, and will establish eternally\nan empire of righteousness and justice according to any preconceived\npattern.\n\nThe fiercest hatred will prevail amongst those who are most closely\nassociated--for instance, between handworkers and brainworkers,\nbetween leaders and followers; and this hate will be all the more\ninappeasable when it is open to every one to rise in the world, and\nnone can cherish the excuse that he is the victim of a social system\nof overwhelming power. To-day this hatred is masked by the general\nclass-hatred--hatred of the monopolists of culture, of position and of\ncapital.\n\nAt the bottom of it, however, lies even to-day the more universal\nhatred of the defeated for the victor, and when those three monopolies\nhave fallen, it will emerge in its original Cain-like form. It cannot\nbe appeased by any mechanical device. Human inequality can never be\nabolished, human accomplishment and work will always vary, and the\nhuman passion for success will always assert itself.\n\nWe have discussed the material foundation and the stratification of\nthe German people when full socialization has been realized. Let us\nnow forecast the manner of their existence.\n\nThe future community is poor; the individual is poor. The average\nstandard of well-being corresponds, at best, to what in peace-time one\nwould expect from an income of 3000 marks.[13] But the requirements of\nthe population are not mediaevally simplified--they could not be, in\nview of the density of the population and the complexity of industrial\nand professional  vocations. They are manifold and diverse, and they\nare moreover intensified by the spectacle of extravagance offered by\nthe profiteering class and the licence of social life. The traditional\ngarden-city idyll of architects and art-craftsmen is a Utopia about as\nmuch like reality as the pastoral Arcadianism of Marie Antoinette.\n\nAll things of common use are standardized into typical forms. It must\nnot be supposed, however, that they are based on pure designs and\nmodels. The taste of the artist will clash with that of the crowd, and\nsince the former has no authority to back him he will have to\ncompromise. The compromise, however, consists in cheap imitation of\nforeign models, for in foreign countries art-industry will exist, and\nno legislation can prevent its products from finding their way (in\nreproductions or actual examples) into Germany and being admired\nthere. Our half or wholly imitative products are turned out as cheaply\nas possible, in substitute-materials, and are made as well or as ill\nas the relics of our craftsmanship permit, or as our existing\nmachinery for the purpose is capable of. Cheapness and ease of\nmanufacture are the principles aimed at, for even with narrow means no\none will want to do without certain things; fashions still prevail,\nand will have to be satisfied with things that do not last, but can be\nconstantly changed.\n\nHow far will a new system of education tend to simplify the needs of\nmen and women and to purify their taste? Probably very little, for\ngood models will be lacking, poverty is not fastidious, and the taste\nof the populace is the sovereign arbiter. But on this taste it depends\nwhether vulgar ornaments and gewgaws, frivolities and bazaar-horrors,\nare to satisfy the desires of the soul.\n\nObjects of earlier art and industry have been alienated through need\nof money or destroyed by negligence. Here and there one may find an\nold cup or an engraving, as we do to-day in plundered territories, but\nthese things are disconnected specimens; all they can do is\noccasionally to interest an artist. Whoever wants to procure some\nobject or to get something done which has not been standardized in the\ncommon range of approved requirements must gain it by a tedious course\nof pinching and saving. Personal possessions in the way of books,\nmusical instruments, works of art, as well as travel outside the\nprescribed routes are rarities; a tree of one's own, a horse of one's\nown are legendary things.\n\nThus luxury in its better aspect has gone to ruin quicker than in the\nbad. All outlay devoted to culture, to beauty, to invigoration has\ndried up; all that survives is what stimulates, what depraves and\nbefouls; frivolities, substitutes and swindles. What we have arrived\nat is not the four-square simplicity of the peasant-homestead, but a\nramshackle city suburb. To some of us it is not easy, and to many it\nis not agreeable to picture to themselves the aspect of a thoroughly\nproletarianized country, and the difficulty lies in the fact that the\npopular mind has, as it were by universal agreement, resolved to\nconceive the future on a basis of domestic prosperity about tenfold as\ngreat as it can possibly be. The leaders and office-holders of the\nproletariat have an easy task in convincing themselves and others that\nwhat they approve and are struggling for is the so-called middle-class\nexistence with all the refinement and claims of historic culture.\nTacitly, as a matter of course, they accept what plutocracy has to\ngive them, and imagine that the loans they take up from the\ncivilization and culture of the past can be redeemed from the social\ngains of the future.\n\nThe stages at which a nation arrives year by year, can be estimated by\nits building. In the new order, little is being built. Apart from\ncertain perfunctory garden-cities, which are being erected for the\nprinciple of the thing, to meet the needs of a few thousand favoured\nhouseholds, and which perhaps will never be finished, we will for\ndecades have to content ourselves with new subdivisions and\nexploitation of the old buildings; old palaces packed to the roof with\nfamilies, will stand in the midst of vegetable gardens and will\nalternate with empty warehouses in the midst of decayed cities. In the\nstreets of the suburbs the avenues of trees will be felled, and in the\ncities grass will grow through the cracks of the pavement.\n\nFor a long time it used to be believed that the passion of the\nlandscape painters of the seventeenth century for introducing ruins\nwith hovels nestling among them arose from a feeling for romance.\nThis is not so--they only painted what they saw around them after the\nravages of the Thirty Years' War. It must not be supposed, however,\nthat the forecast in these pages is based on the consequences of the\nwar; these no doubt must darken our picture of the future; but the\nshadows, which I have put in as sparingly as I could, are essentially\nthe expression of a greatly reduced economic efficiency, combined with\nthe uniformity produced by the general proletarianization of life with\nthe absence of any correcting factor in individual effort of a\nrational character and of the influence of higher types.\n\nA brighter trait in the material conditions of life will be formed by\neffort of a collective character, such as even the most penurious\ncommunity may be able to undertake. The more severely the domestic\nhousehold has to pinch, and the more unattractive it thereby becomes,\nthe more completely will life be forced into publicity. Private claims\nand aspirations, which cannot be satisfied, will be turned over to the\npublic. Men will gather in the streets and places of public resort,\nand have more mutual intercourse than before, since every transaction\nof life, even the most insignificant, will have to be a subject of\ndiscussion, agreement and understanding. In all the arrangements of\nsocial life, _e.g._ for news, communications, supplies, discussion and\nentertainment, and demands will be made and complied with for greater\nconvenience and comprehensiveness, for popular aesthetics and popular\nrepresentation. In these arrangements and in these alone Art will\nhave to find its functions and its home. Public buildings, gardens,\nsanatoriums, means of transit and exhibitions will be established at\ngreat cost. All the demands of the spirit and of the senses will seek\ntheir satisfaction in public. There will be no lack of popular\nperformances, excursions, tours and conducted visits to collections;\nof clubs, libraries, athletic meetings and displays. The aspect of\nthis tendency from the point of view of culture and ethics we have\nstill to consider; in its social aspect (apart from the fact that it\ncauses a vacuum in the home and forces young people to the surface of\nlife, and in spite of its mechanical effect) it will act as a\ncomforting reminiscence of the civic commonalty and solidarity of\nmediaeval times.\n\nIn considering the spiritual and cultural life of a fully socialized\nsociety, we have to start with the assumption that any one man's\nopinion and decision are as good as another's. Authority, even in\nmatters of the highest intellectual or spiritual character, only\nexists in so far as it is established, acknowledged and confirmed\neither by direct action of the people's will, or indirectly through\ntheir representatives. Every one's education and way of life are much\nthe same; there are no secrecies, no vague authority attaching to\nspecial vocations; no one permits himself to feel impressed by any\nperson or thing. Every one votes, whether it be for an office, a\nmemorial, a law, or a drama, or does it through delegates or the\ndelegates of delegates. Every one is determined to know the how and\nwhere and why of everything--just as to-day in America--and demands a\nplausible reason for it. The reply, \"This is a matter you don't\nunderstand,\" is impossible.\n\nEverything is referred to one's own conscience, one's own\nintelligence, one's own taste, and no one admits any innate or\nacquired superiority in others. In debate, the boundaries between the\nideal and the practicable are obliterated; for on the one hand every\none is too much preoccupied with material needs, and on the other, too\nconfident, too unaccustomed to submit himself to what in former days\nwas called a deeper insight, too loosely brought up to let himself be\ntaught. We never, therefore, hear such judgments as: This, although it\nis difficult, is a book to be read; this drama ought to have been\nproduced although it is not sensational; I don't myself care for this\nmemorial, but it must remain because a great artist made it; this is a\nnecessary branch of study, although it has no practical application; I\nwill vote for this man on account of his character and ability,\nalthough he has made no election-promises. On the other hand, the\nfollowing kind of argument will have weight: This historic building\nmust be demolished, for it interferes with traffic; this collection\nmust be sold, for we need money; we need no chair of philosophy, but\nwe do need one for cinema-technique; these ornamental grounds are the\nvery place for a merry-go-round; tragedies are depressing, they must\nnot be performed in the State theatres. Let us recall certain oversea\nlegislation--carried out, be it noted in countries still swayed by the\ntraditional influence of culture--and these examples will not seem\nexaggerated.\n\nWhere there is no appeal to authority, where none need fear\ndisapproval or ridicule, where convenience is prized and thrift rules\nsupreme, there thought and decision will be short-breathed, and will\nnever look beyond the needs of the day. Who will then care for far-off\ndeductions, for wide arcs of thought? Calculation comes to the front,\neverything unpractical is despised; opinions are formed by discussion,\neveryday reading and propaganda. Men demand proofs, success, visible\nreturns. The fewer the aims, the stronger will be their attraction.\nPeople are tolerant, for they are used to hearing the most varied\nopinions, and all opinions have followers, from the water-cure to\nTaoism; but the only opinion of any influence is that whose followers\nare many.\n\nPublic opinion settles everything. The champions of absolute values\nhave to accommodate themselves to the law of competition. Religious\nteaching has to seek the favour of the times by the same methods as a\nnew system of physical culture. A work of art must compete for votes.\nOnly by popularity-hunting can anything come to life; there will be no\ndoing without much talking. As in the later days of Greece, rhetoric\nand dialectic are the most powerful of the arts.\n\nAnd since manual labour cherishes silently or openly a bitter grudge\nagainst intellectual labour, the latter has to protect itself by a\npretence of sturdy simplicity; when two teachers are competing for the\nhead-mastership of a classical school each tries to prove that he has\nthe hornier hand.\n\nMost things in this new order are decided by weight of numbers.\nAdvertisement and propaganda are banished from socialized industry and\ncommerce; instead, they compete in the service of personal and ideal\naims--in elections, theatres, systems of medicine, superstitions,\narts, appointments, professorships, churches.\n\nArt has for the third time changed its master--after the princes,\nMaecenas, the middle-class market; after Maecenas, the plebs, and export\ntrade. Whether by means of representation through gilds, by\ncompulsion, by patronage, or by favour, Art has become dependent; it\nmust explain, exhort, contend; it can no longer rest proudly on\nitself. It must aim at getting a majority on its side, and this it can\nonly do by sensationalism. Like all other features of intellectual\nlife, it must march with the times. Like all technique, research,\nlearning and handicraft it suffers through the loss, for several\ngenerations, of tradition and hereditary skill, but together with this\ndrop there is also a drop in the character of the demand; quality has\ngiven way to actuality.[14]\n\nCertain reactions based on practical experience are  not excluded;\nthe constant comparison with the past and with foreign countries will\nshow the value of the cultivation of a science, of an art which has no\nfixed prepossessions and serves no immediate aims. Measures are taken,\nthough without much conviction, by free Academies or the like, to win\nback something of this; but the atmosphere is not favourable to such\nattempts, and an artificial and sterile discipline is all that can\nresult.\n\nThe general tone is that of an excitable, loquacious generation, bent\non actualities and matters of practical calculation, fonder of debate\nthan of work, not impressed by any authority, prizing success,\nwatching all that goes on abroad, taking refuge in public from the\nsordidness of private life, and passionately hostile to all\nsuperiority. Through the constant secession of elements to which this\ntone is antipathetic a kind of natural selection is constantly taking\nplace, and the political defencelessness of the transition period\nfavours disintegrating tendencies of foreign origin. The carving away\nof ancient German territories works in the same direction. Apart from\nthe varying influence of the four strata already referred to, the\ngeneral tone will be set by the half-Slavonic lower classes of Middle\nand North Germany, who have brought about and who control the existing\nconditions, and by the other elements which have been assimilated to\nthese.\n\nIn place of German culture and German intellectuality we have a state\nof things of which a foretaste already exists in parts of America and\nof Eastern Europe. The fully socialized order, repelling all tutelage\nthrough those strata which possess a special tradition, outlook and\nmentality, has created its own form of civilization.\n\nFOOTNOTES:\n\n[Footnote 10: Rathenau means that it cannot be entertained except on\nthe hypothesis of the profound _inward_ change, which is to be\ndiscussed later on.]\n\n[Footnote 11: _Kritik der dreifachen Revolution._ S. Fischer.]\n\n[Footnote 12: The classes referred to are (1) the old aristocracy, (2)\nthe aristocracy of officialism, (3) that of traditional middle-class\nculture; (4) the mass of what is called Socialism.]\n\n[Footnote 13: L150 in pre-war values. By thrift, by co-operation, and\nby the cheapness of the public services generally, a surprisingly high\nstandard of life could be maintained on this kind of income in pre-war\nGermany.]\n\n[Footnote 14: Aktualitaet; as, for instance, reference to current\ntopics.]\n\n\n\n\nVII\n\n\nThoughtful and competent judges to whom I have submitted the foregoing\nsection of my work have said to me: This is Hell. That is perhaps\ngoing too far, since those who will live in that generation and who\nhave themselves helped it into being will have become more or less\nadapted to their circumstances.\n\nA large part of the proletariat of to-day will certainly not be\ndaunted by the prospect, but will regard it as a distinct improvement\non their present situation. That is the terrible fact, a fact for\nwhich we are responsible and for which we must atone, with what ruin\nto German culture remains to be seen.\n\nWho, in this Age of Mechanism, who on the side of the bourgeoisie, who\nof our statesmen, our professors, our captains of industry, above all\nwho of our clergy, has pitied the lot of the working-man? The\nstatesmen, for peace' sake, worked out the Insurance Laws; the\nprofessors, with their emphatic dislike to the world of finance and\ntheir unemphasized devotion to the monopoly of their own stipends,\npreached a doctrinaire socialism; the clergy lauded the\ndivinely-appointed principle of subordination; the great\nindustrialists, wallowing in their own greed for power, money, favour,\ntitles and connexions, scolded the workers for wanting anything. The\nsilent subjugation of our brothers was assured through the laws of\ninheritance, our leaders put the socialistic legislation in fetters,\nfreedom of combination was thwarted, electoral reform in Prussia was\nscornfully denied, demands for better conditions of living, conditions\nwhich to-day we think ridiculously low, were suppressed by force. And\nall the time, the cost of a single year of war, a tiny fraction of the\nwar-reparations, would have sufficed to banish want for ever from the\nland. At last the millions of the defenceless and disappointed were\ndriven into that war of the dynasties and the bourgeois, which was\nunloosed by the folly of years, the dazzlement of weeks, the\nhelplessness of hours.\n\nIf the state of things I have foreseen is hell, then we have earned\nhell. And it ill becomes us to wrap ourselves in the superiority of\nour culture, to rebuke the masses for their want of intellect, their\nwant of character, their greed, and to keep insisting on the\nunchangeability of human character, on the virtues of rulership and\nleadership, on the spiritual unselfishness and intellectual priesthood\nof the classes born to freedom. Where was this heaven-nurtured\npriestly virtue sleeping when Wrong straddled the land and the great\ncrime was wrought? It was composing feeble anthologies and pompous\ntheories, cooking its culture-soup, confusing, with true professorial\nwant of instinct, 1913 with 1813[15]--and putting itself at the\ndisposition of the Press Bureau. _That_ was the hour in which to fight\nfor the supremacy of the spirit. Now romance comes, as it always does,\ntoo late.\n\nWhat is romance in history? It is sterility. It is incapacity to\nimagine, still less to shape, the yet unknown. It is an inordinate\ncapacity for flinging oneself with feminine adaptability into anything\nthat is historically presented and accomplished--from Michael Angelo\nto working samplers. Fearing the ugly present and the anxious future,\nthe romantic takes refuge with the dear good dead people, and spins\nout further what it has learned from them. But every big man was a\nshaper of his own time, a respecter of antiquity and conscious of his\ninheritance as a grown and capable man may be; not a youth in\nsheltered tutelage, but a master of the living world, and a herald of\nthe future. \"Modernity\" is foolish, but antiquarianism is rubbish;\nlife in its vigour is neither new nor antique, but young.\n\nTrue it is indeed that we love the old, many-coloured, concrete,\npre-mechanistic world; we cannot take an antique thing in our hands or\nread an antique word without feeling its enchantment. It is a joy to\nthe heart, and one prohibited to no man, to dream at times romantic\ndreams, to live in the past, and to forget, as we do it, that this\nvery dreaming, this  very life, owes its charm to the fact that we\nare of another age. It is a magic like that of childhood--but to want\nto go back to it is not only childish, but a deliberate fraud and\nself-deception. We should realize, as I have shown years ago, that the\ndifference of our age from that age is the ever-present fact of the\ndensity of our population. Any one who wants to go back, really wants\nthat forty million Germans should die, while he survives. It is\nignorant, it is insincere, to put on a frown of offended virtue and to\nsay: For shame, what are you thronging into the towns for? Go back to\nthe land; plough, spin, weave, ply the blacksmith's hammer, as did our\nforefathers, who were the proper sort of people. And leave the people\nlike us, who think and write poetry and brood and dream for you, a\nhouse embowered in vines--there will be room enough for that!--Ah, you\nthinkers and brooders, what would you say if men answered you: No! Go\nyourself and spin in a factory, for you have shown clearly enough that\nyour thinking and brooding are futile. All your fine phrases amount to\nnothing but the one dread monosyllable--Die! Are you so wicked as\nthat, and know it? or so stupid, and know it not?\n\nThought is the most responsible of all functions. He who thinks for\nothers must look after them, and if they live he may not slay them. It\nis therefore a mischievous piece of romantic folly to point us to the\npast. We must all pass through the dark gateway, and the sage has no\nright to growl: Leave me out--I am the salt of the earth! The first\nthing we have to do is to save humanity; not a selected pair in the\nArk but the whole race, criminals and harlots, fools, beggars and\ncripples. We ourselves have cast down Authority, and there will be a\ncrush, and many things will look very different from what the sages\nwould wish and what the romantics dream. And if it is going to be hell\nfor people like you and me, we must only accept it in the name of\njustice, and think of Dante's terrible inscription: \"I was made by the\nMight of God, by the supreme Wisdom and by the primal Love.\"[16]\n\nBut is it hell? That depends on ourselves.\n\nFOOTNOTES:\n\n[Footnote 15: In 1913 all Germany was celebrating with great pomp and\nwarlike display the centenary of the liberation of the country from\nNapoleon, and also paying a huge property tax for the coming war.]\n\n[Footnote 16:\n\n_Fecemi la divina Potestate\nLa somma Sapienza e il primo Amore._\n\nThis is part of the inscription over the gates of Hell in the\n_Inferno_, Canto III.]\n\n\n\n\nVIII\n\n\nOur description of the future order of society was tacitly based on\nthe assumption that our mentality, our ethics, our spiritual outlook,\nwould remain as they are at present.\n\nThis assumption is a probable one, but it is not irrevocably certain.\nWhat we have endeavoured to demonstrate is simply the obvious\nfact--the fact which our once so rigid but, since November, 1918,\nuprooted and flaccid intellectualism has forgotten--that our salvation\nis not to be found in any kind of mechanical apparatus or\ninstitutions. Institutions do not mean evolution. If institutions run\ntoo far ahead of evolution there will be reaction. When evolution runs\ntoo far, there is revolution.\n\nAt this point both groups of our opponents will start up against us.\n\nThe Radicals cry: Ha! only give us food, give \"all power to the\nSoviets,\" let us have free-thought lectures, and mentality, insight,\nexperience and culture will come of themselves.\n\nThe Reactionaries smile: Ho! this man has never learned that there is\nno such thing as evolution; that human character never changes.\n\nI shall not answer either of these. They know, both of them, that they\nare saying what is not true.\n\nSomething of unprecedented greatness can and must take place;\nsomething that in the life of a people corresponds to the awakening of\nmanhood in the individual.\n\nIn every conscious existence there comes a moment when the living\nbeing is no longer determined but begins to determine himself; when he\ntakes over responsibility from the surrounding Powers, in order to\nshoulder it for himself; when he no longer accepts the forces that\nguide him, but creates them; when he no longer receives but freely\nchooses the values, ideals, aims and authorities whose validity he\nwill admit; when he begets out of his own being the relations with the\ndivine which he means to serve. For the German people this moment,\nthis opportunity, has now arrived--or is for ever lost.\n\nWe have made a clear sweep of all authorities. The inherited\ninfluences which we accepted unconsciously have dropped away from\nus--persons, classes, dogmas. The persons are done with for the\npresent. The classes, even though they may still keep up the struggle,\nare broken to pieces together with all the best that they contained:\nmentality, sense of honour, devotion, training, tradition. We can\nnever reanimate them and never supply their place. Ideas and dogmas\nhave long ago lost their cogency; the power they wielded through\npolice and school, the power which we tried to prop up by a\nblasphemous degradation of religion and by developing the church as a\nkind of factory, is gone, and it would be a piece of mechanical\npresumption to suppose that we can breed them again for the sake of\nthe objects they fulfilled. If we live and thrive, ideas and faiths\nwill grow up of themselves.\n\nWe must of our own free choice lay upon ourselves a certain\nlife-potency or faculty which we shall freely obey, and which shall be\nso broad and so buoyant that thought and creation can grow out of it.\nA deed without precedent only in its voluntary, conscious\nself-determination: for other peoples in earlier days also accepted\nthese faculties, not indeed out of conscious choice, but from the\nhands of prophets, rulers and classes. Thus theocracy was laid upon\nIsrael; the caste-system on the Indians; the idea of the city on the\nGreeks; empire on the Romans; the Church on the Middle Ages; commerce,\nplutocracy, colonial dominion, on the modern world; militarism on\nGermany. For these imposed forces men lived and died; they had only a\nmythical conception of where they came from, and they believed and\nsome still believe them to be everlasting.\n\nA thunder-stroke of destiny has at once stripped us bare and has\nopened our eyes. The tremendous choice is before us. Are we to reject\nit, and, blinded anew, to resign ourselves to the casual and\nmechanical laws of action and reaction, of needs and interests, and\nthe competition of forces? Are we to recover ourselves, and enter into\nthe intellectual arena of the nations, to begin a new and enduring\nlife with no other guiding thought than that of self-preservation and\nthe division of property? In the harbour of the nations is our ship to\ndrift aimlessly while every other knows its course, whether to a near\nor distant port? Is that penurious Paradise which we have described,\nthe goal of Germany's hopes and struggles?\n\nCompared with us, the French movement of the eighteenth century had an\neasy task. All it had to do was to deny and demolish. When it had\ncleared away the wreckage of feudalism, at once a strong new class,\nthe bourgeoisie, sprang up from the soil, more vigorous than its\naristocratic forerunner, and it was able to take care of itself. And\nthe bourgeoisie was also a class of defined boundaries, and already\ntrained for its task; it had long ago taken over French culture, it\nalone had for a century been the champion of French ideas, it had\nacquired enthusiasm for the nation, for freedom, for militarism and\nfor money; the aspirations for equality and fraternity were not indeed\nfulfilled, but the first mechanized and plutocratic state of the\nContinent came into being.\n\nGermany, as we have seen, is not in the same position. When we are\nstripped we find no new stratum of culture growing up below the\nsurface; society is simply dissolved, and in its place we find the\nmasses, of which the most hopeful thing we can say is that they are an\nordered body. Tradition has been torn in two. No--we have to build\nfrom the foundations up. But whether we shall build according to the\nchanging needs of the seasons, according to the casual balance of\nforces, or according to an idea and a symbol--that is the question!\n\nOur current Socialism has no qualms about bringing new nations to\nbirth with the aid of a few simple apparatus and radical eliminations;\nit believes that the right spirit will soon enter in if only\ninstitutions are provided for it. It would be too severe to describe\nthis way of thinking solely as contempt for or want of understanding\nof a spiritual mission. Socialism in its prevailing form arises indeed\nsimply from material or so-called \"scientific\" conceptions (as if\nthere could be a science of ideal aims and values): but it has, though\nonly as a secondary object, annexed to itself the values of a\nspiritual faith--the latter are, as the language of the market has it,\n\"thrown in.\" We have seen to what the material domination of\ninstitutions and apparatus is leading us. To national dignity, or to\nany mission for humanity, it does not lead.\n\nWhat is unprecedented in our problem is not, as we have said, that a\npeople should beget out of itself its own idea and mission. From the\nJewish theocracy to the French rationalism, from the Chinese\nancestor-worship to the pioneer-freedom of America, all the cultured\npeoples have brought this creative act to pass, although in formative\nepochs leading classes and leading men have born the responsibility\nand made it easy for their countrymen to become aware of their own\nunconscious spirit, and through this awareness and consciousness to\nisolate and intensify it.\n\nWhat is unprecedented is just this: that the process should take place\nas a deliberate act of will, in democratic freedom, without pressure\nand compulsion of authority, in the consciousness of its necessity, on\nour own responsibility. Germany is not at present growing leaders and\nprophets, we are not in a formative stage, all authority has been\nscattered to the winds. It is true that we have one stratum of society\nwhich is capable of understanding the meaning of the task, but it is\ndeeply cloven, the hatreds and interests of its parties make them more\neach other's enemies than the people's.\n\nAnd yet it is this very class--not as possessor of means but as\npossessor of the tradition, which is capable, which is indispensable,\nand which is summoned to take in hand the transformation of the German\nspirit, to free it from the bonds of mechanism, of capitalism, of\nmilitarism, and to lead it to its true destinies. It cannot do this\nfor itself alone, amid the blind bitterness of the war of classes; it\ncannot do it as a sovran leader relying on its deeper insight, for its\nand every other prestige has gone by the board; it can only do it by\nthe way of service and sacrifice--it can only do it if the service and\nthe sacrifice are approved and accepted.\n\nThe masses will not understand this sacrifice of service; but the more\nresponsible of their leaders will. Not to-day, indeed, nor to-morrow;\nbut on the day when experience has shown them that I am telling the\ntruth. At first they will do as in Russia; when want becomes acute,\nthey will seek to buy experience and tradition at a high price from\nindividuals. But mentality and spirit cannot be bought--only labour\nand dexterity. Then gradually men will come to understand that the\nhighest things are not marketable commodities, they are only given\naway. And at last the responsible leaders, those who rule in order to\nserve, will separate themselves from those of the Cataline type, who\nserve in order to rule.\n\nSo long has the narrow, parsonical, cynical contempt for the\nunderstanding of the lower classes prevailed--through our fault--a\nreversal to blind worship of the masses, of the immature and the\nunsuccessful, is not inexcusable. We are here to love mankind--all\nmankind, the outcast as well as the weak--every man and all men. But\nthe masses are not quite the same thing as mankind. The masses who\ncongregate in the streets and at public meetings are not communities\nconsisting of whole men, but assemblages in which each man takes a\npart and is present, indeed, with his whole body, but by no means with\nhis whole being. The masses are absent-minded; and presence of mind\nonly comes to them when through the lips of some true prophet the\nSpirit descends upon them. But when that happens, they take no\ndecisions; they do not get beside themselves; rather, they sink into\nthemselves. Before the distortions of a mob orator, with his\nextravagant promises, the masses become merely a driven crowd eager\nfor gain, not human souls. They are the concave reflector of passions\nand greeds that rage in the focal point of the speaker's rostrum; they\nreturn in concentrated form the rays that dazzle them. He who puts the\nmasses in the judgment-seat, who looks for counsel and decision at\ntheir hands, has neither reverence nor love for man. Sooner or later\nthe truth of this will be realized by all honourable men among their\nleaders.\n\nThe day is also far when the upper classes will come to their senses.\nThey have never understood what the world is, nor what Germany is, nor\nwhat has happened to themselves. They see houses and fields, streets\nand trees very much as they were; they think, if they only play the\ngame a little craftily at the beginning, everything will remain as it\nused to be, and they will come out all right in the end. It is just as\nwhen some merchant goes bankrupt for a million; for the first\nfortnight the servants wait at table as usual and the family eat off\nsilver plate; the ruin is still on paper. But in a year's time\neverything is dispersed to the winds, and men have changed along with\ntheir utensils. When one sees for what trivialities people are\nfighting to-day one begins to understand how callously and shamelessly\nthey gave up a thousand times over that which they had sworn to defend\nwith the last drop of their blood; then none of them know what has\nreally happened. In a few years' time they will know; and then they\nwill fight no more for things that no longer exist; they will be\nmeditating a general sacrifice to save what can still be saved, and\nwhat is worth saving.\n\n\n\n\nIX\n\n\nGermany is a land without power, without poise, with its prosperity\nshattered, its authorities and its external aims annihilated, its\nintellect and its ethics at a low ebb. In such a condition, if we wish\nto understand the only kind of life-faculty which can save us from\nintellectual and spiritual death, give us force and inspiration to\nshape for ourselves and for the world the new social order of freedom,\nspirituality[17] and justice, and in the true sense to \"save\" us, we\nmust look ourselves and the German character in the face--this\nunknown, problematic character, which for a century in contradiction\nto its own inmost being, has been flattering and lulling itself with\nhackneyed and complacent phrases and unproved judgments. For we can\nundertake nothing and claim nothing which has not its prototype in our\nown soul and is not founded in our own past, our own traditions.\n\nThere is no people, not even the French, which in recent decades has\nadministered to itself and digested so much praise as we have. We\nnever  discussed ourselves but at once the stereotyped toasts began.\nThe more German culture declined, the more disgusting became our\nbabble about it.\n\nThe persons through whose mouths we let ourselves be lauded were\nschool-teachers without comparative knowledge, professional\nbanquet-orators, nationalists who praised in the service of some\ninterested hatred, and scholars with appointments who were simply\ncommissioned to demonstrate that the Hohenzollern system was the last\nword of creation. No one dreamed of distinguishing this glorification\nof the German people from the apotheosis of the dynasties--to which we\nhad vowed our heart's blood--and the profound insincerity of these\ndeclamations was shown by the indifference with which the dynasties,\nthe main feature in the programme, were afterwards got rid of, and the\naffair of the heart's blood shelved.\n\nWe know the stereotyped phrases. German faith, French knavery. The\nworld is to find healing in the German soul. We are the heroes--the\nothers are hucksters.[18] To be German means to do a thing for its own\nsake. We are a \"race of thinkers and poets.\" We have Culture, the\nothers merely Civilization.[19] We alone are free--the others are\nmerely undisciplined (or, as the case may be, enslaved). All this we\nowe to the favour of God and our education under the (here fill in\nPrussian, Bavarian or Saxon) reigning House, which all the world\nenvies us. Clearly therefore we are destined for world-dominion; we\nhave only to fall-to.\n\nIn one of these phrases, about doing things for their own sake,[20]\nthere is truth. All the more was it for us in particular a vice and a\nsign of degradation to let ourselves be dazzled by the shadowless\ntransparency-picture of glorification that was offered to us. There\nwere interests concealed in the game, and much lack of moral fibre,\nall of which we passed over in silence; it was out of place in our\nfestal oratory.\n\nIt would be an equal or even a greater vice, only reversed, if we were\nnow to despair of ourselves. Moderation was what we needed then; what\nwe need now is vigorous and conscious self-possession. To-day it is no\neasy and attractive business to bring our strong qualities to the\nsurface; it implies an amount of conviction which it is hard to\nattain, and self-depreciation means a pitiful faint-heartedness. But\nall sham goods offered by babblers, by selfish interests, prophets of\nhate and commercial travellers must go overboard.\n\nWe have never been a \"race of thinkers and poets,\" any more than the\nJews were a race of prophets, the  French and Dutch a race of\npainters, or Koenigsberg a city of Pure Reason.[21] The old German\nupper classes have, in three well-defined epochs, had force enough to\nthrow up individuals of mighty endowments for music, poetry and\nphilosophy; the former lower-classes, whose blood runs in nine-tenths\nof our present population, have scarcely contributed anything to these\nglories. They have in recent years shown themselves thoroughly\nindustrious, plastic, apt for discipline, order-loving, intelligent,\npractical, honourable, trustworthy, warm-hearted, prudent and helpful,\nand adapted beyond all expectation to the mechanization of life and\nindustry; of their power to produce talent we know little, except\nperhaps in the domain of research and technique, which are less a test\nof creative energy than of applied knowledge and methodical assiduity.\n\nThe important question as to what relations exist between the number,\nquality and greatness of individual endowments and genius on the one\nside, and the character of a people on the other, is still unexplored\nand very obscure, although we possess a science which calls itself by\nthe quite unjustified name of national psychology.\n\nWhile on one side we have rarely made any serious study of national\ncharacteristics, but have confused them with achievements of culture\nand habits of life that mostly proceeded from a thin upper stratum\nalone, on the other we have as a rule tacitly set down individual\nendowment (with a strong emphasis on our own) as illustrations of\nnational character. In this respect, too, we showed that laxity in\nproving what we wanted to prove which abounds everywhere from the\npoint where calculation with things weighable and measurable leaves\noff, and judgment begins. We think it an established fact--in\naccordance with just this arbitrary test of genius--that genius\nbelongs _par excellence_ to the so-called blonde blue-eyed races of\nthe earth. The fact that among the score or two of geniuses of all\nages who have been determining forces in the world it is hardly\npossible to find a single example of this blue-blonde race, but they\ncan be proved to have been almost all dark, did not affect the\nquestion. On the other hand the English, whose influence on culture\nhas been surpassed by none, had their genius-forming power, in which\nthey are actually deficient, seriously over-estimated. It was the\nreverse with the Jews. The fact that in spite of their small numbers\nthey have produced more of world-moving genius than all other nations\nput together, and that from them has proceeded the whole\ntranscendental ethics of the Western world, has not prevented their\nbeing pronounced wholly incapable of creative endowment.\n\nWe shall put aside all this rubbish and for the present decline to go\ninto theoretic questions. Great individual endowments are related to\nnational character--to the character of the mind, not that of the\nwill, which must be considered apart--as the blossom to the plant or\nthe crystal to the mother-solution; to determine the one from the\nother needs something more than a mechanical generalization. There is\nno such thing as a \"race of thinkers and poets.\" This, however, we can\nsay: that a people which begets great musicians, poets and\nphilosophers is one which devotes itself to moods and to visions,\nwhile another, as for instance the Latin group, which creates forms\nand standards, is one that at the cost of mood and vision, incarnates\nits sense of will.\n\nDevotion, receptivity, the feeling for Nature, comprehension, the\npassion for truth, meditative depth, spiritual love, are the fairest\ngifts that can be granted to any people, and to us they have been\ngranted. But they exclude other gifts, which stand to-day in high\nrepute, and which we affect in vain. They exclude the capacity for\nshaping forms and standards, the aptitude for rule, if not even for\nself-government; in any case the qualities which go to the creation of\nnationalities and civilizations.\n\nIt is no mere accident that in not one of the hundredfold provinces of\nlife, from art to military organization, from State-craft to\njointstock-companies, from saintliness to table-utensils, have we\nGermans discovered a single essential and enduring form. And again,\nthere is scarcely one of these forms which we have not filled with a\nricher and more living content than those who first discovered it.\n\nFor whoever bears the All within himself can be satisfied with no\nform; he finds in himself at once vision and reality, thesis and\nantithesis. He seeks for a synthesis, but all form is one-sided. He\nconceives, chooses, comprehends, fulfils, breaks in pieces and throws\naway. He remains a unity in constant change, like the year as it\nproceeds day by day, hour by hour, and no two of them alike. He does\nnot force things--out of respect for creation.\n\nBut he who makes forms must use force. He makes himself the standard\nand comprehends himself only. Everything else, everything that is\nextra-normal, unconformable, unintelligible and not understood remains\nfor him something alien, trivial, inferior, or negligible. The maker\nof forms can rule, even by compulsion, without being a tyrant, for he\nis convinced of the value of what he brings and knows no doubts. He is\nruthless, yet only up to a certain limit, which is determined by his\nsense of the inferiority of the other. The man who rejects forms,\nhowever, cannot rule; the very penetration into the domain of another\nseems to him a wrong to his own, the basis of which is recognition and\nallowance. If he is forced to penetrate, he loses all balance, for in\nwrong-doing he understands no gradations. Similarly he is incapable of\ncivilizing, for he cannot take forms seriously; he violates them\nhimself--how can he impose them upon others? In his inmost soul he is\nnaive, for creation is seething in him; but in execution he is\nconscious, critical, eclectic and methodical, in order that he may be\ncompletely master of the one-sided element into which he has forced\nhimself. The man of forms, however, is, in his soul, rigid and\nconscious, but in action naive, because he does not know the meaning\nof doubt.\n\nForms grow up like natural products in the course of centuries. They\nassume the existence of uniformity in individuals, fathers reproduced\nin sons with scarcely a variation. Egypt, Rome, and that modern land\nof antiquity, France, are examples. For generations France has been\ncontent with three architectural styles, which are really one and the\nsame style. The changes in the language are hardly perceptible. The\nprincipal domestic utensils are almost the same as they were a hundred\nyears ago, fashion is merely a vibration. Foreign living languages are\nlittle studied, their spirit is not understood, the pronunciation\nremains French. Foreign countries are looked on as a kind of\nmenagerie; everything is measured by the native standard. Every one is\na judge of everything, for he holds fast to the norm. Within the norm\nthe French are keenly sensitive, their feeling for relations is very\nsure; the slightest deviation is observed. To doubt the validity of\nthe norm is out of question; one might as well criticize the sun and\nmoon as the style of Louis Quatorze.\n\nThe final judgment of the British in the affairs of life is \"this is\nEnglish,\" \"that is not English.\" Foreign lands are a subject of\ngeographical and ethnological study. The whole mighty will of a\nnation is here concentrated in the form of civilizing political\nenergy. Every private inclination is a fad, and even fads have their\nfixed forms. An offence against table-manners is banned like an attack\non the Church. Nature is mastered with consideration and intelligence,\nwhether the problem is the breeding of sheep or the ruling of India.\n\nThe assurance, self-command and art of ruling which spring from forms\nare lacking in Germany. Our strongest spirits are formless; they are\neclectic or titanic, whether they despise forms or choose forms or\nburst forms. We have three homes between which we hover--Germany, the\nearth, and heaven. We comprehend and honour everything--every land,\nevery man, every art and every language; and we are fertilized by what\nis foreign; on the lower level we enjoy it and imitate it, on the\nhigher it spurs us to creation. We are docile, and do not hate what\nrules and determines us, only what contracts us and makes us\none-sided; an autocratic government may be tolerated, even venerated,\nif it knows how to be national and popular and does not interfere with\nour elbow-room.\n\nWe have already touched on the volitional character[22] of the German\npeople, a character which has been gravely altered by the subsidence\nof the ancient upper stratum of society, and by long privations and\nmiseries. The Germans of Tacitus were a freedom-loving  and turbulent\npeople; of this not a trace is left. Any one who did not recognize\nunder the autocracy that we care little for self-determination and\nself-responsibility may do so under the revolution, which merely\narises out of an alteration in external conditions. We are not even\nyet a nation, but an association of interests and oppositions; a\nGerman _Irredenta_, as it has been and unfortunately will be shown, is\nan impossible conception. And since we are not a nation and represent\nno national idea, but only an association of households, it follows\nthat our influence abroad can only be commercial, and not civilizing\nor propagandist.\n\nFrom this side we are able to understand the German history of the\npast two centuries. Prussia, an extra-German Power, grown up in\ncolonized territory, organized itself into a bureaucratic, feudal and\nmilitary State. It succeeded in mastering half Germany and in loosely\nlinking up the remainder. By rigid organization, by its federated\nPrinces and by the strongest army in the world, it supplied the place\nof the national character and will which were wanting. Mechanism was\npressed into the service, and bore the colossus into a period of\nblooming prosperity. The system looked like a nation; in reality it\nwas an autocratic association of economic interests bristling with\narms. It was incapable of developing national forces and ideas, not\neven in relation to its settlers in other lands; it was confined to\ncommercial competition; weak alliances were relied on to secure the\nposition externally; self-government was not granted, because the\nmilitary organization was the pivot of the whole system; the\ndrill-sergeant tone at home had its counterpart in the brusqueness of\nour foreign policy; enmities grew and organized themselves, and the\ncatastrophe came.\n\nFor character of will we had substituted discipline. But discipline is\nnot nationality; it is an external instrument, and when it breaks it\nleaves--nothing. Now since the Prussian system which called itself by\nthe mediaeval title of the German Empire was, in spite of the\nprofessors, no popular, national fabric, but a dynastic, military and\ncompulsory association, with a constitutional facade, the interested\nnationalist elements took on the repulsive and dishonourable forms\nthat we all know. The most deeply interested parties, cool and\nconscious of their strength, the Prussian representatives of the\nmilitary and official nobility, avoided all declamation and only\ninterfered when their interests were endangered. The greater\nindustrialists sold themselves. A higher stratum of the middle-classes\ncomposed of certain circles of higher teachers and subaltern officials\ntook the business seriously, and in order to escape from their drab\nexistence created that atmosphere of hatred of Socialists, telegrams\nof homage, and megalomania, which made us intellectually and morally\nimpossible before the world. Instead of the Germany of thought and\nspirit one saw suddenly a brutal, stupid community of interested\npersons, greedy for power, who gave themselves out as that Germany\nwhose very opposite they were; who, unable to point to any\nachievements, any thought of their own, prided themselves on an\nimaginary race-unity which their very appearance contradicted; who had\nno ideas beyond rancour; the slaverings of league-oratory and\nsubordination, and who with these properties, which they were pleased\nto call _Kultur_, undertook to bring blessing to the world.\n\nIt was no wonder; for our slavonicized association of interests, bent\non subordination and on gain, does not produce ideas; its possessions\nwere power, mechanism and money; whoever was impressed by these things\nbelieved they must impress others too, and so the conclusion was\narrived at that all the great spirits of the past had lived only to\nmake this triple combination supreme. Wagner had formed the bridge\nbetween the old Germany and the new--armoured cruisers and giant guns\nappeared as a free development from Kant and Hegel, and the word\n_Kultur_, a word which Germany ought to prohibit by law for thirty\nyears to come, masked the confusion of thought.\n\nTo discover now, after our downfall, that Germany ought never to have\ncarried on a continental let alone a world policy, would be a pitiful\nexample of _esprit d'escalier_. It is true that it was our right, and\neven our duty, by our intellect, our ethics and our greatness, to\ncarry it on; but the weakness of our character on the side of Will was\nthe cause of its failure. Bismarck, a born realist in politics, grown\nup in the Prussian tradition, trained in the diplomatic tradition by\nGortschakov, made the calamitous choice. He made us safe for certain\ndecades; but it was only an intuitive policy in the manner of\nStein[23] that could have saved us for centuries.\n\nIn the midst of self-administered and self-determining nations the\nGerman people, from lack of self-consciousness, indolence of will and\ninnate servility remained under a patriarchal system of government, a\nminor under tutelage of divinely-appointed dynasties and ruling\nclasses. In the childish movement of the educated bourgeoisie of 1848\nBismarck saw only the helpless and Utopian, but not the symbolic side,\nwhich Marx might have shown him. His practical spirit judged with a\nsmile that a handful of peasantry and grenadiers would suffice to\nbring to reason this dynastically-minded people. It was only too true;\nalthough the bulk of this people had not for thirty years been formed\nby the peasant class, and although he himself had learned how to make\nuse of the power of the modern industrial State in peasant disguise.\nAnd so he refused to allow his countrymen to come of age; broke, with\nthe superiority of genius, and with the weapons of success and\nauthority, the incompetent forces that resisted him; created, by  the\nmagical mechanism of his Constitution, the German Empire as a mere\ncontinuation of the Prussian bureaucratic State reinforced, by the\nself-glorifying dynasties, with the whole volume of the still existing\nand justly appreciated habit of obedience; and annihilated for a\ngeneration every aspiration for freedom by branding it with the stain\nof moral and social depravity. Our political worthlessness and\nimmaturity came to its climax in the race of office-climbers in 1880,\nwhich in 1900 gave place to the battle-fleet patriotism of the great\ncapitalists.\n\nA self-administered and a self-determining nation--such as the nations\nof the world, except ourselves, Austria and Russia, were, on the\nwhole, at the turn of the century--would have been able to carry on a\nsound and steadfast policy in economics and public affairs, and to\nenjoy the confidence of the world, as little begrudged as America. On\nthe other hand, a dangerous warship, armed upon an unexampled scale,\ngiven to backward movements and commanded by an uncontrollable sovran\ndilettante, could only expect sooner or later to be expelled from the\nharbour of the nations. History is apt to overdo it, especially when\ncorruption has gone on too long; with every year that passed the doom\nbecame more certain; instead of being expelled, we were annihilated.\n\nThat four years of hunger, a lost war and a military revolt at last\nset us free, does not betoken any change of character; and when to-day\na servile and facile Press lauds our wretched and idealess\nConstitution as the finest in the world, that gives us no assurance\nof its power to endure. Understanding is no substitute for character,\nbut it is at any rate a step towards the goal; and if it is once\nunderstood that other measures are possible, and if, out of this\nperiod, certain writings and thoughts shall survive--and survive they\nwill--then at any rate we may still be weak, but we shall be no longer\nblind.\n\nIt might be possible at the outset of our journey towards strength of\nwill that we should grope our way slowly--very slowly--back to the old\nproblems of power. It does not matter if we do. Before we get there,\nthe world will be changed, and will be pregnant with new thoughts. Let\nus fulfil the duties for which Germany was made what it is. Let us go\nin quest of the idea and the faculty that are laid upon us; let us do\nthis in order to live, to recover our health, to shape ourselves anew,\nto remain a People, to become a Nation, to create a future and to\nserve the world.\n\nFOOTNOTES:\n\n[Footnote 17: Geistigkeit. This is a difficult word to translate. It\nsometimes means merely intellectuality, sometimes in addition (as\nhere) all that is implied in the phrase, \"Ye know not what manner of\nspirit ([Greek: oiou pneumatos]) ye are of.\"]\n\n[Footnote 18: Referring to Werner Sombart's war-book, _Haendler und\nHelden_.]\n\n[Footnote 19: _Cf._ Thomas Mann's remarkable book on the real\nsignificance of the war: _Betrachtungen eines Unpolitischen_ (1918).]\n\n[Footnote 20: Sachlichkeit. Rathenau seems to have in mind the German\nfeeling for disinterested study and research as illustrated, for\ninstance, by the fact that when the German Government heard of the\ngenius of Einstein they brought him to Berlin with a salary of nearly\nL1000 a year and no duties except to think. Modern bigotry has\nexpelled him.]\n\n[Footnote 21: Where Kant lived and taught, and published his _Kritik\nder reinen Vernunft_.]\n\n[Footnote 22: As opposed to the inward, intellectual and spiritual\ncharacter.]\n\n[Footnote 23: Stein was the chief leader of Prussia from the\nFrederician into the modern era. His ministry of reform by which a\npeasant-proprietary was established, and municipal institutions\ncreated, lasted only from September 1807 to November 1808.]\n\n\n\n\nX\n\n\nOn balance it seems that the endowments of the German people work out\nas follows:--\n\nHigh qualities of intellect and heart. Ethics and mentality normal.\nOriginative will-power and independent activity, weak.\n\nWe give our devotion freely, and the heart rules in action. Our\nfeelings are genuine and powerful. We have courage and endurance. Led\nby sentiment rather than by inspiration. We create no forms, are\nself-forgetful, seek no responsibility, obey rather than rule. In\nobedience we know no limit, and never question what is imposed upon\nus.\n\nOf its own accord the German people would never have adopted an ideal\nof force. It was imposed on us by the idolaters of the great\nwar-machine and those who gained by it; even Bismarck did not share\nit.\n\nWe are not competent to form an ideal of civilization, for the sense\nof unity, will to leadership, and formative energy are lacking to us.\nWe have no political mission for the arrangement of other people's\naffairs, for we cannot arrange our own; we do not lead a full life,\nand are politically unripe.\n\nWe are endowed as no other people is for a mission of the spirit. Such\na mission was ours till a century ago; we renounced it, because\nthrough political slackness of will-power we fell out of step; we did\nnot keep pace with the other nations in internal political\ndevelopment, and, instead, devoted ourselves to the most far-reaching\ndevelopments of mechanism and to their counterpart in bids for power.\nIt was Faust, lured away from his true path, cast off by the\nEarth-Spirit, astray among witches, brawlers and alchemists.\n\nBut the Faust-soul of Germany is not dead. Of all peoples on the earth\nwe alone have never ceased to struggle with ourselves. And not with\nourselves alone, but with our daemon, our God. We still hear within\nourselves the All, we still expand in every breath of creation. We\nunderstand the language of things, of men and of peoples. We measure\neverything by itself, not by us; we do not seek our own will, but the\ntruth. We are all alike and yet all different; each of us is a\nwanderer, a brooder, a seeker. Things of the spirit are taken\nseriously with us; we do not make them serve our lives, we serve them\nwith ours.\n\n\"And you dare to say this, in the face of all the brutalizing and\nbemiring that we experience--the profiteering and gormandizing, the\nabject submissiveness, the shameless desertions, the apathy, the\ninsincerity, the heartlessness and mindlessness of our day?\"\n\nYes, I dare to say it, for I believe it and I know it. The soul of the\nGerman people lies still in the convulsions and hallucinations of its\nslow recovery. It is recovery not alone from the war, but from\nsomething worse, its hundred-years' alienation from itself. The\nmuch-ridiculed choice of our old romantic unheraldic colours, black,\nred and gold, instead of the bodiless and soulless colours under which\nwe waged the war,[24] was, among the whirling follies of the time, a\nfaint symbolic movement of our better mind. We must reunite ourselves\nwith the days before we ceased to be Germans and became Berliners.\n\nWhat we need is Spirit. The whole world needs it, no more and no less\nthan we do, but will never create it. History knows why it decided for\nVersailles and the Hall of Mirrors. Not mechanism alone, with its\nretinue of nationalism and imperialism, is now again and for the last\ntime to be glorified; no, the whole Franco-British policy of\nacquisition mounts up even to the throne of the Sun-king, and it is\nseriously believed that it will govern the destinies of the world for\ncenturies to come. An inconceivable, and, in its monstrous irony,\nunsurpassable drama, which is put forward as the introduction to the\ngreat era. The bourgeois conscience of the West  has no inkling of\nwhat it means. To this conscience, the war was a huge violation of\ndecency, contrived by bandits; its victory is the final triumph of a\ncapitalist, rationalistic civilization; the torch lit in the East\nmeans murder and incendiarism, and the upward migration of the people\nfrom the depths is to it invisible.\n\nNo; it is not here that the spirit of the future is being formed. One\nmay discover further ingenious devices, lightning-conductors to\nmitigate the stroke; but gently or violently a natural force will have\nits way, and the new earth which it is preparing needs new seed.\n\nThat we have been given the faculty to shape a new spirit does not\nimply that we are at liberty to choose whether we shall do it or not.\nEven if it were not for our life's sake--even if it were against our\nlife--still we must obey. But it _is_ for our life's sake, as we have\nseen, and as it is indeed obvious, for every organism can live only by\nfulfilling the purpose of its being.\n\nAnd now we have got to a very dangerous place--a place where the usual\nmoral peroration lies in wait for us--that German peroration which\nannounces universal redemption, and immediately, on that lofty note,\ncloses the discussion. Fatherland, Morality, Humanity, Labour,\nCourage, Confidence--we all know how it goes, the writer has written\nsomething fine, the reader has read something fine; emotion on both\nsides, little conviction on either.\n\nIt appears, then, that I have just been writing something extremely\nsuspect. Has the reader followed me through five-and-thirty of these\ndifficult folios in order to arrive in the end at that very everyday\nterm, Spirit?[25] Is there any term in commoner use, and what are we\nto think about it? Softly--there is worse to come! The next word is\nstill more dubious, philistinishly so, in fact--the word Culture.[26]\nI cannot help it--we must pass on by way of these everyday\nconceptions. We must get through the crowd, where hack-phrases elbow\nus. Any journey you may take, though it were to Tibet, must begin at\nthe Berlin Central Railway Station. What is wrong with these popular\nphrases is not that they start from an everyday conception, but that\nthey remain content with it, and do not think it out to the end.\n\nOur task, therefore, stated in the most general terms, is to make\nactually spiritual a people which is capable of spirituality. And\nsince spirituality cannot be propped up by any external thrust, by\nsermons, newspaper articles, leagues, or propaganda, but must be\nassociated with life and developed out of life, so the organic process\nand the condition of life to which it leads is called Culture.\n\nIt is only with deep reluctance and after long search that I have\nwritten down this beautiful word, a word now worn almost beyond\nrecognition. Can we find our way back to its application and\nsignificance? Even when it is not drawn out with a futile prefix[27]\none can hardly detect its pure meaning by reason of the many\novertones. The school, if possible the university, some French and\nEnglish, the rules about I and Me, visiting-cards, shirt-cuffs,\nforeign phrases, top-hats, table-manners: these are some of the\novertones that make themselves heard when we talk of a cultured man,\nor rather as they have it a cultured gentleman. A hundred years ago,\nas the word implies, we understood by culture the unfolding and the\nfull possession of innate bodily, spiritual and moral forces. In this\nsense Goethe showed us the two fraternal figures formed after his own\nimage: Faust the richer, and the poorer Wilhelm Meister, striving for\nculture.\n\nThe ideal which hovers before us is not one of education, not even one\nof knowledge, although both education and knowledge enter into it; it\nis an ideal of the Will. It will not be easy to convey the breadth and\nthe boundless range which we are to attach to this conception. That it\nis not an airy figment is clear from the fact that for centuries the\nGreeks, with full consciousness, adopted as their highest law (though\ndirected to a somewhat different end) that impulse of the will which\nthey called _Kalokagathia_.[28]\n\nFrom one who has introduced the conception of mechanism into German\nthought, who has rescued the conception of the soul from the hands of\nthe psychologists and brought it back to its primal meaning, who has\nwritten so much about soulless intellectualism, and has put forward\nthe empire of the soul as the goal of humanity, it is not to be\nexpected that he should preach any mechanical kind of culture, or\nindeed any that it is possible to acquire by learning.\n\nHow culture is to be produced we shall see; the first thing necessary\nis that it should be willed.\n\nWilled it must be, in a sense and with a strength of purpose and a\nforce of appreciation of which we to-day, when the ages of faith, of\nthe Reformation, of the German classics, and the wars of liberation,\nlie so far behind us, have no idea at all.\n\nWhen the current conception of intellectual culture so much prized in\nfamily, society and business life, and tricked out with criticisms of\nstyle, with historical data and incidents of travel is justly\nridiculed, then the will to complete cultivation of the body, the\nintellect and the soul of the people must be so strong that all\nquestions of convenience, of enjoyment, of prestige and of material\ninterests must sink far into the background. This word must sound so\nthat all who hear it can look in each other's eyes with a full mutual\nunderstanding and without the slightest sense of ambiguity; just as\nthey do in Japan when the name of the common head of all families, the\nMikado, is named. There must be one thing in Germany and it must be\nthis thing, which is altogether out of reach of the yawning, blinking\nand grinning scepticism of the coffee-house, and of the belching and\ngrowling of the tavern. Any man who puts this thing aside in favour of\nhis class-ideas, or his speculations in lard, or his dividends, or the\ndemands of his Union, must understand that he is doing something as\noffensive as if he went out in public without washing himself.\n\nThe conception of Culture as our true and unique faculty must be so\nprofoundly grasped that in public life and legislation it must have\nthe first word and the last. Though we become as poor as church-mice\nwe must stake our last penny on this, and tune up our education and\ninstruction, our models and outlook, our motives and claims, our\nachievement and our atmosphere, to so high a point that any one coming\ninto Germany shall feel that he is entering into a new age.\n\nSociety must be penetrated by this conception. Those classes which\nalready possess something resembling it--such as training, education,\nexperience, tradition, outlook, good breeding--must pour out with both\nhands what they have to dispense; not in the way of endowments,\nconventicles, lectures and patronizing visits, but in quiet,\nself-sacrificing, personal service.\n\nAll this, of course, cannot be done without the free response of the\nother side. The devoted attempts which have been made, especially in\nEngland, and for some years with us too, to win this response by long\nand unselfish solicitation were destined to remain merely the mission\nof individual lives, for they were not supported by the will of the\ncommunity as a whole; it rather ran counter to them. A Peace of God\nmust be proclaimed, not as between the Haves and the Have-nots, not\nbetween the proletariat and the capitalists, not between the so-called\ncultured classes and the uncultured, but between those who are ready\nfor a mutual exchange of experience, a give-and-take of their\ntradition on both sides. Not an exchange on business principles, such\nas propaganda in satisfaction of demands, or curiosity on one side for\na new pastime on the other, but a covenant. This, however, is only\npracticable if the class-war, as an end in itself, is put a stop to.\n\nThe great change itself cannot be come by so cheaply; it demands other\nassumptions, of which we shall have something to say later. But the\nattitude and temper, the recognition of the task, could not be better\nintroduced than through the mutual service of the two social strata.\n\nWe have still at our disposal, handed on from the past, certain\norganized methods of investigation and administration. We now need\nchairs and institutes of research, not for the trivial business of\npopular enlightenment and lectures, but for the study and\ninvestigation of the needs of national culture, the idea which must\nnow take the place of national defence. We shall have need of central\nauthorities, not, like the late Ministries of Culture skimping the\nscanty endowment of the Board Schools, but doing the work of German\neducation, progress, and interchange of labour.[29]\n\nFOOTNOTES:\n\n[Footnote 24: Black, red and gold were originally the colours of a\nstudents' Corps in Frankfort. They were adopted as the colours of the\nabortive German Federation of 1848, apparently under a mistaken idea\nthat they represented the colours of the ancient Germanic Empire. The\ncolours of the Empire of 1870 were the Prussian black and white, with\nthe addition of red.]\n\n[Footnote 25: Geist.]\n\n[Footnote 26: Bildung. It is as difficult in English as it is in\nGerman to render in one word exactly what the author is thinking of.\nIn its literal sense Bildung implies a shaping and formative action.]\n\n[Footnote 27: Ausbildung.]\n\n[Footnote 28: A harmony of character, compounded of beauty and\ngoodness.]\n\n[Footnote 29: Arbeitsausgleich. The meaning of this will be apparent\nlater.]\n\n\n\n\nXI\n\n\nSome decades ago the conscience of middle-class society in England was\nstirred. The result was Toynbee Hall and the Settlements-movement,\nwhich afterwards found praiseworthy counterparts in Germany. Society\nhad begun to understand the wrong which it had done to its brothers,\nthe proletariat, whom it had robbed of mind, and offered them instead\nsoul-destroying, mechanical labour. Then choice spirits arose who\ndedicated their whole lives to the service of their brothers. This\ngreat and noble work did much to soften pain and hatred, and here and\nthere many a soul was saved by it; but it could not act as it was\nintended to act, because it could not become what it imagined itself\nto be.\n\nIt ought to have been, and believed itself to be, a simple and obvious\npiece of love-service, a pure interchange of spiritual possessions\nbetween class and class, no condescending pity or educative mission.\nIt was a noble and a splendid error; the movement retained the form of\nsacrifice and benefaction. On both sides social feeling was\nindifferent to it, or even hostile. What one hand gave, a thousand\nothers took back; what one hand received, a thousand others rejected.\nThe collective conscience of a class had never been stirred, it was\nmerely that the conscience of certain members of upper-class society\nhad sent out envoys; it had not moved as a body. Individuals were\nready to sacrifice themselves, but the conditions of labour remained\nunchanged.\n\nSo long as a general wrong is allowed to stand, it gives the lie to\nevery individual effort. The wrong becomes even more bitter because it\nloses its unconsciousness--men know it for wrong, and do not amend it.\nFor this reason a second movement of importance, that of the People's\nHigh Schools, which has created in Denmark the most advanced\npeasant-class in existence, can achieve no social reform in lands\ncloven by proletarianism. If in addition to this the High School\nmovement should depart from its original conception, that of a\ntemporary community of life between the teachers and the taught, and\nshould, instead of this, resolve itself into a lecture-institution,\nthen the danger arises that what is offered will be disconnected\nmatter, intended for entertainment, and without any basis of real\nknowledge, something commonly called half-culture which is worse than\nunculture, and is more properly described as misculture.\n\nNo work of the charitable type can bring about the reconciliation of\nclasses or be a substitute for popular education. The reconciliation\nof classes, however, even if it were attainable, is by no means our\ngoal, but rather the abolition of classes, and our ultimate object is\nnot popular education but popular culture. We do not intend to give\nwith one hand and take back with the other, we shall not condemn a\nbrother-people to dullness and quicken a few chosen individuals; no,\nwe mean to go to the root of the evil, to break down the monopoly of\nculture, and to create a new people, united and cultured throughout.\n\nBut the root of the trouble lies in the conditions of labour. It is an\nidle dream to imagine that out of that soulless subdivision of labour\nwhich governs our mechanical methods of production, the old\nhandicrafts can ever be developed again. Short of some catastrophic\ndepopulation which shall restore the mediaeval relation between the\narea of the soil and the numbers that occupy it, the subdivision of\nlabour will have to stand, and so long as it stands no man will\ncomplete his job from start to finish--he will only do a section of\nit; at best, and assuming the highest mechanical development, it will\nbe a work of supervision. But mindless and soulless work no man can do\nwith any joy. The terrible fact about the mechanization of industry is\nthat productive work, the elementary condition of life, the very form\nof existence, which fills more than half of each man's waking day, is\nby it made hated and hateful. It degrades the industrious man,\nthrilling with energy, into a work-shy slacker--for what else does it\nmean that all social conflicts culminate in the demand for a\nshortening of the hours of work? For the peasant, the research-worker,\nthe artist, the working day is never long enough; for the artisan, who\ncalls himself _par excellence_ a \"worker,\" it can never be too short.\n\nThe advance of technical invention will make it possible in the end to\ntransform all mechanical work into supervision. But the process will\nbe long and partial, we cannot wait till it is completed, especially\nas times will come when technical knowledge will stand still, or even,\nit may be, go back. Any one who knows in his own flesh what mechanical\nwork is like, who knows the feeling of hanging with one's whole soul\non the creeping movement of the minute-hand, the horror that seizes\nhim when a glance at the watch shows that the eternity which has\npassed has lasted only ten minutes, who has had to measure the day's\ntask by the sound of a bell, who kills his lifetime, hour after hour,\nwith the one longing that it might die more quickly--he knows how the\nshortening of the working day, whatever may be put in its place, has\nbecome for the factory artisan a goal of existence.\n\nBut he knows something else as well. He knows the deadliest of all\nwearinesses--the weariness of the soul. Not the rest when one breathes\nagain after wholesome bodily exertion, not the need for relaxation and\ndistraction after a great effort of intellect, but an empty stupor of\nexhaustion, like the revulsion after unnatural excess. It is the\nshallowest kind of tea-table chatter to talk about good music,\nedifying and instructive lectures, a cheerful walk in God's free\nNature, a quiet hour of reading by the lamp, and so on, as a remedy\nfor this. Drink, cards, agitation, the cinemas, and dissipation can\nalone flog up the mishandled nerves and muscles, until they wilt again\nunder the next day's toil.\n\nThe worker has no means of comparison. He does not know what wholesome\nlabour feels like. He will never find his way back to work on the\nland, for there he cannot get the counter-poisons which he thinks\nindispensable, and he lacks the organic, ordering mind which\nmechanical employment has destroyed. Even if some did get back, it\nwould be in vain, for though agriculture is hungering for thousands of\nhands it cannot absorb millions. The worker has no means of\ncomparison; hence his bottomless contempt for intellectual work, the\nresults of which he recognizes, but which, in regard to the labour it\ncosts, he puts on a level with the idling of the folk whom he sees\nstrolling or driving about with their lapdogs in the fashionable\nstreets.\n\nThe middle-class conscience, and even that of the men of science,\nturns away its face in shameful cowardice from the horror of\nmechanized labour. Apart from the well-meaning aesthetes who live in\nrural elegance surrounded by all the appliances which mechanism can\nsupply, who wrinkle their brows when the electric light goes out, and\nwho write pamphlets asking with pained surprise why people cannot\nreturn to the old land-work and handicraft, most of us take\nmechanical labour as an unalterable condition of life, and merely\ncongratulate ourselves that it is not we who have to do it.\n\nThe Utopianist agitators who knowingly or unknowingly suppress the\nessential truth that their world of equality will be a world of the\nbitterest poverty, treat the situation just as lightly. Before them,\nin the future State, hovers the vision of some exceptional literary or\npolitical appointment. The others may console themselves with the\nthought that in spite of a still deeper degree of poverty, towards\nwhich they are sinking by their own inactivity, the hell of mechanical\nwork, by no means abolished, will probably be a little reduced, so far\nas regards the time they spend in it. The notion that mechanical work\nwill be made acceptable and reconciled with intellectual, if only it\nis short enough and properly paid, has never been thought out; it is a\nstill-born child of mental lethargy, like all those visions of the\nfuture that are being held up to our eyes. Try notions like this on\nany other ill--toothache, for instance! All our rhetoric about\nmechanical work being no ill at all, is ignorant or fraudulent, and if\nnothing further be done than to reduce it to four hours, all our\nsocial struggles will immediately be concentrated on bringing it down\nto two. The goal of Socialism, so far as it relates to this _pons\nasinorum_ of shortening hours, is simply the right to loaf.\n\nLet us look facts in the face. Mechanical work is an evil in itself,\nand it is one which we never can get rid of by any conceivable\neconomic or social transformation. Neither Karl Marx nor Lenin has\nsucceeded here, and on this reef will be wrecked every future State\nthat may be set up on the basis of current Socialistic ideas. In this\npoint lies the central problem of Socialism; undisturbed, as was till\nlately that legendary conception of surplus-value, and bedded, like\nthat conception, in a rats'-nest of rhetorical phrases, repeated from\nmouth to mouth and never tested by examination.\n\nThe bringing of Mind into the masses, the cultured State,[30] which is\nthe only possible foundation of a society worthy of humanity, must\nremain unattainable until everything conceivable has been thought out\nand done to alleviate the mischievous operation of this evil, which\ndulls and stupefies the human spirit and which, in itself, is\nineradicable. No Soviet-policy, no socialization, no property-policy,\nno popular education, nor any other of the catchwords which form _ad\nnauseam_ the monotonous staple of our current discussion of affairs,\ncan go to the heart of the problem. Instead we must establish and put\ninto practice the principle which I have called that of the\nInterchange of Labour, and which I must now, in broad outline,\nendeavour to explain.\n\nThe object of this principle is to bring mind into labour. It\ndemands--since mind cannot be brought into mechanical work beyond a\ncertain degree fixed  by technical conditions--that the day's work as\na whole shall have a share of it, by means of the exchange and\nassociation of mental and mechanical employment. Until this principle\nshall have been carried into effect, all true culture of the people\nremains impossible. So long as there is no culture of the people, so\nlong must culture remain a monopoly of the classes, and of escapes\nfrom the masses; so long must society be wanting in equilibrium, a\nunion open to breach from every side, and one which, however highly\nits social institutions may be developed, holds down the people to\nforced labour, and destroys culture.\n\nFOOTNOTES:\n\n[Footnote 30: Bildungsstaat.]\n\n\n\n\nXII\n\n\nThere is a way by which the day's work can be ennobled, and even have\nmind brought into it,[31] on capitalistic lines. Before the War we\nwere just about to enter on this path--America is treading it now. Its\nfundamental condition is a huge increase in general well-being.\n\nThe daily wages of the American working-man have risen, as we have\nalready remarked, to seven or even ten dollars, corresponding to a\npurchasing power of over a hundred marks. This amounts to so radical a\nremoval of all restrictions in domestic economy that one can no longer\nspeak of the proletarian condition as existing in the United States. A\nman who drives to his work in his own automobile can satisfy all his\nreasonable needs in the way of recreation and of extending his\neducation, he looks at his sectional job (as has not seldom been the\ncase in America even in earlier days) with a critical eye, he forms\nhis own judgment of its place in the whole, he improves the processes,\nand amuses himself by  being both workman and engineer. (Consider in\nthe light of this fact the value of the prophecy that America is\nstanding on the brink of Bolshevism!)\n\nIn a country whose wealth at this moment--in consequence of\nwar-profits and depreciation of money--is almost equal to that of the\nrest of the world put together, the process of abolishing\nproletarianism can go forward on capitalistic lines. But we Germans,\nsince it is decreed that we shall be among the poorest of the peoples,\nand must begin afresh, and live for the future--we shall renounce\nwithout envy the broad path of the old way of thought, the way of\nriches, in order to clear with hard work the new path on which, one\nday, all will have to follow us. The way of Culture is the way to\nwhich we are pointed, and we have described Interchange of Labour as\nthe fundamental condition which enables us to travel it. It is now\nclear that the conception of popular culture is not, after all,\nrepresented by any of the five-and-twenty idealizing catchwords with\nwhich we are wont to console ourselves in our elegiac orations, but\nthat by it is meant a clearly defined political procedure.\n\nBy the principle of Interchange of Labour it is required that every\nemployee engaged in mechanical work can claim to do a portion of his\nday's work in intellectual employment; and that every brainworker\nshall be obliged to devote a portion of his day to physical labour.\n\nThere are, of course, fixed limits to the application of this\nprinciple, on the one side in intellectual, on the other in bodily\nincapacity, as well as in those rare cases where it is recognized that\nthe interrupted hours of intellectual work cannot be made good.\n\nWe would also establish a year of Labour-Service, to be devoted by the\nwhole youth of Germany, of both sexes, to bodily training and work.\n\nThe tests of capacity and of the claim to be reckoned as \"cultured\" is\nnot to consist in examinations but in proof of work. Any one who can\noffer some show of claim can demand to be tested, and, if the result\nis favourable, to receive further culture. Thus we shall be taking\nseriously the question of the ascent to higher grades, which, so long\nas it depends on a particular age, or on school certificates, must\nremain on paper.\n\nLet no one say that this testing system is a mere mechanical method,\nthat it degrades Culture from its intellectual dignity, and is\nequivalent to the Chinese literary tests for office. True culture is\ndistinguished from mere sybaritic aestheticism in that in some sense or\nother it makes for production. Where there is no talent for art or for\ncreative thought, then there remain to be developed the educational\nforces of judgment, or a faculty for the conduct of life, which must\nhave their influence.\n\nDifferent categories of Culture will arise of themselves; not ranks or\ncastes or classes, but grades of society, each of which may be\nattained by any one. No one must be able to say that any monopoly of\nculture has barred his way, or that training and testing have been\ndenied him. If the culture be genuine it will never look down in\nintellectual arrogance on the stages below it; if it have duties\nassociated with it, then he who has rejected the path of ascent, or\nhas failed in it, cannot claim to fulfil those duties. Any one who has\nno faculty but that of a glib tongue will find in the multiplicity of\ncallings some field for his activity; but the rule of the talker,\nbacked by force or not, will at any rate be spared us.\n\nAt this point we may hear a voice from the average heart of Socialism\nexclaim: \"How is this? Do you call that having no castes? We have just\nbegun to shake off the yoke of the capitalists and now are we expected\nto put the cultured in command? This is pure reaction!\"\n\nSoftly! If this is a case of misunderstanding, we shall clear it up.\nIf any scruples still remain, we shall consider them further.\n\nLet us take the misunderstanding first. It is apparently forgotten\nthat capitalism ruled by hereditary power. Any one who belonged to\nthat circle ruled along with it, whether he were competent to rule or\nnot. But culture is not a heritable possession; no one can win it save\nby virtue of a higher spirit and will. He who has this spirit and this\nwill, can and will win it. He who wins it is fit for higher\nresponsibilities. Is the voice from the average heart answered?\n\nNo. It replies: \"Heritable or not, what do we care? We are out for\nequality. Distinctions in culture are a kind of aristocracy.\"\n\nNow, good heart, you have revealed yourself. What was the meaning of\nyour everlasting talk about the ladder for the rise of capacity? I\nshall tell you. The capable man is to toil, and to rise just so far as\nyou permit him, namely, till you can possess yourselves of the fruits\nof his labour: then he is to be thrust down, and the loudest mouth is\nto rule. You are not pleased with this interpretation? Neither am I,\nso we are quits.\n\nFor of the folly of imagining a society of equals I do not intend to\nspeak. The average man, who cannot understand equality of human\ndignity, equality before God, thinks nothing of demanding equality in\nexternals, equality in responsibility and vocation. But this sham\nequality is the enemy of the true, for it does not fit man's burden to\nhis strength, it creates overburdened, misused natures, driving the\none to scamped work and hypocrisy, and the other to cynicism. Every\naccidental and inherited advantage must indeed be done away with. But\nif there is any one who, among men equal in external conditions, in\nduties and in claims, demands that they should also be equal in mind,\nin will and in heart--let him begin by altering Nature!\n\nIn remuneration also, that is to say, in the apportionment of\nconditions of work, a mechanical equality would be tantamount to an\nunjust and intolerable inequality in the actual distribution or\nremission of work. Work of the highest class, creative and\nintellectual work--the most self-sacrificing that is known to man\nbecause it draws to itself and swallows up a man's whole life,\nincluding his hours of leisure and recreation--this work demands\nextreme consideration, in the form of solitude, freedom from\ndisturbance, from trivial and distracting cares or occupations, and\ncontact with Nature. This kind of consideration is, from the economic\npoint of view, an outlay which mechanical work does not require. If\nmechanical and intellectual work are to be placed under the same\nspecific conditions, under which the highest standard of output is to\nbe maintained and the producers are as far as possible to bear an\nequal burden, then the scale of remuneration must be different.\nStarting from a subsistence minimum it must for intellectual work be\ngraded two stages upward, one for the output,[32] and one for the\ngrade of culture implied.\n\nWomen will also be subject to this system of grading whether they\nexercise any vocation outside their homes or not, for society has a\ndeep interest in the culture of its mothers, and in external\nincentives to culture women must share equally with men.\n\nAn intimate sense of association will grow up within each grade of\nculture. This, however, will not impair the general solidarity of the\npeople, since no hereditary family egoism can arise. This sense of\nassociation, renewed with elements that vary from generation to\ngeneration, and corresponding very much to the relations between\ncontemporary artists who spring from different classes or territories,\nwill dissolve the relics of the old hereditary sentiment and absorb\ninto itself whatever traditional values the latter may possess.\n\nBetween the separate grades there will not only be the connexion\nafforded by the living possibilities of free ascent from one to the\nother, but the system of ever-renewed co-operation in rank-and-file at\nthe same work will in itself promote culture, tradition, and the\nconsciousness of union. We need only recall the old gilds and military\nassociations in order to realize what a high degree of manly civic\nconsciousness can arise from the visible community of duty and\nachievement. The mechanical worker will become the instructor of his\ntemporary comrade and guest, and the latter will in turn widen the\nother's outlook, and emulate him in the development of the processes\nof production. The manual worker will bring to the desk and the\nboard-room his freedom from prepossessions and the practical\nexperience of his calling; he will learn how to deal with abstractions\nand general ideas; he will gain a respect for intellectual work, and\nwill feel the impulse to win new knowledge and faculty, or to make\ngood what he has neglected.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nTwo objections remain to be considered and confuted.\n\nFirst: there are far more places to be filled in mechanical than in\nintellectual employment. Is it possible so to organize the interchange\nof work that every one who desires intellectual employment can find\nit? The answer is: that, whether we like it or not, all work tends\nmore and more to take on an administrative character. Just as in\nindustry there is ever more talk and less production, so our economic\nlife is working itself out through thousands upon thousands of new\norganizations. Industrial Councils, Councils of Workers,\nGild-Councils, are forming themselves in among the existing agencies\nof administration; and the immediate consequence of this is a\ntremendous drop in production, to be followed later by a more highly\narticulated and more remunerative system of work. It is as if a marble\nstatue came to life, and then had to be internally equipped with\nbones, muscles, veins and nerves. Or it resembles the transformation\nof a shabby piece of suburban building-ground: it has to be dug up,\ndrained, paved, fenced; and until traffic has poured into it, it\nremains a comfortless and dismal waste.\n\nBut the administrative side of our future economic and national life\ndemands the creation of so many posts of intellectual work that at\npresent there is not the trained _personnel_ to fill it. If the Year\nof Labour-Service is introduced, there will be still more defections\nand gaps to be filled. The rush for intellectual work is more likely\nto be too small than too great.\n\nLet us come to the second objection. Will not confusion be worse\nconfounded if there are many who have to fill two jobs, if, in these\njobs constant exchanges are taking place, if the periods of work are\nbrief and subject to untimely interruptions, if time and work are lost\nthrough never-ending rearrangement?\n\nAssuredly. And any one who starts with the idea of the old high-strung\nwork done, as it were, under military discipline, any one who\ncherishes the remotest idea that this system can ever return, in spite\nof the fact that its clamps and springs have been dashed to pieces,\nmay well lament these unsettlements. One who starts from the\nfluctuating conditions of our present-day, make-believe labour will\ntake organic unsettlements as part of the price to be paid, if they\nonly lead in the end to systematic production. But one who weighs the\nfact that the make-believe life of our present economy has not even\nyet reached its final form, will discern in every new transition-form,\nhowever tedious, the final redemption; in so far, at least, as any\nequilibrium is capable of being restored at all.\n\nThe essence of the interchange of labour will, therefore, consist in\nthis, that while the distinction between physical and intellectual\nwork will still exist, there will be no distinction between a physical\nand intellectual calling. Until advanced age may forbid, it will be\nopen to every man not merely to acquire some ornamental branches of\nknowledge but seriously and with both feet to take his footing in the\nopposite calling to his own.\n\nThe different callings will learn to know and respect each other, and\nto understand their respective difficulties. This applies particularly\nto those who call themselves the operative workers.\n\nAs soon as hereditary idleness has come to an end and loafing has been\ntrampled out, then many a one, who now thinks that mental work is mere\nchattering, will learn through his novitiate at the desk, that\nthinking hurts. If he does not feel himself equal to this kneading and\nrummaging of the brain, he will go back with relief to his workshop;\nhe will neither envy nor despise those who are operative workers with\nthe brain, and will understand, or at least unconsciously feel, the\noppositions in human nature and the differences in conditions of life,\nand will know them to be just. He cannot and must not keep himself\nwholly aloof from the elements of mental training; his contact with\nbrainworkers will not cease; and thus his complete and passive\nresignation to the domination of ignorant rhetoric will lose its\ncharm.\n\nAny man will be respected who contents himself with the lowest\nprescribed measure of culture, who modestly renounces further study,\nand goes back to manual work. But there will be no excuse for those\nwho know nothing and can do nothing, but pretend to set everybody\nright; for there will be no monopoly of culture to keep them down, and\nall genuine faculty must come to the test of action.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nTo-day there are three classes of social swindlers. First, those who\nlive on the community without returning it any service. These are the\npeople who live idly on inherited money, and the loafers. Against\nthese social legislation must be framed. Secondly, those who\ndeliberately practise \"ca' canny,\" and therefore live on the surplus\nwork of their fellows. These are the champions of the principle: Every\none according to his need, no one according to his deed; the\n_saboteurs_ of labour. Against these the remedy lies in the spread of\nintelligence and a just system of remuneration. Thirdly, there are\nthose who simulate thought and brain-work while they have nothing to\ngive but hack phrases uttered with a glib tongue. Against these worst\nof all swindlers, these sinners against the Spirit, the remedy is\nculture.\n\nAnd this, in the new Order, is open to every one, young or old, who\ncan maintain his foothold in the exercise of intellect, when the\nchance is offered him. He who in his test-exercise reaches a normal\nstandard of accomplishment can demand that he shall not be sent back\nto manual work, but continue to be employed in the same occupation,\nand be further cultivated in whatever direction he desires. At every\nfurther stage of development a corresponding sphere of activity is to\nbe opened to him, up to the point at which the limits of his capacity\ncome into sight.\n\nLet no one object that the rush for intellectual work will become\nuncontrollable. Would that it might! For then the country would be so\nhighly developed and its methods of work so perfected that there would\nbe quite a new relation between the demand for head-work and for\nhand-work. For a long time to come this rush will be far smaller than\nwe imagine; for the immediate future it will suffice if the rising\nforces are set free, and the laggard are tranquillized.\n\nBut, the Radicals will cry, what an unsocial principle! Have we at\nlast, with difficulty, brought it to the point that the accursed\none-year examination[33] is abrogated, and now are we again to be\ncondemned according to this so-called standard of culture?\n\nStay! there is a fallacy here. In our transition period which is still\nquite dominated by the monopoly of culture, I have nothing to say\nagainst the abrogation of every educational test, even though in a few\nyears we shall feel the deeply depressing  effects which will arise\nfrom the domination of the uncultured.\n\nBut the transition period will come to an end. Then every one who\nlikes will be able to learn and to execute, and every one who is able\nwill wish to do so.\n\n\"But supposing one does not wish? May not he be the very one who is\nmost capable of achievement? We don't want model pupils.\"\n\nNor do I want model pupils. The boy who has learnt nothing may make\nhis trial as a man when culture is open to all. But if, as a man, he\ndoes not care to rack his brains he will be thought none the less of;\nhe will merely be offered ordinary work according to his choice.\n\nBut those who wish to see responsibility and the destiny of the\ncountry placed in the hands of men who do not care to rack their\nbrains, must not entrench themselves behind social principles, but\nplainly admit that they want for all time to establish the rule of\ndemagogy and the vulgarization of intellect. It is not for such a one\nto pass judgment on the mission of Germany.\n\nThe way to the German mission, to German culture, which is to be no\nmore a culture of the classes but of the people, stands open to all by\nmeans of the Interchange of Labour. The whole land is as it were a\nsingle ship's crew; the issues are the same for all. The manual worker\nis no longer kept down by over-fatigue, and the brainworker is no\nlonger cut off from the rest of the people.\n\nThe manual worker no longer regards the territory of culture as a sort\nof inaccessible island, but rather as a district which he can visit\nevery day and in which he is quite at home. Every one in future will\nstart even in school training, and the degree to which his further\nculture may be carried will not be limited by want of money or of\ntime, or, above all, of opportunity. He will continually have\nintercourse with men of culture, and in that intercourse he will at\nonce give and receive; the habits of thought, the methods and the\nrange of intellectual work which are now only the heritage of a few\nwill be his own; and the twofold language of the country, the language\nof conceptions and the language of things, will for him be one.\n\nThere will be no permanent system of stratification; the energies of\nthe people, rising and falling, will be in constant movement and their\nelements will never lose touch. There may be self-tormenting and\nunhappily constituted natures who will hate their own dispositions and\nthe destiny they have shaped for themselves--these aberrations will\nnever cease so long as men are men--but there will be no more hatred\nof class for class, any more than there is in any voluntary\nassociation of artists or of athletes.\n\nAnd since culture is to be at once the recognized social aim of the\ncountry and the personal goal and standard of each individual, the\nstruggle for possessions and enjoyments, doubly restrained by public\nopinion and by deeper insight, will sink into the background.\n\nBut the spirit of the land will not resemble any that we know at\npresent. As in the Middle Ages, a spiritual power will rule, but it\nwill not be imposed from without or above, it will be a creation from\nwithin. The competition of all will be like that of the best in the\ntime of the Renaissance, but it will not be a competition for\nconventional values but for the furthering of life. The country will\nbecome, as it was in former days, a generous giver, not, however, from\nthe lofty eminence of a class set apart, but out of the whole strength\nof the people.\n\nAgain, for the first time, the convinced and conscious will of a\npeople will be seen to direct itself to a common and recognized goal.\nThis is a fact of immeasurable significance, it implies the exercise\nof forces which we only discern on the rare mountain-peaks of history,\nand of which the last example was the French Revolution.\n\nBut those dangers of which we have spoken, that hell of a mechanical\nsocialism, of institutions and arrangements without sentiment or\nspirit, are done away with, for production has ceased to be merely\nmaterial and formal, it has acquired absolute value and substance.\nSpirit is the only end that sanctifies all means; and it sanctifies\nnot by justifying them but by purifying them.\n\nFOOTNOTES:\n\n[Footnote 31: Vergeistigt werden. It is difficult to render this word\nin the sense in which Rathenau uses it; 'intellectualized' does not\nsay enough, and 'spiritualized' says a little too much.]\n\n[Footnote 32: Assuming that the highest output is reached in the\nparticular instance which of course will not be the case with every\nworker whether in the mechanical or intellectual sphere. The author\nappears to be referring to amount, not quality, of output, as the\nlatter would be covered by the second clause, relating to grade of\nculture (Bildungsstufe).]\n\n[Footnote 33: Referring to the shortening of military service which\nused to be accorded to recruits of a certain educational standard.]\n\n\n\n\nXIII\n\n\nAs the kinsfolk of a dying man comfort themselves in the death-chamber\nwith every little droop in the curve of temperature, although they\nknow in their hearts that the hour has come, so our critics flatter\nthemselves with the idea that in the end all will come right, if not\nby itself at least with trifling exertion. But it is not so: except by\nthe greatest exertion nothing will come right. Our lake-city of\neconomics and social order is ripe for collapse, for the piles on\nwhich it is built are decayed. It is true that it still stands, and\nwill be standing for an hour or so, and life goes on in it very much\nas in the days when it was sound. We can choose either to leave it\nalone, and await the downfall of the city, among whose ruins life will\nnever bloom again, or we can begin the underpinning of the tottering\nedifice, a process which will last for decades, which will allow no\npeace to any of us, which will be toilsome and dangerous, and will end\nalmost imperceptibly, when the ancient city has been transformed into\nthe new.\n\nLet us have no doubt about it: something tremendous and unprecedented\nhas to be accomplished here. Does any thinking man believe that when\nthe social order of the world has collapsed, when a country of the\nimportance of Germany has lost the very basis of its existence, when\nthe development of centuries is broken off, its faculties and its\ntraditions emptied of value and repudiated--does any man really\nbelieve that by means of certain clauses in a Constitution a few\nconfiscations, socializations and rises in wages, a nation of sixty\nmillions can be endowed with a new historical reason for existence?\nWhy is not the negro republic of Liberia ahead of all of us?\n\nOur character is weak on the side of will, and our former lords say\nthat we are good for nothing except under strict discipline\nadministered by dynasts and hereditary nobles. If that is true, it is\nall over with us; unless some dictator shall take pity on us and give\nus a modest place among the nations with a great past and a small\nfuture. If we are worthy of our name we must be born again of the\nSpirit. Merely to conceive this is in itself an achievement for a\npeople; to carry it out, to embody the conception in a new order of\nsociety, is at once a test and an achievement.\n\nOur social ethics must take up a new position. Hitherto--stripping off\nthe usual rhetorical phrases--it has taken its stand on two effective\nand really driving principles, those of Duty and of Success; two\nside-views of Individualism. All else, including love of one's\nneighbour, sense of solidarity, faith, spiritual cultivation, feeling\nfor Nature, was (apart from a few lofty spirits) merely subsidiary;\nmeans to an end, convention or falsehood. There were few whose\ncareers were not influenced by these estimates; the majority of the\nupper classes was wholly under their dominion.\n\nThe two goals of our wishes, to have something and to be something,\nwere expressed by the whole outward aspect of society. The great\nobject was not to be counted as a Tom, Dick or Harry, one who had\nless, or was less, than others. There were grades of being, grades of\nhuman being: it was possible to be something, to be much, to be\nlittle, or to be nothing at all. From the white collar to the pearl\nnecklace, from the good nursery to the saloon car, from the\nwatch-ribbon to the sword-belt, from the place at the ordinary to the\ntitle of Excellency, everything was a proof of what one had, or was,\nor believed oneself to be. If one did not know a man one must not\nspeak to him; if one knew him, one might borrow a hundred marks from\nhim, but one must not ask him for a penny. Whoever had wealth\ndisplayed it in order to be admired; whoever had a social position\ndisplayed his unapproachability and the weight of his dignity, as, for\ninstance, when with an absent look and lost in the burden of his own\nexistence he entered a dining-hall. From inferiors one demanded a\ndegrading attitude and forms of speech, and presented to them a face\nof stone; towards those in higher position one came to life and\ndisplayed an attentive civility. It was--or shall we say\nis?--permissible to lavish in an hour the monthly income of a poor\nfamily. \"One had it to spend\" and \"what business was it of theirs?\" In\nthe lower ranks there was much of genuine revolt against these abuses\nand also much envy and malice, much open imitation, and much of secret\nadmiration. Every silly craze was cheapened in hideous imitations, the\nsuburb and the village made a display which in quality, indeed, fell\nbelow the model, but in quantity not at all.\n\nIt may be said that these were excrescences or city fashions; that one\nmust not generalize. These are empty phrases. To understand the spirit\nof a society it is not hermits that one must study. And, moreover, let\nany one ask himself whether this society was really based on the idea\nof solidarity and human friendliness or upon unscrupulous personal\ninterests and exploitation, on shows and shams, on the demand for\nservice and the claim to command. If anything can explain the\neagerness with which we Germans flung ourselves into a war whose\norigins we did not know and did not want to know, then besides the\nconscious objects, advantage, rehabilitation, and renown, we must also\ntake into account the obscure impulse of the national conscience which\nin the midst of evil individualism and of personal and class egoism\nyearned for the sense of solidarity and fusion.\n\nIs it objected that all this lies deeply rooted in human nature, that\nit has been there from time immemorial, and it is impossible to alter\nit at one stroke? Pedantic drivel! Many things lie deep in human\nnature, and it depends on which of these the will chooses to develop.\nAnd who talked of altering things at one stroke? Our judgment of\nvalues is to be transformed, and if human nature never changed, much\nthat now flaunts itself in the sunshine would be creeping in the\nshade. This transformation of judgment is a matter of recognizing\nthings for what they are. When pomp, extravagance, exclusiveness,\nfrivolity and fastness, greed, place-hunting and vulgar envy are\nlooked on with the same eyes as aberrations in other provinces of\nlife, then we shall not indeed have abolished all vice, but the\natmosphere will be purified. Look at our sturdy Socialists of the\nNovember days[34] and proselytes of every description: you can see\nthat the acquisition of a new judgment of values may be the affair of\nan hour! And for that reason one must not criticize them too\nclosely--unless they try to make a profit out of their conversion.\n\nAll social judgments presuppose a system of recognized values. The\nvalues of Christian ethics have never penetrated deeply into the\ncollective judgment of mankind; even in the mediaeval bloom of\nChristian, or rather of ecclesiastical, culture the moral conceptions\nof Christianity remained the possession of a few chosen spirits and\ncommunities; society in general accepted the mythical element, did\nhomage to the hierarchy, and remained ethically pagan, the upper\nclasses being guided by a code of honour resting on the worship of\ncourage. The Churches never made any serious effort to shape an\nethical code; they were preoccupied with the teaching of dogmas of\nfaith which carried them ever farther and farther from the groundwork\nof the Gospels, and they devoted whatever surplus energies they had to\npolitics, and to accommodations with the ruling powers of the world.\n\nThe cult of courage imposed on and exercised by the ruling classes,\nand symbolically imaged in their code of honour, took an effective\nshape in the banning of cowardice and of cowardly crime. So far as\npositive values go, the ethics of nobility degenerated into smartness,\nthe claim for \"satisfaction\" and the exclusiveness of rank; a Prussian\nand Kantian abstraction, the conception of duty, a conception at\nbottom unproved and incapable of generating conviction, became a rule\nof life, made effective by training and control. The ruling powers and\ntheir controls have given way, and their dry brittleness is revealed.\n\nWe have not succeeded in finding a substitute for social ethics in an\nidealized type of national character. The imagination of the Western\nnations, like those of antiquity, has shaped ideal types which they\nbelieve or would wish themselves to resemble; they know what they mean\nby \"esprit gaulois,\" or \"English character,\" or \"American Democracy,\"\nwhile, in accordance with the problematic character of our being, we\nGermans, except for the statuesque heroes of legendary times, or\ncertain historic but inimitable figures, have conceived or poetically\ncreated no character of which we can say that it embodies the\ncollective spirit of Germany.\n\nThe super-ethical doctrine of the being, the growth and the empire of\nthe soul has been laid down by us, but there are as yet few into whose\nconsciousness it has penetrated; the transformation of thought and\nfeeling which must proceed from it will not lay hold of the masses\ndirectly, but will filter continually from one social stratum to\nanother.\n\nThe recognized values of social judgment! It sounds so abstract, so\nremote from practice, that one might well believe we were landed again\nin the cloudland of festal oratory and the emotions of the leading\narticle. The voluntary recognition of an invisible authority! And this\nafter we have shattered the visible, and are living in the midst of\nintellectual anarchy and moral Nihilism! And yet moral valuations,\nsimple, binding, and on the level of social judgment, are near enough\nto be within our grasp.\n\nAre not all the four quarters of the world to-day talking about\nDemocracy? Have not we ourselves got tired of this word, forbidden\ntill a year ago--tired, even in circles where the modest word\n\"Liberal\" was never pronounced without a frown? And what does\nDemocracy mean? Do we take it in the merely negative sense, that one\nis no longer obliged to put up with things? Or in the meagre sense,\nthat responsibility goes by favour, and that the majority must decide?\nOr the dubious sense, that we are yearning to make our way through a\nsham Socialism to the Dollar Republic?\n\nIt is not the form of government, it is the form of society, that\ndetermines the spirit of a land. There is no democratic form of\nsociety, for democracy can be in league with capitalism, with\nsocialism, or even with the class of clubs and castes. The unspoken\nfundamental conception which gives significance and stability both to\nthe forms of a democratic constitution and to those of an organic\nsociety is called Solidarity--that is to say, cohesion and the sense\nof community. Solidarity means that each man does not come first in\nhis own eyes, but before God and State and himself each man must stand\nand be answerable for all, and all for each.\n\nIn this sense of solidarity the dominion of the majority over the\nminority is not an object to be striven for but an evil to be avoided;\nthe true object of a solid democracy is the dominion of a people over\nitself, not by reckoning up the relative strength of its various\ninterests, but by virtue of the spirit and of the will which it sets\nfree. In this sense of solidarity no society can be based on\nhereditary monopolies either of capital or of cultivation; nor can it\nbe delivered over to the terrorism of vocations and unions which,\nunder the leaderships of shouters, claim the right whenever they\nplease, to strangle indispensable industries; nor can it be based on\ndemagogic flattery of excitable mobs. Every born man must from his\ncradle onwards have the same right to existence; he must be sheltered\nand fostered as he grows up, and be free to choose his lot. Every\noccupation must be open to him, except that he must not encroach on\nthe sphere of another man's liberty. The standard of his activity is\nnot to be fixed by birth or privilege or force or cunning or the glib\ntongue, but again, by spirit and by will.\n\nTo-day, while cultivation of the spirit is still a class-monopoly, it\ncannot form any standard of creative capacity. And yet it has been\ndemonstrated that so powerful is the passion for culture in a spirit\nwhich is in any degree qualified for it, that even to-day it is\ncapable, by self-education, of surmounting some of the artificial\nbarriers. There was not, to my knowledge, any illiterate among the\nPrussian or German Ministers of the new era, and the one of them who\nexcused his deficiencies of language with the class-monopoly of\neducation was in the wrong, for any man of normal capacity might in\nten years' practice of popular oratory have learned the elements of\nsyntax.\n\nWhen access to the cultivation of the German spirit has become a\ncommon right of the whole people, Culture will become, if not the sign\nat least the presupposition of creative activity. The proof of\ncapacity will then cease to be settled either between agitators and\nthe masses, or in the dimness of privileged chanceries, but in the\nproductive competition of men of high intellectual endowment.\n\nSociety will not be divided by classes and castes, it will not be\ngraded according to pedigree or possessions, it will not be ruled by\nseparate interests; by ideas or by the masses; it will be an ordered\nbody--ordered by spirit, by will, by service and responsibility.\n\nAny one who does not accept this self-created and self-renewing order,\nand who at the same time rejects the old, is simply working for the\ndominion of force and chance. A society can no more remain permanently\nwithout order than the staff of a factory or the crew of a ship. Only\ninstead of an organic order we may have an accidental and arbitrary,\nan order of the personal type, springing from the dexterity shown in\nsome favourable moment, maintaining itself by force, and seeking to\nperpetuate itself in some form of hereditary oligarchy.\n\nAn order of the priestly and hierarchical type is no longer thinkable\nto-day, nor can one of the peasant type come into question in a land\nof urban industry. Whoever wishes to see an organic self-determining\nand self-regenerating order of society, has therefore to choose\nbetween the military order, resting upon disciplined bodily capacity,\nor the mercantile and capitalist order which rests upon business-sense\nand egoistic alertness, or the demagogic order which rests upon the\nrhetorical domination of the masses, and does not last long as it soon\nturns to violence and oligarchy, or finally the order of culture,\nresting upon spirit, character, and education.\n\nThis last is not merely the only suitable one for us and the only one\nwhich is worthy of our past; it will also in time become the general\norder of society prevailing over all the world. In the vision of this\norder we recognize the mission that Prussia neglected, though it lay\nwithin its grasp for a hundred years; what it neglected and the rock\non which it foundered.\n\nThe greatness of Prussian policy since 1713 lay in its premonition and\nappreciation of the principle of mechanism even before it became\ncommon to all the world. Organization and improvement, the war machine\nand money, science, practicality and conscientiousness--all this is\nclearly mechanization seen from the political side.\n\nThe early application of these principles was a stroke of genius far\nin advance of the then condition of the world. Seen from this\nstandpoint, all the rest of the continental world, not yet mechanized,\nand burdened with the relics of mediaevalism, Caesarism and clericalism,\nseemed torpid and lost in illusions: arbitrary, inaccurate and\nslovenly. With short interruptions this Prusso-central point of view\nwas maintained until the middle of the World-War; and not quite\nunjustly, for Prussia remained in every respect ahead of other powers\nin the department of mechanization.\n\nFor a hundred years the Prussian principles had a monopoly of success;\nelsewhere they were scarcely understood and much less imitated. Then\ncame Napoleon.\n\nHe took over the mechanistic principle and handled it as never a man\nhad done before; he became the mechanizer of the world. At the same\ntime he was something mightier than that: he was the heir of the\nFrench idea of spiritual and popular liberty.\n\nPrussia fell, and would have fallen, even if its mechanism had not\ngrown rusty. Its leaders learnt their lessons from France and England,\nthey set on foot a liberation of the people by departmental authority\nand a liberation of the spirit by the people; they put new life into\nthe mechanism, and they conquered with the help of England as we have\nlately seen France conquer with the help of America.\n\nBut here came a parting of the ways. It was possible to pursue either\nthe way of mechanization or that of the liberation of the spirit.\nPrussia did neither; it stood still. In the place of the liberation of\nthe spirit came the reaction; in the place of mechanization came the\nbureaucracy. On the rest of the Continent, too, the movement for\npolitical mechanization was stifled, the force that stifled it being\nthe uprising economic movement.\n\nBismarck was aware of the untried forces that lay in the system of\npolitical mechanization. The world, as we looked at it from our\nPrussian window, seemed as loose and slovenly as ever, and it was so.\nOnce again, with a mighty effort, the Prussian mechanism was revived\nand the movement of the bourgeoisie towards liberty and the life of\nthe spirit was repressed. This was called \"realism\" in politics, and\nthe estimate was a just one. There was no progress to be made with\nprofessional Liberalism; but with Krupp and Roon one organized\nvictories. As in Frederick's time the slovenly Continent had to give\nway, Prussia mounted to the climax of her fortunes, and won Germany.\n\nAnd again there was a parting of the ways; but this time there was no\none to stand for civic and spiritual freedom. People believed they had\nall they wanted of it; democracy was discredited and broken, the\nprofessors were political realists, success followed the side of\nmechanization, which was rightly supposed to be linked with the\ndynasty, and mechanization in the economic sphere drew to its side the\nhope of gain.\n\nBismarck died in the midst of anxieties, but to the end he had no\nscruples. The two systems of mechanization were at their zenith, and\nthe other countries looked, in political affairs, as slovenly as ever.\nOne was wearing itself out in parliamentary conflicts, another had no\nbattle-cruisers, another was lacking in cannon, or in recruits, or in\nrailways, or in finances; the trains never came in up to time,\neverywhere one found public opinion or the Press interfering in\nprocess of law or in the administration, everywhere there were\nscandals; in Prussian Germany alone was everything up to the mark.\n\nOnly one thing was overlooked. The mechanization of economics had\nbecome a common possession for everybody. Starting from this and with\nthe methods and experiences attached to it, it was possible also for\nother countries, if necessary, to mechanize their politics or, as we\nsay now, to militarize them. And this could be done with even more\nlife and vigour than in Prussia, whose organization was there\nbelieved to be inimitable and where the principle of mechanism was, as\nit were, stored up in tins and in some places was obviously getting\nmouldy. In the matter of Freedom, however, the other peoples were\nahead of us, and to the political isolation of Prussia spiritual\nisolation was now added.\n\nIn the encircling fog which prevailed on economic developments there\nwas not a single statesman who recognized that Prussian principles had\nceased to be a monopoly, or an advantage, not to mention a conception\nof genius. This lack of perception was the political cause of the war.\nInstead of renewing ourselves inwardly through freedom and the spirit,\nand carrying on a defensive policy as quietly, discreetly, and\ninconspicuously as possible, we took to arming and hurrahing. Worse\nthan any playing of false notes was the mistake we made in key and in\ntempo: D major, _Allegro_, _Marcia_, _Fortissimo_, with cymbals and\ntrumpets!\n\nTo-day we have no longer a choice before us, only a decision. The\nperiod of mechanical Prussianization is over for us, the period of the\nmechanical policy of Force is over for all the world, although the\nheliographs of Versailles seem to reflect it high above the horizon.\nIt is not a capitalistic Peace of God as imagined by the international\npolice which has now begun; it is the social epoch. In this epoch the\npeople will live and will range themselves according to the strength\nof the ideas which they stand for.\n\nIt is not enough for us to become Germans instead of Prussians; not\neven if, as it were to be desired, we should succeed in rescuing from\nthe collapse of Prussia her genuine virtues of practicality, order and\nduty. It is not enough to brew some soulless mixture out of the\nworn-out methods of the Western bourgeoisie and the unripe attempts of\nEastern revolutionaries. It is not enough--no, it will lead us to\ndestruction quicker than any one believes--to blunder along with the\ndisgusting bickerings of interests and the complacent narrowness of\nofficialism, talking one day of the rate of exchange, another of our\ndebts, and the next of the food question, plugging one hole with the\nstopping of another and lying down at night with a sigh of relief:\nWell, something's got done; all will come right.\n\nNo, unthinking creatures that you are; nothing will come right until\nyou drop your insincere chatter, your haggling, your agitating and\ncompromising, and begin to think. Here is a people that has lost the\nbasis of its existence, because, in its blind faith in authority, it\nstaked that existence on prosperity and power; and both are gone. Do\nyou want to stake _our_ existence, on ships, soldiers, mines,\ntrade-connexions, which we no longer possess, or upon the soil, of\nwhich we have not enough, or upon our broken will to work? Are we to\nbe the labour-serfs and the serfage stud-farm of the world? Only on\nThoughts and Ideals can our existence be staked. Where is your\nthought? Where is the thought of Germany?\n\nWe can and must live only by becoming what we were designed to be,\nwhat we were about to be, what we failed to become: a people of the\nSpirit, the Spirit among the peoples of mankind. That is the thought\nof Germany.\n\nThis thought is shaping the New Society--the society of the spirit and\nthe cultivation of the spirit, the only one which can hold its ground\nin the new epoch, and which fulfils it.\n\nThis is why we have been endowed with a character whose will is weak\nin external things and strong in inward responsibility; why depth and\nunderstanding, practicality and uprightness, many-sidedness and\nindividuality, power of work and invention, imagination and aspiration\nhave been bestowed upon us, in order that we may fulfil these things.\nFor what do these qualities, as a whole, betoken? Not the conqueror,\nnot the statesman, not the worldling, and not the man of business; it\nis a narrow and trivial misuse of all faculty for us to pretend to\nrepresent these types among the nations. They betoken the labourers of\nthe spirit; and far as we are from being a nation of thinkers and\npoets, it is nevertheless our right and our high calling to be a\nthinking nation among the nations.\n\nBut on what, you may ask with scorn, is this thinking nation to live?\nWith all its wisdom, will it not be reduced to beggary and starvation?\n\nNo--it will live. That people which amid a century of world-revolution\nis able to form for itself a stable, well-balanced, ordered and highly\ndeveloped form of society will be one that works and produces. All\naround there will be quarrelling and conflict, there will be little\nwork and little production. For the next decade the question will be,\nnot where is the demand but where is the supply?\n\nThe countries are laid waste, as Germany was after the Thirty Years'\nWar; only we do not as yet recognize it, so long as the fever lasts we\ndo not notice the decline.\n\nProduction, thought-out and penetrated with spirit, on the part of a\nhighly developed society, and combined with labour-fellowship, is more\nthan valuable production or cheap production; it is something\nexemplary and essential. And this applies not only to production\nitself but to the methods of production, to the technique, the\nschooling, the organization, the manner of thinking.\n\nIt is a petty thing to say that we were destroyed out of envy. Why did\nnot envy destroy America and England? The world regarded us at once\nwith admiration and with repulsion; with admiration for our systematic\nand laborious ways, with repulsion for our tradesman-like\nobtrusiveness, the brusque and dangerous character of our leadership\nand the ostentatious servility with which we endured it. If it had\nbeen possible anywhere outside of our naked, mercantile and national\negoism to discover a German idea, it would have been respected.\n\nThe German idea of cultivation of the spirit will win something for us\nwhich we have not known for a century, and the scope of which we\ncannot yet measure; people will freely appreciate us, they will\nfurther us and follow us on our way. We have no idea what it means for\na people to have these sympathetic forces at its side, as France had\nin its creation of forms, England and America in civilization and\ndemocracy, Russia in Slavonic orthodoxy and the neutral States in\ntheir internationalism.\n\nThere is no fear: we shall live, and more than live. For the first\ntime for centuries we shall again be conscious of a mission, and\naround all our internal oppositions will be twined a bond which will\nbe something more than a bond of interest.\n\nThe goal of the world-revolution upon which we have now entered means\nin its material aspect the melting of all strata of society into one.\nIn its transcendental aspect it means redemption: redemption of the\nlower strata to freedom and to the spirit. No one can redeem himself\nbut every one can redeem another. Class for class, man for man: thus\nis a people redeemed. Yet in each case there must be readiness and in\neach there must be good-will.\n\nFOOTNOTES:\n\n[Footnote 34: 1918, when the revolution in Germany broke out at Kiel.]\n\n                                THE END\n\n\n\n\n                         THE EUROPEAN LIBRARY\n\n                       Edited by J. E. SPINGARN\n\n\nThis series is intended to introduce foreign authors whose works are\nnot accessible in English, and in general to keep Americans in touch\nwith the intellectual and spiritual ferment of the continent of\nEurope. No attempt will be made to give what Americans miscall \"the\nbest books,\" if by this is meant conformity to some high and illusory\nstandard of past greatness; any twentieth-century book which displays\ncreative power or a new outlook or more than ordinary interest or\ncharm will be eligible for inclusion. Nor will the attempt be made to\nselect books that merely confirm American standards of taste or\nmorals, since the series is intended to serve as a mirror of European\nculture and not as a glass through which it may be seen darkly.\nFiction will predominate, but belles lettres, poetry, philosophy,\nsocial and economic discussion, history, biography, and other fields\nwill be represented.\n\n     \"The first organized effort to bring into English a series\n     of the really significant figures in contemporary European\n     literature.... An undertaking as creditable and as ambitious\n     as any of its kind on the other side of the Atlantic.\"--_New\n     York Evening Post._\n\nTHE WORLD'S ILLUSION. By J. WASSERMANN. Translated by Ludwig Lewisohn.\nTwo volumes. (Second printing.)\n\nOne of the most remarkable creative works of our time, revolving about\nthe experiences of a man who sums up the wealth and culture of our age\nyet finds them wanting. The first volume depicts the life of the upper\nclasses of European society, the second is a very Inferno of the\nSlums; and the whole mirrors, with extraordinary insight, the beauty\nand sorrow, the power and weakness of our social and spiritual world.\n\"A human comedy in the great sense, which no modern can afford not to\nhear.\"--H. W. Boynton, in the _Weekly Review_.\n\n\nPEOPLE. By PIERRE HAMP. Translated by James Whitall. With an\nIntroduction by Elizabeth Shepley Sergeant.\n\nIntroducing one of the most significant writers of France, himself a\nworking man, who in these stories of the French underworld expresses\nthe new self-consciousness of the worker's outlook.\n\n\nTHE NEW SOCIETY. By WALTER RATHENAU. Translated by Arthur Windham.\n\nOne of Germany's most influential thinkers and men of action presents\nhis vision of the new society emerging out of the War.\n\n\nDECADENCE AND OTHER ESSAYS ON THE CULTURE OF IDEAS. By REMY DE\nGOURMONT. Translated by William Aspenwall Bradley.\n\nThe first authorized version of the critical work of one of the great\naesthetic thinkers of France.\n\n\n                           IN PREPARATION\n\nTHE PATRIOT. By HEINRICH MANN. Translated by Ernest A. Boyd.\n\nThe career of a typical product of militarism, in school, university,\nbusiness, patriotism, and love, told with a biting incisiveness and\nirony.\n\n\nTHE REFORM OF EDUCATION. By GIOVANNI GENTILE. With an Introduction by\nBENEDETTO CROCE. Translated by Dino Bigongiari.\n\nA new interpretation of the meaning of education, by one who shares\nwith Croce the leadership of Italian thought to-day.\n\n\nA POET'S LOVES: FROM THE UNPUBLISHED MANUSCRIPTS OF VICTOR HUGO. By\nLOUIS BARTHOU. Translated by Daniel Crehange Rosenthal.\n\nA striking, not to say sensational, revelation of the intimate private\nlife of a great poet, by an ex-Premier of France.\n\n\n                   HARCOURT, BRACE AND COMPANY\n                   Publishers         New York","title":"The New Society","tradition":"philosophy-ethics","translated_text":null,"word_count":34696}