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more than the other for "man." He who has best grasped this concept knows best what is "man's." The State still grasps this concept in political restriction, society in social; mankind, so it is said, is the first to comprehend it entirely, or "the history of mankind develops it." But, if "man is discovered," then we know also what pertains to man as his own, man's property, the human.
     But let the individual man lay claim to ever so many rights because Man or the concept man "entitles" him to them, because his being man does it: what do I care for his right and his claim? If he has his right only from Man and does not have it from me, then for me he has no right. His life, e. g., counts to me only for what it is worth to me. I respect neither a so-called right of property (or his claim to tangible goods) nor yet his right to the "sanctuary of his inner nature" (or his right to have the spiritual goods and divinities, his gods, remain un-aggrieved). His goods, the sensuous as well as the spiritual, are mine, and I dispose of them as proprietor, in the measure of my -- might.
     In the property question lies a broader meaning than the limited statement of the question allows to be brought out. Referred solely to what men call our possessions, it is capable of no solution; the decision is to be found in him "from whom we have everything." Property depends on the owner.
     The Revolution directed its weapons against everything which came "from the grace of God," e. g., against divine right, in whose place the human was confirmed. To that which is granted by the grace of

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God, there is opposed that which is derived "from the essence of man."
     Now, as men's relation to each other, in opposition to the religious dogma which commands a "Love one another for God's sake," had to receive its human position by a "Love each other for man's sake," so the revolutionary teaching could not do otherwise than, first, as to what concerns the relation of men to the things of this world, settle it that the world, which hitherto was arranged according to God's ordinance, henceforth belongs to "Man."
     The world belongs to "Man," and is to be respected by me as his property.
     Property is what is mine!
     Property in the civic sense means sacred property, such that I must respect your property. "Respect for property!" Hence the politicians would like to have every one possess his little bit of property, and they have in part brought about an incredible parcellation by this effort. Each must have his bone on which he may find something to bite.
     The position of affairs is different in the egoistic sense. I do not step shyly back from your property, but look upon it always as my property, in which I need to "respect" nothing. Pray do the like with what you call my property!
     With this view we shall most easily come to an understanding with each other.
     The political liberals are anxious that, if possible, all servitudes be dissolved, and every one be free lord on his ground, even if this ground has only so much area as can have its requirements adequately filled by

the manure of one person. (The farmer in the story married even in his old age "that he might profit by his wife's dung.") Be it ever so little, if one only has somewhat of his own -- to wit, a respected property! The more such owners, such cotters,* the more "free people and good patriots" has the State.
     Political liberalism, like everything religious, counts on respect, humaneness, the virtues of love. Therefore does it live in incessant vexation. For in practice people respect nothing, and every day the small possessions are bought up again by greater proprietors, and the "free people" change into day- laborers.
     If, on the contrary, the "small proprietors" had reflected that the great property was also theirs, they would not have respectfully shut themselves out from it, and would not have been shut out.
     Property as the civic liberals understand it deserves the attacks of the Communists and Proudhon: it is untenable, because the civic proprietor is in truth nothing but a property-less man, one who is everywhere shut out. Instead of owning the world, as he might, he does not own even the paltry point on which he turns around.
     Proudhon wants not the propriétaire but the possesseur or usufruitier.** What does that mean? He wants no one to own the land; but the benefit of it -- even though one were allowed only the hundredth part of this benefit, this fruit -- is at any rate one's property, which he can dispose of at will. He who has

*[The words "cot" and "dung" are alike in German.]
**e. g., "Qu'est-ce que la Propriété?" p. 83

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only the benefit of a field is assuredly not the proprietor of it; still less he who, as Proudhon would have it, must give up so much of this benefit as is not required for his wants; but he is the proprietor of the share that is left him. Proudhon, therefore, denies only such and such property, not property itself. If we want no longer to leave the land to the landed proprietors, but to appropriate it to ourselves, we unite ourselves to this end, form a union, a société, that makes itself proprietor; if we have good luck in this, then those persons cease to be landed proprietors. And, as from the land, so we can drive them out of many another property yet, in order to make it our property, the property of the -- conquerors. The conquerors form a society which one may imagine so great that it by degrees embraces all humanity; but so-called humanity too is as such only a thought (spook); the individuals are its reality. And these individuals as a collective (mass will treat land and earth not less arbitrarily than an isolated individual or so-called propriétaire. Even so, therefore, property remains standing, and that as exclusive" too, in that humanity, this great society, excludes the individual from its property (perhaps only leases to him, gives his as a fief, a piece of it) as it besides excludes everything that is not humanity, e. g. does not allow animals to have property. -- So too it will remain, and will grow to be. That in which all want to have a share will be withdrawn from that individual who wants to have it for himself alone: it is made a common estate. As a common estate every one has his share in it, and this share is his property. Why, so in our old relations

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a house which belongs to five heirs is their common estate; but the fifth part of the revenue is, each one's property. Proudhon might spare his prolix pathos if he said: "There are some things that belong only to a few, and to which we others will from now on lay claim or -- siege. Let us take them, because one comes to property by taking, and the property of which for the present we are still deprived came to the proprietors likewise only by taking. It can be utilized better if it is in the hands of us all than if the few control it. Let us therefore associate ourselves for the purpose of this robbery (vol)." -- Instead of this, he tries to get us to believe that society is the original possessor and the sole proprietor, of imprescriptible right; against it the so-called proprietors have become thieves (La propriété c'est le vol); if it now deprives of his property the present proprietor, it robs him of nothing, as it is only availing itself of its imprescriptible right. -- So far one comes with the spook of society as a moral person. On the contrary, what man can obtain belongs to him: the world belongs to me. Do you say anything else by your opposite proposition? "The world belongs to all"? All are I and again I, etc. But you make out of the "all" a spook, and make it sacred, so that then the "all" become the individual's fearful master. Then the ghost of "right" places itself on their side.
     Proudhon, like the Communists, fights against egoism. Therefore they are continuations and consistent carryings-out of the Christian principle, the principle of love, of sacrifice for something general, something alien. They complete in property, e. g., only

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what has long been extant as a matter of fact -- to wit, the propertylessness of the individual. When the laws says, Ad reges potestas omnium pertinet, ad singulos proprietas; omnia rex imperio possidet, singuli dominio, this means: The king is proprietor, for he alone can control and dispose of "everything," he has potestas and imperium over it. The Communists make this clearer, transferring that imperium to the "society of all." Therefore: Because enemies of egoism, they are on that account -- Christians, or, more generally speaking, religious men, believers in ghosts, dependents, servants of some generality (God, society, etc.). In this too Proudhon is like the Christians, that he ascribes to God that which he denies to men. He names him (e. g. page 90) the Propriétaire of the earth. Herewith he proves that he cannot think away the proprietor as such; he comes to a proprietor at last, but removes him to the other world.
     Neither God nor Man ("human society") is proprietor, but the individual.

     Proudhon (Weitling too) thinks he is telling the worst about property when he calls it theft (vol). Passing quite over the embarrassing question, what well-founded objection could be made against theft, we only ask: Is the concept "theft" at all possible unless one allows validity to the concept "property"? How can one steal if property is not already extant? What belongs to no one cannot be stolen; the water that one draws out of the sea he does not steal. Accordingly property is not theft, but a theft becomes possible only through property. Weitling has to

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come to this too, as he does regard everything as the property of all: if something is "the property of all," then indeed the individual who appropriates it to himself steals.
     Private property lives by grace of the law. Only in the law has it its warrant -- for possession is not yet property, it becomes "mine" only by assent of the law; it is not a fact, not un fait as Proudhon thinks, but a fiction, a thought. This is legal property, legitimate property, guarantied property. It is mine not through me but through the -- law.
     Nevertheless, property is the expression for unlimited dominion over somewhat (thing, beast, man) which "I can judge and dispose of as seems good to me." According to Roman law, indeed, jus utendi et abutendi re sua, quatenus juris ratio patitur, an exclusive and unlimited right; but property is conditioned by might. What I have in my power, that is my own. So long as I assert myself as holder, I am the proprietor of the thing; if it gets away from me again, no matter by what power, e. g. through my recognition of a title of others to the thing -- then the property is extinct. Thus property and possession coincide. It is not a right lying outside my might that legitimizes me, but solely my might: if I no longer have this, the thing vanishes away from me. When the Romans no longer had any might against the Germans, the world-empire of Rome belonged to the latter, and it would sound ridiculous to insist that the Romans had nevertheless remained properly the proprietors. Whoever knows how to take and to defend the thing, to him it belongs till it is again taken

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from him, as liberty belongs to him who takes it.--
     Only might decides about property, and, as the State (no matter whether State or well-to-do citizens or of ragamuffins or of men in the absolute) is the sole mighty one, it alone is proprietor; I, the unique,* have nothing, and am only enfeoffed, am vassal and as such, servitor. Under the dominion of the State there is no property of mine.
     I want to raise the value of myself, the value of ownness, and should I cheapen property? No, as I was not respected hitherto because people, mankind, and a thousand other generalities were put higher, so property too has to this day not yet been recognized in its full value. Property too was only the property of a ghost, e. g. the people's property; my whole existence "belonged to the fatherland"; I belonged to the fatherland, the people, the State, and therefore also everything that I called my own. It is demanded of States that they make away with pauperism. It seems to me this is asking that the State should cut off its own head and lay it at its feet; for so long as the State is the ego the individual ego must remain a poor devil, a non-ego. The State has an interest only in being itself rich; whether Michael is rich and Peter poor is alike to it; Peter might also be rich and Michael poor. It looks on indifferently as one grows poor and the other rich, unruffled by this alternation. As individuals they are really equal before its face; in this it is just: before it both of them are -- nothing, as we "are altogether sinners before God"; on the

*[Einzige]

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other hand, it has a very great interest in this, that those individuals who make it their ego should have a part in its wealth; it makes them partakers in its property. Through property, with which it rewards the individuals, it tames them; but this remains its property, and every one has the usufruct of it only so long as he bears in himself the ego of the State, or is a "loyal member of society"; in the opposite case the property is confiscated, or made to melt away by vexatious lawsuits. The property, then, is and remains State property, not property of the ego. That the State does not arbitrarily deprive the individual of what he has from the State means simply that the State does not rob itself. He who is State-ego, i.e. a good citizen or subject, holds his fief undisturbed as such an ego, not as being an ego of his own. According to the code, property is what I call mine "by virtue of God and law." But it is mine by virtue of God and law only so long as -- the State has nothing against it.
     In expropriations, disarmaments, etc. (as, when the exchequer confiscates inheritances if the heirs do not put in an appearance early enough) how plainly the else-veiled principle that only the people, "the State," is proprietor, while the individual is feoffee, strikes the eye!
     The State, I mean to say, cannot intend that anybody should for his own sake have property or actually be rich, nay, even well-to-do; it can acknowledge nothing, yield nothing, grant nothing to me as me. The State cannot check pauperism, because the poverty of possession is a poverty of me. He who is nothing

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but what chance or another -- to wit, the State -- makes out of him also has quite rightly nothing but what another gives him. And this other will give him only what he deserves, i.e. what he is worth by service. It is not he that realizes a value from himself; the State realizes a value from him.
     National economy busies itself much with this subject. It lies far out beyond the "national," however, and goes beyond the concepts and horizon of the State, which knows only State property and can distribute nothing else. For this reason it binds the possessions of property to conditions -- as it binds everything to them, e. g. marriage, allowing validity only to the marriage sanctioned by it, and wresting this out of my power. But property is my property only when I hold it unconditionally : only I, an unconditional ego, have property, enter a relation of love, carry on free trade.
     The State has no anxiety about me and mine, but about itself and its: I count for something to it only as its child, as "a son of the country"; as ego I am nothing at all for it. For the State's understanding, what befalls me as ego is something accidental, my wealth as well as my impoverishment. But, if I with all that is mine am an accident in the State's eyes, this proves that it cannot comprehend me: I go beyond its concepts, or, its understanding is too limited to comprehend me. Therefore it cannot do anything for me either.
     Pauperism is the valuelessness of me, the phenomenon that I cannot realize value from myself. For this reason State and pauperism are one and the same.

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The State does not let me come to my value, and continues in existence only through my valuelessness: it is forever intent on getting benefit from me, i.e. exploiting me, turning me to account, using me up, even if the use it gets from me consists only in my supplying a proles (proletariat); it wants me to be "its creature."
     Pauperism can be removed only when I as ego realize value from myself, when I give my own self value, and make my price myself. I must rise in revolt to rise in the world.
     What I produce, flour, linen, or iron and coal, which I toilsomely win from the earth, is my work that I want to realize value from. But then I may long complain that I am not paid for my work according to its value: the payer will not listen to me, and the State likewise will maintain an apathetic attitude so long as it does not think it must "appease" me that I may not break out with my dreaded might. But this "appeasing" will be all, and, if it comes into my head to ask for more, the State turns against me with all the force of its lion-paws and eagle-claws: for it is the king of beasts, it is lion and eagle. If I refuse to be content with the price that it fixes for my ware and labor, if I rather aspire to determine the price of my ware myself, e. g., "to pay myself," in the first place I come into a conflict with the buyers of the ware. If this were stilled by a mutual understanding, the State would not readily make objections; for how individuals get along with each other troubles it little, so long as therein they do not get in its way. Its damage and its danger begin only

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when they do not agree, but, in the absence of a settlement, take each other by the hair. The State cannot endure that man stand in a direct relation to man; it must step between as --mediator, must -- intervene. What Christ was, what the saints, the Church were, the State has become -- to wit, "mediator." It tears man from man to put itself between them as "spirit." The laborers who ask for higher pay are treated as criminals as soon as they want to compel it. What are they to do? Without compulsion they don't get it, and in compulsion the State sees a self-help, a determination of price by the ego, a genuine, free realization of value from his property, which it cannot admit of. What then are the laborers to do? Look to themselves and ask nothing about the State? -- --
     But, as is the situation with regard to my material work, so it is with my intellectual too. The State allows me to realize value from all my thoughts and to find customers for them (I do realize value from them, e. g. in the very fact that they bring me honor from the listeners, etc.); but only so long as my thoughts are --its thoughts. If, on the other hand, I harbor thoughts that it cannot approve (i.e. make its own), then it does not allow me at all to realize value from them, to bring them into exchange into commerce. My thoughts are free only if they are granted to me by the State's grace, i.e. if they are the State's thoughts. It lets me philosophize freely only so far as I approve myself a "philosopher of State"; against the State I must not philosophize, gladly as it tolerates my helping it out of its "defi-

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ciencies," "furthering" it. -- Therefore, as I may behave only as an ego most graciously permitted by the State, provided with its testimonial of legitimacy and police pass, so too it is not granted me to realize value from what is mine, unless this proves to be its, which I hold as fief from it. My ways must be its ways, else it distrains me; my thoughts its thoughts, else it stops my mouth.
     The State has nothing to be more afraid of than the value of me, and nothing must it more carefully guard against than every occasion that offers itself to me for realizing value from myself. I am the deadly enemy of the State, which always hovers between the alternatives, it or I. Therefore it strictly insists not only on not letting me have a standing, but also on keeping down what is mine. In the State there is no property, i.e. no property of the individual, but only State property. Only through the State have I what I have, as I am only through it what I am. My private property is only that which the State leaves to me of its, cutting off others from it (depriving them, making it private); it is State property.
     But, in opposition to the State, I feel more and more clearly that there is still left me a great might, the might over myself, i.e. over everything that pertains only to me and that exists only in being my own.
     What do I do if my ways are no longer its ways, my thoughts no longer its thoughts? I look to myself, and ask nothing about it! In my thoughts, which I get sanctioned by no assent, grant, or grace, I have my real property, a property with which I can trade. For as mine they are my creatures, and I

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am in a position to give them away in return for other thoughts: I give them up and take in exchange for them others, which then are my new purchased property.
     What then is my property? Nothing but what is in my power! To what property am I entitled? To every property to which I -- empower myself.* I give myself the right of property in taking property to myself, or giving myself the proprietor's power, full power, empowerment.
     Everything over which I have might that cannot be torn from me remains my property; well, then let might decide about property, and I will expect everything from my might! Alien might, might that I leave to another, makes me an owned slave: then let my own might make me an owner. Let me then withdraw the might that I have conceded to others out of ignorance regarding the strength of my own might! Let me say to myself, what my might reaches to is my property; and let me claim as property everything that I feel myself strong enough to attain, and let me extend my actual property as far as I entitle, i. e. -- empower, myself to take.
     Here egoism, selfishness, must decide; not the principle of love, not love-motives like mercy, gentleness, good-nature, or even justice and equity (for justitia too is a phenomenon of -- love, a product of love): love knows only sacrifices and demands "self-sacrifice."
     Egoism does not think of sacrificing anything, giving away anything that it wants; it simply decides,

*[A German idiom for "take upon myself," "assume."]

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what I want I must have and will procure.
     All attempts to enact rational laws about property have put out from the bay of love into a desolate sea of regulations. Even Socialism and Communism cannot be excepted from this. Every one is to be provided with adequate means, for which it is little to the point whether one socialistically finds them still in a personal property, or communistically draws them from the community of goods. The individual's mind in this remains the same; it remains a mind of dependence. The distributing board of equity lets me have only what the sense of equity, its loving care for all, prescribes. For me, the individual, there lies no less of a check in collective wealth than in that of individual others; neither that is mine, nor this: whether the wealth belongs to the collectivity, which confers part of it on me, or to individual possessors, is for me the same constraint, as I cannot decide about either of the two. On the contrary, Communism, by the abolition of all personal property, only presses me back still more into dependence on another, viz., on the generality or collectivity; and, loudly as it always attacks the "State," what it intends is itself again a State, a status, a condition hindering my free movement, a sovereign power over me. Communism rightly revolts against the pressure that I experience from individual proprietors; but still more horrible is the might that it puts in the hands of the collectivity.
     Egoism takes another way to root out the non-possessing rabble. It does not say: Wait for what the board of equity will -- bestow on you in the name of the collectivity (for such bestowal took place

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in "States" from the most ancient times, each receiving "according to his desert," and therefore according to the measure in which each was able to deserve it, to acquire it by service), but: Take hold, and take what you require! With this the war of all against all is declared. I alone decide what I will have.
     "Now, that is truly no new wisdom, for self-seekers have acted so at all times!" Not at all necessary either that the thing be new, if only consciousness of it is present. But this latter will not be able to claim great age, unless perhaps one counts in the Egyptian and Spartan law; for how little current it is appears even from the stricture above, which speaks with contempt of "self-seekers." One is to know just this, that the procedure of taking hold is not contemptible, but manifests the pure deed of the egoist at one with himself.
     Only when I expect neither from individuals nor from a collectivity what I can give to myself, only then do I slip out of the snares of --love; the rabble ceases to be rabble only when it takes hold. Only the dread of taking hold, and the corresponding punishment thereof, makes it a rabble. Only that taking hold is sin, crime -- only this dogma creates a rabble. For the fact that the rabble remains what it is, it (because it allows validity to that dogma) is to blame as well as, more especially, those who "self-seekingly" (to give them back their favorite word) demand that the dogma be respected. In short, the lack of consciousness of that "new wisdom," the old consciousness of sin, alone bears the blame.
     If men reach the point of losing respect for prop-

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erty, every one will have property, as all slaves become free men as soon as they no longer respect the master as master. Unions will then, in this matter too, multiply the individual's means and secure his assailed property.
     According to the Communists' opinion the commune should be proprietor. On the contrary, I am proprietor, and I only come to an understanding with others about my property. If the commune does not do what suits me, I rise against it and defend my property. I am proprietor, but property is not sacred. I should be merely possessor? No, hitherto one was only possessor, secured in the possession of a parcel by leaving others also in possession of a parcel; but now everything belongs to me, I am proprietor of everything that I require and can get possession of. If it is said socialistically, society gives me what I require -- then the egoist says, I take what I require. If the Communists conduct themselves as ragamuffins, the egoist behaves as proprietor.
     All swan-fraternities, and attempts at making the rabble happy, that spring from the principle of love, must miscarry. Only from egoism can the rabble get help, and this help it must give to itself and -- will give to itself. If it does not let itself be coerced into fear, it is a power. "People would lose all respect if one did not coerce them into fear," says bugbear Law in Der gestiefelte Kater.
     Property, therefore, should not and cannot be abolished; it must rather be torn from ghostly hands

*[Apparently some benevolent scheme of the day; compare note on p. 343.]

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and become my property; then the erroneous consciousness, that I cannot entitle myself to as much as I require, will vanish. --
     "But what cannot man require!" Well, whoever requires much, and understands how to get it, has at all times helped himself to it, as Napoleon did with the Continent and France with Algiers. Hence the exact point is that the respectful "rabble" should learn at last to help itself to what it requires. If it reaches out too far for you, why, then defend yourselves. You have no need at all to good-heartedly -- bestow anything on it; and, when it learns to know itself, it -- or rather: whoever of the rabble learns to know himself, he -- casts off the rabble-quality in refusing your alms with thanks. But it remains ridiculous that you declare the rabble "sinful and criminal" if it is not pleased to live from your favors because it can do something in its own favor. Your bestowals cheat it and put it off. Defend your property, then you will be strong; if, on the other hand, you want to retain your ability to bestow, and perhaps actually have the more political rights the more alms (poor-rates) you can give, this will work just as long as the recipients let you work it.*
     In short, the property question cannot be solved so amicably as the Socialists, yes, even the Communists, dream. It is solved only by the war of all against all. The poor become free and proprietors only when they

*In a registration bill for Ireland the government made the proposal to let those be electors who pay £5 sterling of poor-rates. He who gives alms, therefore, acquires political rights, or elsewhere becomes a swan-knight. [See p. 342.]

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-- rise. Bestow ever so much on them, they will still always want more; for they want nothing less than that at last -- nothing more be bestowed.
     It will be asked, but how then will it be when the have- nots take heart? Of what sort is the settlement to be? One might as well ask that I cast a child's nativity. What a slave will do as soon as he has broken his fetters, one must --await.
     In Kaiser's pamphlet, worthless for lack of form as well as substance ("Die Persönlichkeit des Eigentümers in Bezug auf den Socialismus und Communismus," etc.), he hopes from the State that it will bring about a leveling of property. Always the State! Herr Papa! As the Church was proclaimed and looked upon as the "mother" of believers, so the State has altogether the face of the provident father.

     Competition shows itself most strictly connected with the principle of civism. Is it anything else than equality (égalité)? And is not equality a product of that same Revolution which was brought on by the commonalty, the middle classes? As no one is barred from competing with all in the State (except the prince, because he represents the State itself) and working himself up to their height, yes, overthrowing or exploiting them for his own advantage, soaring above them and by stronger exertion depriving them of their favorable circumstances -- this serves as a clear proof that before the State's judgment-seat every one has only the value of a "simple individual" and may not count on any favoritism. Outrun and outbid each other as much as you like and can; that shall

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not trouble me, the State! Among yourselves you are free in competing, you are competitors; that is your social position. But before me, the State, you are nothing but "simple individuals"!*
     What in the form of principle or theory was propounded as the equality of all has found here in competition its realization and practical carrying out; for égalité is -- free competition. All are, before the State --simple individuals; in society, or in relation to each other -- competitors.
     I need be nothing further than a simple individual to be able to compete with all others aside from the prince and his family: a freedom which formerly was made impossible by the fact that only by means of one's corporation, and within it, did one enjoy any freedom of effort.
     In the guild and feudality the State is in an intolerant and fastidious attitude, granting privileges; in competition and liberalism it is in a tolerant and indulgent attitude, granting only patents (letters assuring the applicant that the business stands open (patent) to him) or "concessions." Now, as the State has thus left everything to the applicants, it must come in conflict with all, because each and all are entitled to make application. It will be "stormed," and will go down in this storm.
     Is "free competition" then really "free?" nay, is it

*Minister Stein used this expression about Count von Reisach, when he cold-bloodedly left the latter at the mercy of the Bavarian government because to him, as he said, "a government like Bavaria must be worth more than a simple individual." Reisach had written against Montgelas at Stein's bidding, and Stein later agreed to the giving up of Reisach, which was demanded by Montgelas on account of this very book. See Hinrichs, "Politische Vorlesungen," I, 280.

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really a "competition" -- to wit, one of persons -- as it gives itself out to be because on this title it bases its right? It originated, you know, in persons becoming free of all personal rule. Is a competition "free" which the State, this ruler in the civic principle, hems in by a thousand barriers? There is a rich manufacturer doing a brilliant business, and I should like to compete with him. "Go ahead," says the State, "I have no objection to make to your person as competitor." Yes, I reply, but for that I need a space for buildings, I need money! "That's bad; but, if you have no money, you cannot compete. You must not take anything from anybody, for I protect property and grant it privileges." Free competition is not "free," because I lack the THINGS for competition. Against my person no objection can be made, but because I have not the things my person too must step to the rear. And who has the necessary things? Perhaps that manufacturer? Why, from him I could take them away! No, the State has them as property, the manufacturer only as fief, as possession.
     But, since it is no use trying it with the manufacturer, I will compete with that professor of jurisprudence; the man is a booby, and I, who know a hundred times more than he, shall make his class-room empty. "Have you studied and graduated, friend?" No, but what of that? I understand abundantly what is necessary for instruction in that department. "Sorry, but competition is not 'free' here. Against your person there is nothing to be said, but the thing, the doctor's diploma, is lacking. And this diploma I, the State, demand. Ask me for it respectfully

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first; then we will see what is to be done."
     This, therefore, is the "freedom" of competition. The State, my lord, first qualifies me to compete.
     But do persons really compete? No, again things only! Moneys in the first place, etc.
     In the rivalry one will always be left behind another (e. g. a poetaster behind a poet). But it makes a difference whether the means that the unlucky competitor lacks are personal or material, and likewise whether the material means can be won by personal energy or are to be obtained only by grace, only as a present; as when e. g. the poorer man must leave, i. e. present, to the rich man his riches. But, if I must all along wait for the State's approval to obtain or to use (e. g. in the case of graduation) the means, I have the means by the grace of the State.*
     Free competition, therefore, has only the following meaning: To the State all rank as its equal children, and every one can scud and run to earn the State's goods and largesse. Therefore all do chase after havings, holdings, possessions (be it of money or offices, titles of honor, etc.), after the things.
     In the mind of the commonalty every one is possessor or "owner." Now, whence comes it that the most have in fact next to nothing? From this, that the most are already joyful over being possessors at all, even though it be of some rags, as children

*In colleges and universities poor men compete with rich. But they are able to do in most eases only through scholarships, which -- a significant point -- almost all come down to us from a time when free competition was still far from being a controlling principle. The principle of competition founds no scholarship, but says, Help yourself; provide yourself the means. What the State gives for such purposes it pays out from interested motives, to educate "servants" for itself.

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are joyful in their first trousers or even the first penny that is presented to them. More precisely, however, the matter is to be taken as follows. Liberalism came forward at once with the declaration that it belonged to man's essence not to be property, but proprietor. As the consideration here was about "man," not about the individual, the how-much (which formed exactly the point of the individual's special interest) was left to him. Hence the individual's egoism retained room for the freest play in this how- much, and carried on an indefatigable competition.
     However, the lucky egoism had to become a snag in the way of the less fortunate, and the latter, still keeping its feet planted on the principle of humanity, put forward the question as to how-much of possession, and answered it to the effect that "man must have as much as he requires."
     Will it be possible for my egoism to let itself be satisfied with that? What "man" requires furnishes by no means a scale for measuring me and my needs; for I may have use for less or more. I must rather have so much as I am competent to appropriate.
     Competition suffers from the unfavorable circumstance that the means for competing are not at every one's command, because they are not taken from personality, but from accident. Most are without means, and for this reason without goods.
     Hence the Socialists demand the means for all, and aim at a society that shall offer means. Your money value, say they, we no longer recognize as your "competence"; you must show another competence -- to wit, your working force. In the possession of a prop-

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erty, or as "possessor," man does certainly show himself as man; it was for this reason that we let the possessor, whom we called "proprietor," keep his standing so long. Yet you possess the things only so long as you are not "put out of this property."
     The possessor is competent, but only so far as the others are incompetent. Since your ware forms your competence only so long as you are competent to defend it (i.e. as we are not competent to do anything with it), look about you for another competence; for we now, by our might, surpass your alleged competence.
     It was an extraordinarily large gain made, when the point of being regarded as possessors was put through. Therein bondservice was abolished, and every one who till then had been bound to the lord's service, and more or less had been his property, now became a "lord." But henceforth your having, and what you have, are no longer adequate and no longer recognized; per contra, your working and your work rise in value. We now respect your subduing things, as we formerly did your possessing them. Your work is your competence! You are lord or possessor only of what comes by work, not by inheritance. But as at the time everything has come by inheritance, and every copper that you possess bears not a labor-stamp but an inheritance-stamp, everything must be melted over.
     But is my work then really, as the Communists suppose, my sole competence? or does not this consist rather in everything that I am competent for? And does not the workers' society itself have to con-

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cede this, e. g., in supporting also the sick, children, old men -- in short, those who are incapable of work? These are still competent for a good deal, e. g. for instance, to preserve their life instead of taking it. If they are competent to cause you to desire their continued existence, they have a power over you. To him who exercised utterly no power over you, you would vouchsafe nothing; he might perish.
     Therefore, what you are competent for is your competence! If you are competent to furnish pleasure to thousands, then thousands will pay you an honorarium for it; for it would stand in your power to forbear doing it, hence they must purchase your deed. If you are not competent to captivate any one, you may simply starve.
     Now am I, who am competent for much, perchance to have no advantage over the less competent?
     We are all in the midst of abundance; now shall I not help myself as well as I can, but only wait and see how much is left me in an equal division?
     Against competition there rises up the principle of ragamuffin society -- partition.
     To be looked upon as a mere part, part of society, the individual cannot bear -- because he is more; his uniqueness puts from it this limited conception.
     Hence he does not await his competence from the sharing of others, and even in the workers' society there arises the misgiving that in an equal partition the strong will be exploited by the weak; he awaits his competence rather from himself, and says now, what I am competent to have, that is my competence.
     What competence does not the child possess in its