Page:Ferdinand Lassalle - Lassalle's Open Letter to the National Labor Association of Germany - tr. John Ehmann and Fred Bader (1879).djvu/19

 the result of the Consume Associations, will fall in precise proportion.

These Consume Associations never can help the whole working class; while to the single circles of workingmen who form them, they can only give slight help, so long as their example does not find imitators. While these Consume Associations spread themselves, embracing larger masses, in that degree dwindles the trifling benefit which, under the most advantageous relations can accrue from them, until, embracing the large majority, it-sinks to zero.

Can it be earnestly proposed that the workingmen should fix their eyes upon a means by which, as a class, they cannot he benefitted? which, in fact, can only assist a few, while the larger class stand by: and which, as coon as the majority seek to benefit by, at once is of no help to any one?

The German working classes, allowing themselves to begin with a tread-mill round, will find that any betterment of their condition will be in the very distant future.

I have now analyzed all the Schultze Delitzseh organization, showing you that they are not now, nor ever can be, of permanent service to you.

The question now is, Cannot the principle of free, individual association be applied so as to better the condition of the working class?

To that I reply, Without doubt it can. But only through applying it in the massed and concentrated forms of the factory, with its enormous advantage of productivity.

The working class must become itself a monster employer: the whole a series of gigantic enterprises. By this means and by this alone, can amelioration come, and the iron and cruel law governing wages be abolished.

The wages class, once become its own employer, the divisions between wages and profits of enterprise at once is removed: the wage disappears, and in its stead comes the certain and satisfying reward of labor honestly performed. The whole production of labor becomes the claim of the worker, unaffected by any employer.

This method of the abolition of the profits of enterprise is peaceful, legal, and, withal, simple. Through free associations, the working classes organize themselves as their own employers, and, by the simple act, emancipate themselves from the system which gave the working class wages, at all times