Page:Friedrich Adolf Sorge - Socialism and The Worker (1876).djvu/14

 will abolish it. That will be the time, when communism will enter into its rights. Labor will then be organized according to a certain reasonable plan, and since, for that purpose, the use of the existing capital, comprising soil, houses, manufacturies, machines etc. will be necessary, those comparatively few possessors of all the wealth of the nations will have to be expropriated. Perhaps they then will consent themselves to such a measure and give up everything necessary for production of their own accord, honored and praised for their patriotism and humanity, and remunerated deservedly; perhaps they will use their ample means to resist the common demand, and will perish overwhelmed by the newly formed organization of the state. As I hinted before, in the new order of things all branches of labor will be organized, similar to the arrangements we see to day in large factories, large estates, or institutions of the government. Unnecessary work will be avoided and the reward for work done will be greater. It will be everybody's duty to work, hence everybody will have ample leisure for recreation and mental development. All will strive to ameliorate the conditions of the community they belong to; for, by doing so, everybody will improve his own private situation.

The basis of this state of things will be communism of such property, which is necessary for production and transportation, such as factories, machines, railroads etc., or which has been created for instruction and amusement, such as schools, colleges, museums, parks etc. Personal property will be, what is necessary or useful for private life. These are the outlines of a picture of future times. Nobody is able to state, whether the development will go on exactly in the way we designated; but that does not matter, if only the underlying idea of Communism is right. When the English engineer Stephenson, more than fifty years ago, built the first railroad, he certainly did not plan all the locomotives, rails, signals, stations etc. the way we find to them to day, but his idea was right, and it conquered the world. Thus the idea of socialism will conquer the world, for this idea is nothing but the real, well understood interest of mankind. It is injustice, that a large majority, to day, must work hard and suffer want, in order to procure an affluence of enjoyment for a minority of people, who do not work. And who would deny, that, if it is everybody's duty to work, if the production of unnecessary, nay even injurious articles is abolished, if production is organized in conformity with the real wants and pleasures of mankind: who would deny, that the standard of life of the whole human race might be raised infinetely above its present grade, that the great mass of human beings might enter the sphere of a life worthy of a human being, from which they have been excluded so far.

Let me point out to you an example of organized labor in one branch, to show the benefit of such an arrangement. How would it be possible to send a letter to any place of the United States for 5 cents, a postal-card for 1 cent; a letter to Europe for 5 cents, postal-cards for 2 cents, if the postmasters in the different parts of the world were private, like the merchants, manufacturers of