Page:Friedrich Adolf Sorge - Socialism and The Worker (1890).pdf/6

 Now, honestly, reader, have you ever seen or heard of a man of sound mind who really demanded such nonsense? No, you have not! Such a demand involves the highest degree of craziness. Just reflect, dear reader, to whose lot, for instance, should a railroad fall? Who should have the rails, or a locomotive, or a carriage? And since everybody would have a right to demand an equal share all these things would have to be broken and smashed up, and one would get a broken axletree, another the door of a carriage, or perhaps some bolts. Not even lunatics could recommend such a state of things.

A division of money or soil might possibly be thought of, but money and soil form only a small part of the wealth of a country. The ready money forms even a very small part. And if the soil should be divided all the new owners would be in need of houses, barns, stables, agricultural implements of all kinds. Such a distribution of the soil is, therefore, utterly impossible, and the Socialists know well enough that such a proceeding would benefit nobody. During the great French Revolution in 1789 something similar was tried; large estates were divided among poor country people to make them happy. What is the result? The French peasantry, generally, are so poor that thousands of them live in dwellings with only a door and no window at all, or with only one small window at the side of the door. And small farmers are not much better off in any country, except, perhaps, in the vicinity of large cities. The small farmer must, as a rule, toil harder than any other person to make a living, and a very scanty and poor one in any case. Farming in our age only pays well if done on a large scale, if large tracts of land can be cultivated with the aid of machinery and the application of all modern improvements. And this knowledge and doctrine of the Socialists is strictly opposed to a division of the soil. On the contrary, the Socialists are of opinion that there will be a time when a number of small farmers will unite to cultivate their farms in common and divide the products among themselves, seeing that farming on a small scale cannot compete with farming on a large scale, just as manufacturing on a small scale cannot compete with manufacturing on a large scale. Therefore, what has been said about the intention of the Socialists with respect to dividing the soil is an apparent falsehood.

Concerning the division of money I must relate an anecdote invented to ridicule people who are represented to have such intentions. One day in 1848, as the story goes, Baron Rothschild took a walk on the Common of Frankfort-on-the-Main. Two labourers met him and accosted him thus: "Baron, you are a rich man; we want to divide with you." Baron Rothschild, not the least puzzled, took out his purse good-humouredly and answered:—"Certainly! We can do that business on the spot. The account is easily made. I own 40 millions of florins; there are 40 millions of Germans. Consequently each German has to receive one florin; here is your share;" and giving one florin to each of the labourers, who looked at their money quite confused, he walked off smiling.

This teaches that the division of money is but an idle invention.