Page:Jean Jaurès socialist and humanitarian 1917.djvu/92

 Under the capitalist system, Guesde had said, all rights granted to the workers must remain a dead letter. Thus, medical assistance by the communes, compulsory insurance against accidents, workers' pensions, insurance against unemployment, would be all in vain. Nor did the partial or entire nationalization of the mines, the railways, refineries, weaving shops, blast-furnaces, etc., find any more favour in his eyes. He considered the nationalization of the postal and telegraphic services to have been a failure. The State under capitalism is no better than the private capitalist.

Why then, Jaurès asks, do Guesde and the Parti Ouvrier ask for the protection of the State against the private capitalist? Why, if State employment is so bad, is there such a demand for it? Obviously, answers Jaurès, because the State is not composed of capitalistic elements alone. It is not true that our present regime, bad as it is, exists wholly and entirely for the benefit of the privileged. The State, such a State as France at any rate, though it bears the vivid imprint of capitalism, also bears within itself the germ of the future, and by trying to influence it we are using the only certain means of influencing the future. Jaurès did not stop there. It is possible that if he had done so he would have gradually carried most of the Socialists along with him, for evidently to