Page:Johann Jacoby - The Object of the Labor Movement - tr. Florence Kelley (1887).djvu/19

 18 in which the terms are here used.

"Protection by the State" means the duty of the whole body of persons assembled and united into a State to protect each individual in the free development and employment of his power so far as the like freedom of others is not thereby interfered with.

But with mere protection the duty of the State is not exhausted, however much the politician may prefer to limit it thereto. The reciprocal advancement of the members of the State must be added.

Under advancement by the State we understand the duty of the whole community to step in with its means wherever the welfare of the individual does not suffice to obtain him a life worthy of a human being.

As protection by the State corresponds to the principle of Liberty, and Advancement by the State to the principle of Fraternity, so the assurance of protection and advancement to all, "to each according to his need," meets the demand of Equality.

This doctrine of the object of the State is quite the same as that which I expressed on a former occasion in the formula:

"But," some one may object, "if protection and advancement by the State are to be afforded to all equally, why is the working class especially emphasized in the article of the Zurich constitution? Is the working class to be especially favored by the State, advanced at the cost of the others?"

Reasonable as this objection at first sounds, it does not bear scrutiny.

It must be remembered that the equality of all consists solely in every man's being protected and helped "according to his need;" and who can deny that at this time it is precisely the wage-worker who most needs protection and help?

But wholly apart from this greater need, there is another circumstance which, for the Present and the immediate Future, makes an especial consideration of the working class by the State a demand of reparative justice.

It is only necessary to call to mind the genesis of what is commonly called capital to make this perfectly clear. However the definitions of capital may differ, in this they all agree, that it is accumulated labor, applicable to further productive ends. But who has performed this labor? They, perhaps, who now control capital! Does the manufacturer, the merchant, the landlord, owe his wealth of accumulated labor to his own activity and the industry of his ancestors? Is the want of capital, the poverty of the toiling proletarians solely due to their own and their fathers' fault? But if the present inequality of fortune is not solely due to the economically correct action of the property-holding class and the shiftlessness of the non-possessing class, to what other cause can it be attributed? Whence comes it that Cap-