Page:Wilhelm Liebknecht - Socialism; What It Is and What It Seeks to Accomplish - tr. Mary Wood Simons (1899).djvu/11



VI. Protective laws for the life and health of the worker. Sanitary control of the homes of the workers. Supervision of the mines, factories, workshops and hand industries by an officer elected by the people. An effectual law of enforcement.

VII. Regulation of prison labor.

VIII. Full autonomy in the management of all laborers' fraternal and mutual benefit funds.

Who that honestly wishes the welfare of his fellow-men can refuse his consent to this programme? Who that is not satisfied with his own. slavery and exploitation or not interested in that of his fellow-men can deny that the fulfillment of this programme would be a blessing to the world?

Let us examine the state and society as they are. All power and means of life are to be found in the hands of a small minority, and this minority naturally use their power to secure and maintain that monopoly of all advantages which domination in state and society gives, and to prevent the subject majority obtaining political and social rights.

Who exercises the political power? A scanty minority whom birth and wealth have made a privileged class. The great majority of the people are absolutely helpless, and, because helpless, also without rights, for a right to which the power of enforcement is not attached is only a picture, a play, a misleading fantasy. What meaning, for example, has the right to choose a legislative representative who can only speak but cannot exercise the slightest influence on the government of the land? The governing minority rules for itself, not for the subject majority. Between rulers and ruled there exist as little community of interest as between the plantation owner and the negro slave. The interest of the negro does not come in question for the plantation owner; his own interest is determinative for him and he handles the negro as his interest demands.