Page:Wilhelm Liebknecht - Socialism; What It Is and What It Seeks to Accomplish - tr. Mary Wood Simons (1899).djvu/64

 thousands at present go deprived of medical help and legal assistance through lack of money and fear of the high cost. No new privileges are created for the propertied classes! All sorts of practical questions were raised concerning this. But we said to ourselves, with the simplification of the forms of justice, many ways can be found in which our demand will be carried out and it is not our affair to establish individual cases. On the contrary, that is the business of the legislator. In behalf of this demand it may be remarked that the state, according to the definition in the "Philosophy of Law," is a great federation for the protection of justice, and the "just state" is always the ideal before the defenders of the present state. And do they not always say to us: "The state guarantees justice to every member of the state and city"? Very well; we demand that the right of defense, which now for the mass of the people only stands on paper, be made a truth for all. Now merely the wealthy, who need no civil defense, since they can help themselves to justice, have this right. To the poor, who are more easily and frequently oppressed, it is unattainable. For them in reality there is no defense by law. This is an injustice that must be ended.

We demand: "Graduated income and property tax to meet all public expenses which are to be met by taxation." The insertion of property tax gave occasion for debate in the commission. But we found that, next to income, property must be mentioned, as, for example, is the case in England with the income and property tax. It is necessary to make a distinction between the income of a person which simply arises from his individual labor and that which he receives without necessarily working for it—for example, from land, capital, bonds, etc. While with the one the income is united to the person and ceases if he cannot work, or if he dies, the other