Page:Wilhelm Liebknecht - Socialism; What It Is and What It Seeks to Accomplish - tr. Mary Wood Simons (1899).djvu/7



First of all, a few remarks concerning the name of our party. It is called the social democratic or socialist labor party. Our banner is that of social democracy, or socialism. Social democratic and social democracy signify more than democratic and democracy. Democracy, means, first, a government by the people; second, the society that is the outgrowth of such a government. Democratic demands are those which are sought through the sovereignty of the people.

The word democracy, derived from the Greek, is frequently translated "rule of the people." This is not, however, wholly correct. At any rate it does not correspond with the logical conception of the idea of democracy. The "people" is composed of all the members of the state, and the whole cannot rule, since there is no one outside them to be ruled. A ruler necessarily presupposes a subject. Where there is no one to be ruled, because all have a part in the governing, there is, as a matter of course, no domination.

It is by all means a reasonable demand that all subjects of the state, minors naturally excluded, should have an equal part in the rule of the state, and, further, it cannot be denied that the carrying out of such a system would bring about the destruction of social misery.

Why not, then, retain the name democracy, which has a history? Just because it has a history. Since the rise of modern industrial society with the opposition of classes and class struggle, the banner of democracy has been made use of many times to veil the eyes of the