(1864.-1943.)

Max Baginski

Biography

Max Baginski dies 1943, New York (born, 1864, in Eastern Prussia), a Social Democrat turned anarchist, is condemned in 1891 to 2 1/2 years in prison for "violation of the press laws". Exiled to the US, Baginski collaborated on Johan Most's paper, "Freiheit", then as publicity agent for Emma Goldman's newspaper, "Mother Earth", as well as many other papers into the 30s. Rudolf Rocker calls him, "One of the most enlightened & perspicacious spirits of the German movement."

(Biographical note from Anarchist Encyclopedia)

Bibliography • The right to live • Stirner: "The Ego and His Own" • Without Government

Reading

Max Baginski: The right to live

Modern man is plentifully equipped with political rights. He has the right of citizenship, provided he be virtuous and not an Anarchist; he may elect his own rulers and jailers; he even enjoys, as one of the majority, the privilege of witnessing the government act "in the name of the people."

This privilege is a particularly bad hoax, because the activities of the government and courts have usually the sole purpose of intensifying the robbery and subjection of the people; in other words, the people - in their own sacred name - doom themselves to dependence and slavery.

The hollowness and sham of political rights becomes fully apparent when we consider that all of them combined do not include the right to live.

The right to live, - that is, the securing of the means of existence, the organization of society in a manner to insure to each the material basis of life and make it as self-evident as breathing, - this right present society cannot give to man.

The barbaric character of the dominant forms of existence is never so offensively demonstrated as when we subject the right to live to a critical test. This right is attacked and nullified daily in a thousand various ways by coercion, poverty, and dependence. It is cruel irony to justify the existence of the murderous machinery of government, with its brutal imbecile laws, on the around that it is necessary for "the protection of life and property."

Among the thousands of laws and statutes there is not a single paragraph that guarantees to each member of society the right to live. The tender care for property is of little avail; for it is the chief characteristic of a society based on the sanctity of property that the great majority do not possess sufficient property to justify the expensive machinery of police, courts, jailers and hangmen.

The right to live is primarily dependent upon possession and consequent power. But as only a small minority is in possession and control, the right to live remains a chimera so far as the majority is concerned.

Anarchism regards the right to live as the pivot of its philosophy. It considers it the indispensable foundation of a society that claims to be humane.

Today the needy, the hungry and the homeless man finds no providence, no court where he may appeal the right to live. Were he to claim it, to test this right, he would soon find himself in the workhouse or prison. In the midst of fabulous wealth, he often lacks even the bare necessaries of existence. He stands isolated, forsaken. In a glance, at every turn, he beholds a plenitude of food, clothing and comforts, a thousandth part of which would save him from despair and destruction. But not even the minutest right to live gives him the power over the things, the lack of which turns him into a social pariah.

What avail the rights of citizenship, political "liberties," or his one-day sovereignty as a voter, when he is deprived of the right to live and robbed of the use of the things he needs?

When everything, every essential of life is the monopoly of a certain class - secured by laws, armies, courts, and scaffolds - it is evident that the possessing class will completely dominate life, with the consequent subjection of the rest of the people.

The demand of the right to live is the most revolutionary demand of our day. The privileged are aware of it. Wherever the demand is voiced seriously, where it is accompanied by corresponding action, where the disinherited resort to expropriation, to the general strike, the guardians of "order" at once realize that the banner of the social revolution is fluttering in the wind.

Ceterum censeo! What is to-day hypocritically called "order" must fall and perish ere the right to live may become a joyous reality.

From Mother Earth, January 1912

Max Baginski: Stirner: "The Ego and His Own"

Benjamin R. Tucker has published the first English translation of "Der Einzige und sein Eigentum," written in 1845 by the ingenuous German thinker Kaspar Schmidt under the pseudonym of Max Stirner. The book has been translated by Steven T. Byington, assisted by Emma Heller Schumm and George, Schumm. Mr. Tucker, however, informs us in his Preface to the book that "the responsibility for special errors and imperfections" properly rests on his shoulders. He is therefore also responsible for the Introduction by the late Dr. J. L. Walker, whose narrow-minded conception of Stirner is suggestive of Individualistic idolatry.

Stirner said: "Ich hab' mein' Sach' auf Nichts ge-stellt." ("I have set my cause on naught.") It seems that the Individualist Anarchists have set their cause on Stirner. Already they have sent money to Bayreuth and Berlin, for the purpose of having the customary memorial tablets nailed to the places of Stirner's birth and death. Like the devout pilgrims wending their way Bayreuth-wards, lost in awed admiration of the musical genius of Richard Wagner, so will the Stirner worshipers soon begin to infest Bayreuth and incidentally cause a raise in the hotel charges. The publishers of Baedeker will do well to take note of this prophecy, that the attention of the traveling mob be called to the Stirner shrines.

A harmless bourgeois cult. Involuntarily I am reminded of another theoretic Individualist Anarchist, P. J. Proudhon, who wrote after the Paris February Revolution: "Willy-nilly, we must now resign ourselves to be Philistines."

Possibly Dr. J. L. Walker had in mind such resignation when he contemptuously referred in his Introduction to Stirner's book to the "so-called revolutionary movement" of 1848. We regret that the learned doctor is dead; perhaps we could have successfully demonstrated to him that this revolution — in so far as it was aggressively active — proved of the greatest benefit to at least one country, sleeping away, as it did, most of the remnants of feudalism in Prussia. It were not the revolutionists who compromised the revolution and caused the reaction; the responsibility for the latter rests rather on the champions of passive resistance, a la Tucker and Mackay.

Walker did not scruple to insinuate that Nietzsche had read Stirner and possibly stolen his ideas in order to bedeck himself with them; he had omitted, however, to mention Stirner. Why? That the world might not discover the plagiarism. The disciple Walker proves himself not a little obsessed by the god-like attributes of his master, as he, suspiciofusly exclaims: "Nietzsche cites scores or hundreds of authors. Had he read everything, and not read Stirner?"

Good psychologic reasons stamp this imputation as unworthy of credence.

Nietzsche is reflected in his works as the veriest fanatic of truthfulness with regard to himself. Sincerity and frankness are his passion—not in the sense of wishing to "justify" himself befofe others: he would have scorned that, as Stirner would—it is his inner tenderness and purity which imperatively impel him to be truthful with himself. With more justice than any of his literary contemporaries could Nietzsche say of himself: "Ich wohne in meinem eignen Haus," and what reason had he to plagiarize? Was he in need of stolen ideas—he, whose very abundance of ideas proved fatal to him?

Add to this the fact that the further and higher Nietzsche went on his heroic road, the more alone he felt himself. Not alone like the misanthrope, but as one who, overflowing with wealth, would vain make wonderful gifts, but finds no ears to hear, no hands capable to take.

How terribly he suffered through his mental isolation is evidenced by numerous places in his works. He searched the past and the present for harmonious accords, for ideas and sentiments congenial to his nature. How ardently he reveres Richard Wagner and how deep his grief to find their ways so far apart! In his latter works Nietzsche became the most uncompromising opponent of • Schopenhauer's philosophy; yet that did not prevent his paying sincere tribute to the thinker Schopenhauer, as when he exclaims:

"Seht ihn euch an— Niemandem war er untertan." ("Observe him—he is mastered by no one.").

Were Nietzsche acquainted with Stirner's book, he would have joyfully paid it—we may justly assume— the tribute of appreciative recognition, as he did in the case of Stendhal and Dostoyevsky, in whom he saw kindred spirits. Of the latter Nietzsche says that he had learned more psychology from him than from all the textbooks extant. That surely does not look like studied concealment of his literary sources.

In my estimation there is no great intellectual kinship between Stirner and Nietzsche. True, both are fighting for the liberation of individuality. Both proclaim the right of the individual to unlimited development, as against all "holiness," all sacrosanct pretensions of self-denial, all Christian and moral Puritanism; yet how different is Nietzsche's Individualism from that of Stirner!

The Individualism of Stirner is fenced in. On the inside stalks the all-too-abstract I, who is like unto an in-dividual as seen under X-rays. "Don't disturb my circle !" cries this I to the people outside the fence. It is a somewhat stilted I. Karl Marx parodied Stirner's Einzig-keit by saying that it first saw the light in that narrow little Berlin street, the Kupfergraben. That was malicious. In truth, however, it cannot be denied that Stirner's Individualism is not free from a certain stiffness and rigidity. The Individualism of Nietzsche, on the other hand, is an exulting slogan, a jubilant war-cry; more, it joyfully embraces humanity and the whole world, absorbs them, and, thus enriched, in turn penetrates life with elementary force.

But why contrast these two great personalities? Let us rather repeat with M. Messer—who wrote an essay on Stirner—Goethe's saying with regard to himself and Schiller: "Seid froh, dass ihr solche zwei Kerle habt" ("Rejoice that you have two such capital fellows.").

That the champions of pure-and-simple Individualism can be as captious and petty towards other individualities as the average moralist is proven by the extremely tactless remark in Tucker's Preface about Stirner's sweetheart, Marie Daehnhardt. Stirner dedicated his book to her; for that he must now be censored by Mackay-Tucker in the following manner:

"Mackay's investigations have brought to light that Marie Daehnhardt had-nothing whatever in common with Stirner, and so was untworthy of the honor conferred upon her. She was no Eigene. I therefore reproduce the dedication merely in the interest of historical accuracy."

No doubt Tucker is firmly convinced that Individualism and Einzigkeit are synonymous with Tuckerism. Fortunately, it's a mistake.

Max Stirner and Marie Daehnhardt surely knew better what they had in common at the time of the dedication than Tucker-Mackay knows now.

But we must not take the matter too seriously. Stirner belongs to those whom even their admirers and literary executors cannot kill off, Mr. Traubel and the Con-servator have not as yet succeeded in disgusting me with Walt Whitman; neither can the Individualist Anarchists succeed in robbing me of Stirner.

A great fault of the translation is the failure to describe the contemporary intellectual atmosphere of'Germany in Stirner's time. The American reader is left in total ignorance as to the conditions and personalities against which the ideas of Stirner were directed. This is, moreover, dishonest—undesignedly so, no doubt—with regard to the Communists. Stirner's controversy was specifically with Wilhelm Weitling—who, by the way, is probably quite unknown to most American readers; it were therefore no more than common honesty to state that the Communism of Weitling bears but a mere external resemblance to modern Communism as expounded, among others; by Kropotkin and Reclus. Modern Communism has ceased to be a mere invention to be forced upon society; it is rather Weltanschauung founded on biology, psychology and economy.

The English edition of "The Ego and his Own" impresses one with the fact that the translator spared no pains to give an adequate and complete work; unfortunately, he has not quite succeeded. It is a case of too much philology and too little intuitive perception. Stirner himself is partly responsible for this, because in spite of his rebellion against all spooks, he is past master in playing with,abstractions.

II.
Stirner's "Der Einzige und sein Eigentum" was a revolutionary deed. It is the rebellion of the individual against those "sacred principles" in the name of which he was ever oppressed and subjected. Stirner exposes, so to say, the metaphysics of tyrannical forces. Luther nailed his ninety-five accusations against Popery to the door of the Schlosskirche at Wittenberg; Stirner's declaration of independence of the individual throws down the challenge to ALL things "sacred"—in morals, family and State. He tears off the mask of our "inviolable institutions" and discovers behind them nothing but— spooks. GOD, SPIRIT, IDEAS, TRUTH, HUMANITY, PATRIOTISM—all these are to Stirner mere masks, behind which—as from the holy mountain—issue commands, the Kantian categoric imperatives, all designed to suppress the individuality, to train and drill it and thus to rob it of all initiative, independence and Eigenheit. All these things claim to be good in themselves, to be cultivated for their own sake and all exact respect and subjection, all demand admiration, worship and the humiliation of the individual.

Against all this is directed the rebellion of the I with its Eigenheit and Einzigkeit. It withholds respect and obedience. It shakes from its feet the dust of "eternal truths" and proclaims the emancipation of the individual from the mastery of ideals and ideas; henceforth the free, self-owning Ego must master them. He is no more awed by the "good"; neither does he condemn the "bad." He is sans religion, sans morals, sans State. The conception of Justice, Right, General Good are no more binding upon him; at the most, he uses them for nis own ends.

To Stirner, the Ego is the centre of the world; wherever it looks, it finds the world its own—to the extent of its power. If this Ego could appropriate the entire world, it would thereby establish its right to it. It would be the universal monopolist. Stirner does not say that he wants his liberty to be limited by the equal liberty of others; on the contrary, he believes that his freedom and Eigenheit are bounded only by his power to attain. If Napoleon uses humanity as a football, why don't they rebel?

The liberty demanded by his democratic and liberal contemporaries was to Stirner as mere alms thrown to a beggar.

J. L. Walker entirely misunderstands the very spirit of Stirner when he states in his Introduction: "In Stirner we have the philosophical foundation for political liberty." Stirner has nothing but contempt for political liberty. He regards it in the light of a doubtful favor that the powerful grant to the powerless. He, as Eigener, would scorn to accept political liberty if he could have it for the asking. He scoffs at those who ask for human right and beg liberty and independence, instead of taking what belongs to them by virtue of their power. /

It is this very criticism of political liberty that constitutes one of the most ingenuous parts of Stirner's book. This is best proven by the following quotation:

" 'Political liberty,' what are we to understand by that? Perhaps the individual's independence of the State and its laws? No; on the contrary, the individual's subjection in the State and to the State laws. But why 'liberty'? Because one is no longer separated from the State by intermediaries, but stands in direct and immediate relation to it; because one is a—citizen, not the subject of another, not even of the king as a person, but only in his quality as 'supreme head of the State.' . . .

"Political liberty means that the polls, the State, is free; freedom of religion that religion is free, as freedom of conscience signifies that conscience is free; not, therefore, that I am free from the State, from religion, from conscience, or that I am rid of them. It does not mean my liberty, but the liberty of a power that rules and subjugates me; it means that one of my despots, like State, religion, conscience, is free. State, religion, conscience, these despots, make me a slave."

Stirner is anti-democratic as well as anti-moral. He did not believe that the individual would be freed from his moral fetters by "humanizing the deity," as advocated by Ludwig Feuerbach; that were but to substitute moral despotism for religious. The divine had grown senile and enervated; something more virile was required to further keep man in subjection

By embodying the "God idea" in man: theo moral commands are transformed into his very mental essence, thus enslaving him to his own mind instead of to something external; thus would the former merely external slavery be supplanted by an inner thraldom through his ethical fear of being immoral. We could rebel against a mere external God; the moral, however, becoming synonymous with the human, is thus made ineradicable. Man's dependence and servitude reach in this humanizing of the divine their highest triumph—freed from the thraldom of an external force he is now the more intensely the slave of his own "inner moral neces- sity."

Every good Christian carries God in his heart; every-good moralist and Puritan, his moral gendarme.

The freethinkers have abolished the personal God and then absorbed the ethical microbe, thus inoculating themselves with moral scrofula. They proudly proclaimed their ability to be moral without divine help, never suspecting that it is this very morality that forges the chains of man's subjugation. The rulers would cheerfully ignore the belief in God if convinced that moral commands would suffice to perpetuate man in his bondage. While the "hell of a sick conscience" is in yourself—in your bones and blood—your slavery is guaranteed. In this connection Stirner says:

"Where could one look without meeting victims of self-renunciation? There sits a girl opposite me, who perhaps has been making bloody sacrifices to her soul for ten years already. Over the buxom form droops a deathly-tired head, and pale cheeks betray the slow bleeding away of her youth. Poor, child, how often the passions may have beaten at your heart, and the rich powers of youth have demanded their right! When your head rolled in the soft pillow, how awakening nature quivered through your limbs, the blood swelled your veins, and fiery fancies poured the gleam of voluptuousness into your eyes! Then appeared the ghost of the soul and its external bliss. You were terrified, your hands folded themselves, your tormented eye turned its look upward, you—prayed. The storms of nature were hushed, a calm glided over the ocean of your appetites. Slowly the weary eyelids sank over the life extinguished under them, the tension crept out unperceived from the rounded limbs, the boisterous waves dried up in the heart, the folded hands themselves rested a powerless weight on the unresisting bosom, one last faint "Oh dear!" moaned itself away, and—the soul was at rest. You fell asleep, to awake in the morning to a new combat and a new— prayer. Now the habit of renunciation cools the heat of your desire, and the roses of your youth are growing pale in the chlorosis of your heavenliness. The soul is saved, the body may perish! O Lais, O Ninon! how well you did to scorn this pale virtue! One free grisette against a thousand virgins grown gray in virtue!"

Thus the chains fall one by one from the sovereign I. It rises ever higher above all "sacred commands" which have woven his strait-jacket.

That is the great liberating deed of Stirner.

Abstractly considered, the Ego is now einzig; but how about his Eigentum? (Meaning, in this connection, property) We have now reached the point in Stirner's philosophy where mere abstractions do not suffice.

The resolving of society into einzige individuals leads, economically considered, to negation. Stirner's life is itself the best proof of the powerlessness of the individual forced to carry on a solitary battle in opposition to existing conditions.

Stirner demolishes all spooks; yet, forced by material need to contract debts which he cannot pay, the power of the "spooks" proves greater than that of his Eigenheit: his creditors send him to prison. Stirner himself declares free competition to be a mere gamble, which can only emphasize the artificial superiority of toadies and time-servers over the less proficient. But he is also opposed to Communism which, in his opinion, would make ragamuffins of us all, by depriving the individual of his property.

This objection, however, does not apply to a very large number of individuals, who do not possess property anyhow; the become ragamuffins because they are continually compelled to battle for property and existence, thus sacrificing their Eigenheit and Einzigkeit.

Why were the lives of most of our poets, thinkers, artists and inventors a martyrdom? Because their individualities were so eigen and einzig that they could not successfully compete in the low struggle for property and existence. In that struggle they had to market their individuality to secure means of livelihood. What is the cause of our corruption of character and our hypocritical suppression of convictions? It is because the individual does not own himself, and is not permitted to be his true self. He has become a mere market commodity, an instrument for the accumulation of property—for others.

What business has an individual, a Stirnerian, an Eigener, in a newspaper office, for instance, where intellectual power and ability are prostituted for the enrichment of the publisher and shareholders. Individuality is stretched on the Procrustes bed of business; in the attempt to secure his livelihood—very often in the most uncongenial manner—he sacrifices his Eigenheit, thus suffering the loss of the very thing he prizes most highly and enjoys the best.

If our individuality were to be made the price of breathing, what ado there would be about the violence done to the personality! And yet our very right to food, drink and shelter is only too often conditioned upon our loss of individuality. These things are granted to the propertyless millions (and how scantily!) only in exchange for their individuality—they become the mere instruments of industry.

Stirner loftily ignores the fact that property is the enemy of individuality—that the degree of success in the competitive struggle is proportionate to the measure in which we disown and turn traitors to our individuality. We may possibly except only those who are rich by inheritance; such persons can, to a certain degree, live in their own way. But that by no means expresses the power, the Eigenheit of the heir's individuality. The privilege of inheriting may, indeed, belong to the veriest numskull full of prejudice and spooks, as well as to the Eigener. This leads to petty bourgeois and parvenu Individualism which narrows rather than broadens the horizon of the Eigener.

Modern Communists are more individualistic than Stirner. To them, not merely religion, morality, family and State are spooks, but property also is no more than a spook, in whose name the individual is enslaved—and how enslaved! The individuality is nowadays held in far stronger bondage by property, than by the combined power of State, religion and morality.

Modern Communists do not say that the individual should do this or that in the name of Society. They say: "The liberty and Eigenheit of the individual demand that economic conditions — production and distribution of the means of existence — should be organized thus and thus for his sake." Hence follows that organization in the Communistic sense is not synonymous with automatic obedience or despotism. The prime condition is that the individual should not be forced to humiliate and lower himself for the sake of property and subsistence. Communism thus creates a basis for the liberty and Eigenheit of the individual. I am a Communist because I am an Individualist.

We have certain points of contact with Stirner. The latter puts in place of the State the "Union of the Free." The Communist can accept this without hesitation. Stirner says: "Were labor free, the State would be doomed." We fully concur in this. Labor, freed, would cease to slave for these "spooks." It would refuse to submit; it would proclaim the General Strike — the rebellion against its bondage.

Fully as heartily the Communists concur with Stirner when he puts the word take in place of demand — that leads to the dissolution of property, to expropriation.

Individualism and Communism go hand in hand.

From Mother Earth, May 1907

Max Baginski: Without government

The gist of the anarchistic idea is this, that there are qualities present in man, which permit the possibilities of social life, organization, and co-operative work without the application of force. Such qualities are solidarity, common action, and love of justice. To-day they are either crippled or made ineffective through the influence of compulsion; they can hardly be fully unfolded in a society in which groups, classes, and individuals are placed in hostile, irreconcilable opposition to one another. In human nature to-day such traits are fostered and developed which separate instead of combining, call forth hatred instead of a common feeling, destroy the humane instead of building it up. The cultivation of these traits could not be so successful if it did not find the best nourishment in the foundations and institutions of the present social order.

On close inspection of these institutions, which are based upon the power of the State that maintains them, mankind shows itself as a huge menagerie, in which the captive beasts seek to tear the morsels from each other's greedy jaws. The sharpest teeth, the strongest claws and paws vanquish the weaker competitors. Malice and underhand dealing are victorious over frankness and confidence. The struggle for the means of existence and for the maintenance of achieved power fill the entire space of the menagerie with an infernal noise. Among the methods which are used to secure this organized bestiality the most prominent ones are the hangman, the judge with his mehanical: "In the name of the king," or his more hypocritical: "In the name of the people I pass sentence"; the soldier with his training for murder, and the priest with his: "Authority comes from God."

The exteriors of prisons, armories, and churches show that they are institutions in which the body and soul are subdued. He whose thoughts reach beyond this philosophy of the menagerie sees in them the strongest expression of the view, that it is not possible to make life worth living the more with the help of reason, love, justice, solidarity. The family and school take care to prepare man for these institutions. They deliver him up to the state, so to speak, blindfolded and with fettered limbs. Force, force. It echoes through all history. The first law which subjected man to man was based upon force. The private right of the individual to land was built up by force; force took way the claims upon homesteads from the majority and made them unsettled and transitory. It was force that spoke to mankind thus: "Come to me, humble yourself before me, serve me, bring the treasures and riches of the earth under MY roof. You are destined by Providence to always be in want. You shall be allowed just enough to maintain strength with which to enrich me infinitely by your exertions and to load me down with superfluity and luxury."

What maintains the material and intellectual slavery of the masses and the insanity of the autocracy of the few? Force. Workingmen produce in the factories and workshops the most varied things for the use of man. What is it that drives them to yield up these products for speculation's sake to those who produce nothing, and to content themselves with only a fractional part of the values which they produce? It is force.

What is it that makes the brain-worker just as dependent in the intellectual realm as the artisan in the material world? Force. The artist and the writer being compelled to gain a livelihood dare not dream of giving the best of their individuality. No, they must scan the market in order to find out what is demanded just then. Not any different than the dealer in clothes -who must study the style of the season before he places 'his merchandise before the public. Thus art and literature sink to the level of bad taste and speculation. The artistic individuality shrinks before the calculating reckoner. Not that which moves the artist or the writer most receives expression; the vacillating demands of mediocrity of every-day people must be satisfied. The artist becomes the helper of the dealer and the average men, who trot along in the tracks of dull habit.

The State Socialists love to assert that at present we live in the age of individualism; the truth, however, is that individuality was never valued at so low a rate as to-day. Individual thinking and feeling are incumbrances and not recommendations on the paths of life. Wherever they are found on the market they meet with the word "adaptation." Adapt yourself to the demands of the reigning social powers, act the odedient servant before them, and if you produce something be sure that it does not run against the grain of your "superiors," or say adieu to success, reputation and recompense. Amuse the people, be their clown, give them platitudes about which they can laugh, prejudices which they hold as righteousness and falsehoods which they hold as truths. Paint the whole, crown it with regard for good manners, for society does not like to hear the truth about itself. Praise the men in power as fathers of the people, have the devourers of the commonwealth parade along as benefactors of mankind.

Of course, the force which humbles humanity in this manner is far from openly declaring itself as force. It is masked, and in the course of time it has learned to step forward wit the least possible noise. That diminishes the danger of being recognized.

The modern republic is a good example. In it tyranny is veiled so correctly, that there are really great numbers of people who are deceived by this masquerade and who maintain that what they perceive is a true face with honest eyes.

No czar, no king. But right in line with these are the landowners, the merchants, manufacturers, landlords, monopolists. They all are in possession, which is as strong a guarantee for the continuance of their power, as a castle surrounded by thick walls. Whoever possesses can rob him who possesses nothing of his independence. If I am dependent for a living on work, for which I need contrivances and machines, which I myself cannot procure, because I am without means, I must sacrifice my independence to him who possesses these contrivances and machines. You may work here, he will tell me, but only under the condition that you will deliver up the products of your labor to me, that I may trade with and make profit on them.

The one without possessions has no choice. He may appeal to the declaration of human rights; he may point to his political rights, the equality before the law, before God and the archangels--if he wants to eat, drink, dress and have a home he must choose such work as the conditions of the industrial mercantile or agricultural plants impose upon him.

Through organized opposition the workingmen can somewhat improve this condition; by the help of trade unions they can regulate the hours of work and hinder the reduction of wages to a level too low for mere living. The trade unions are a necessity for the workingmen, a bulwark against which the most unbearable demands of the class of possesors rebound; but a complete freeing of labor--be it of an intellectual or of a physical nature--can be brought about only through the abolition of wage work and the right of private ownership of land and the shit this essay had been cut short!!!!!!!!

Compiled by Romano Krauth