The Rights of Women and the Sexual Relations/Part 1/18. Postscript
POSTSCRIPT.
In a footnote to my preface, the translator of the foregoing treatise has clearly defined her views regarding the means to be employed in the attainment of the common aim, and which she considers as radically divergent from those of the author, without, however, in my opinion, at the same time stating the position of her opponent just as clearly. For this reason, as well as in the interest of a better understanding of the matter under discussion, I take occasion to set forth clearly, by means of a succinct résumé, Heinzen's views with regard to the important factors in the development of mankind touched upon by the point at issue. It seems to me it will be seen that there are more points of contact in regard to the subject treated therein between the esteemed translator and the author of this treatise, and that at bottom she does not entertain such fundamentally divergent views from his as she feels bound to assume. Heinzen defines the conception of the “State" succinctly as follows:
“'Democracy.' I supply this term with quotation-marks to indicate that I merely borrow it. For at bottom it does not mean what in the radical sense it ought to mean. Democracy (popular rule) is by no means an expression for a rational or appropriate conception. Where there is authority, there must also be servants. But a free people know neither the one nor the other. Over whom are the people to rule? Even their office-holders and agents they can only entrust and commission with their affairs. The term democracy came into use simply to denote an opposition to an authority over the people. The people are not to be ruled by others, from which it does not follow, however, that now the people themselves are to establish an authority, but that all authority must disappear. And with the conception of authority the conception of government will vanish. All that remains and all that is necessary is a common administration according to general vote, a supervision of the common interests conducted by the requisite personnel under general control. Control is not authority.
"Of an individual freely attending to his affairs or promoting his interests we say neither that he governs nor that he is governed. Just as little can we say so of a society of individuals who form a voluntary association for a common purpose and call this association a State. And if for the practical attainment of their purpose they entrust or commission certain persons with certain functions, the exercise of these functions will as little constitute an authority or a government as the control of a joint-stock company or any other joint enterprise by a board of experts and trustees. The conception of authority ought, therefore, to be entirely excluded from radical political thought, and with it the term denoting it. The term republic comes much nearer to expressing the nature of a free State than the term democracy. The most proper term perhaps would be, the commonwealth (Gemeinwesen). The popular conception of the State is still tainted by the dominating influence of the examples of the past, the historical models, and therefore most men cannot conceive of even the freest State without a dualism of the people and a special power which is called authority and government. Only by a thorough analysis of the conceptions authority and government do we reach a correct understanding of what is meant to be expressed by the term 'democracy,' but what it does not express.
"It is surely not necessary to parry the objection that this definition of the State will lead to what in its bad or good sense is called Anarchy. Anarchy in its bad sense is barbarism, and in its good sense an impossibility. State and Anarchy are contradictions, for a State is as little conceivable without as Anarchy with organization.
"But organization in the free State is nothing more than order and arrangement of business. I should therefore define it thus: The State is, on a common ground, an association of free and, before the law, equal individuals for the object of facilitating and securing the realization of the life purposes of each individual through the proper authorized agents by means of their jointly created and supervised institutions, laws, and resources.
"Such a definition of the State — and it is the only correct one — at once directs each to the claims that he has to make, but, at the same time, to the task that he has to perform. It makes of him as it were a State business partner, but it also makes the degree of the satisfaction of his claims dependent on his direct and indirect participation in the administration of the business.
"North America is regarded as a ‘democratic' State, and the people in general have learned to put faith in this term. The true significance of this term must become plain to them if, in the contemplation of existing conditions and their power of influencing them, they will take the above definition for a standard. It will appear that we have indeed an authority here, but an authority over the people — a relation that is not improved, but only. made worse, by the fact that the people themselves elect their ruler and are thus under the illusion that they govern. Whoever has made this clear to himself, and surveys the chasm existing between the truly free State, as it has been defined above, and the State we actually have here, he alone will be able to correctly estimate the. consequences of the repeated endeavors to still farther extend this authority, and appreciate the necessity of meeting them by the timely spread of radical conceptions of the State.
"It having already been sufficiently discussed in the pamphlet ‘What is True Democracy?', I refrain in this place from any further exposition of the fundamentally anti-democratic representative system, according to which the people surrender themselves powerlessly into the hands of executive as well as legislative representatives who are both irresponsible and, during their term of office, inaccessible. The essential requirement of a free people, on which all others depend, is universal suffrage, and this primary right is partly wanting entirely, and partly threatened where it exists.
"All reasons which are brought forward to justify departures from universal suffrage are only sham reasons. Not only the considerations of human rights, but even the considerations of expediency, admit of absolutely no exception. Logically conceived and carried out, exclusion from suffrage would have to mean exclusion from the State as well. A person without suffrage is an alien, while citizen and voter must be identical. Where the principle of equal rights is once departed from, there no longer any limit is to be drawn for disenfranchisement. If capacity is to decide, where then is incapacity to end? And who is to judge of capacity? But if even property is to be taken as a standard, is not the possessor thus by a twofold preponderance made completely the master of the dependent poor? There is no more monstrous arrogance than to grant to property over and above the advantages it already confers also the privilege of authority, a privilege to which, ‘if it were ever justifiable, only the deepest insight and the most disinterested concern for the general welfare could grant a claim.
"The dangers which are predicted by the opponents of equal rights are only imaginary, and inthe course of time will disappear of themselves. The power of incapacity decreases with increased opportunity to test itself; and where, as a result of former neglect, it causes the State temporary embarrassments, the latter has to overcome them by a proper expiation of its own guilt. The State is as little exempt as the individual from the necessity of either atoning for former mistakes by righting them, or of multiplying them to work its own ruin. The negro slaves had placed this country before such an alternative, and it decided itself for the saving expedient in the eleventh hour. After justice had been done to the negroes, at least as far as form is concerned, the women knocked at the doors of the Capitol. We too, they say, are human beings and are called citizens; we too are a part of the people, and not its worst part; we too want to have a part in the associated business which is called State. You speak of democracy and exclude one half of society from it, in order that you as privileged class and usurpers of the State may rule over them. Even if you had abolished all other forms of authority, that of sex, the most senseless of all, you still allow to stand. Do you fear, perchance, that by granting us equal rights you will reap the fruits of the education which you have given us? Very well; it is in your power to give us a different one. Or do you fear that we would destroy the ruinous fruits of your own education? Very well; then allow them to increase until they have ruined you. No other outlet will lead to your as well as to our welfare than justice, and the sooner you will practise it the better it will be both for you and for us. If you do not wish to take upon yourself the risk of the transition, then take upon yourself the risk of destruction.
"Upon due consideration all the evils and dangers which are ascribed to the realization of the equal rights of man in the State are only temporary and fancied. In any case this realization is a categorical imperative of evolution, which can be silenced only by an honest recognition, and the inauguration and preservation of universal suffrage is its first guarantee. There are thousands who possess this right and do not exercise it. Whatever the reason for this neglect may be, let him who has never voted hasten to the polls at least when the issue is to preserve the suffrage for those who already possess it, or to secure it for those who still want it." K. S.