IV. The Key Points of the Social Question in the Necessities of Life In the Present and the Future

When I was speaking on this subject recently in a Swiss town, a very clever person said to me during the discussion – of course I recognize all clever objections, I am aware of how much can be objected to what I am proposing here; but it is based on reality, and therefore there is as much to object to as there can be objected to as a rule; the reason why what is proposed is practical is that so much can be objected to it and because the objections must be countered in a practical way, not with judgments. He said: Yes, you now want to define the state with its law and its justice, but justice must prevail in both intellectual and economic life! I replied with an image: I imagine a rural family, the man, the woman, the children, servants, maids and three cows. The cows give milk. The whole family needs milk. Is it therefore necessary, or even possible, that the whole family should also give milk? No, if the three cows give milk properly, the whole family will be supplied with milk, and it is not at all necessary for the others to give milk as well. So it is with the three members of the social organism. Each of the members supplies for the other members that which can be supplied to them precisely because in its emancipation it is placed on its healthy, essential foundation. This is what one has to consider above all in the face of these truly practical social proposals, drawn from reality.