power and the economic basis of
their existence.

Those who are now pursuing a policy of desperation are unconsciously
building their hopes on the breakdown which brought them to the top:
they are avowedly making the hoped-for revolution in the West the
central point of their system. If the West holds out, they will be
false prophets; but it will not only hold out, it will in the
beginning at all events, witness a great and passionate uprising of
imperialistic and capitalistic tendencies. If there is any one who did
not understand that a policy based on hopes of other peoples'
bankruptcy is the most flimsy and frivolous of all policies, he might
well have learned it from the war.

Germany must forge her own destinies for herself, without side-glances
at the good or ill fortune of others. Had time only been given us to
pass naturally from the stage of a prolonged and corrupted childhood
into that of a manly responsibility, our ultimate recovery would be
assured. But we have to accomplish in months what ought to be the
evolution of decades; our national training has left us without
convictions, we have no eye for the true boundaries of rights, claims
and responsibilities, and we hesitate as to how far we must or ought
to go. Unprepared, weakened, impoverished and sick, we are required,
at the most unlucky moment, to work out a new and unprecedented order
of life. Before even the educated classes are capable of forming a
judgment on the question, the most incapable masses of the rawest
youth, of the lowest classes of society, are let loose, and sit upon
the judgment-seat.

It is not only that we have been rich and have become very poor, but
we were always politically immature, and are so still. If the order of
Society is to be that of root-and-branch Socialism, it will mean the
proletarian condition for all of us, and for a long time to come.
There is no use in flattering ourselves and painting the future better
than it is; the truth must be spoken with all plainness. If we work
hard, and under capable guidance, each of us will at most have an
effective income of 500 marks in pre-war values, or, say, 2000 marks
for the family. This average will be higher if we proceed on the
principles of the New Economy,[7] but again will be reduced by the
necessity for allowing extra pay for work of higher value. If to-day
the average income available is markedly higher than the above, the
reason is that we are living on our capital;