of the working class, on the other hand, is that the
unimpeded and free exercise of individual faculties by the individual
is not sufficient, but that in a morally adjusted community there must
be added to it solidarity of interests, mutual consideration, and
mutual helpfulness in development.

In contrast to such a condition the capitalist class has this
conception of the moral purposes of the State--that it consists
exclusively and entirely in protecting the personal liberty of the
individual and his property.

This is a policeman's idea, Gentlemen--a policeman's idea because the
State can think of itself only in the guise of a policeman whose whole
office consists in preventing robbery and burglary. Unfortunately this
conception is to be found, in consequence of imperfect thinking, not
only among acknowledged liberals, but, often enough, even among many
supposed to be democrats. If the capitalist class were to carry their
thought to its logical extreme they would have to admit that,
according to their idea, if there were no thieves or robbers the State
would be entirely unnecessary.

The fourth class conceives of the purpose of the State in a quite
different manner, and its conception of it is the true one.

History is a struggle with nature--that is, with misery, with
ignorance, with poverty, with weakness, and, accordingly, with
restrictions of all kinds to which we were subject when the human race
appeared in the beginning of history. A constantly advancing victory
over this weakness--that is the development of liberty which history
portrays.

In this struggle we should never have taken a step forward, nor should
we ever take another, if we had carried it on, or tried to carry it
on, as individuals, each for himself alone.

It is the State which has the office of perfecting this development of
freedom, and of the human race to freedom. The State is this unity of
individuals in a moral composite--a unity which increases a
millionfold the powers of all individuals who are included in this
union, which multiplies a millionfold the powers which are at the
command of them all as individuals.

The purpose of the State, then, is not to protect merely the personal
liberty of the individual and the property which, according to the
idea of the capitalist, he must have before he can participate in the
State; the purpose of the State is, rather, through this union to put
individuals in a position to attain objects,