to reach a condition of
existence which they could never reach as individuals, to empower them
to attain a standard of education, power, and liberty which would be
utterly impossible for them, one and all, merely as individuals. The
object of the State is, accordingly, to bring the human being to
positive and progressive development--in a word, to shape human
destiny, i.e., the culture of which mankind is capable, into actual
existence. It is the training and development of the human race for
freedom.

Such is the real moral nature of the State--its true and higher task.
This is so truly the case that for all time it has been carried out
through the force of circumstances, by the State, even without its
will, even without its knowledge, even against the will of its
leaders.

But the working class, the lower classes of society in general, have,
on account of the helpless position in which their members find
themselves as individuals, the sure instinct that just this must be
the function of the State--the aiding of the individual, by the union
of all, to such a development as would be unobtainable by him merely
as an individual.

The State then, brought under the control of the idea of the working
class, would no longer be driven on, as all states have been up to
this time, unconsciously and often reluctantly, by the nature of
things and the force of circumstances; but it would make this moral
nature of the State its task, with the greatest clearness and complete
consciousness. It would accomplish with ready willingness and the most
complete consistency that which, up to this time, has been forced only
in the dimmest outlines from the opposing will, and just for this
reason it would necessarily promote a nourishing of intellect, a
development of happiness, education, prosperity, and liberty, such as
would stand without example in the world's history, in comparison with
which the most lauded conditions in earlier times would drop into a
pale shadow.

It is this which must be called the political idea of the working
class, its conception of the purpose of the State, which, as you see,
is just as different, and in a perfectly corresponding manner, from
the conception of the purpose of the State in the capitalist class as
the principle of the working class--a share of all in the
determination of public policy, or universal suffrage--is from the
corresponding principle of the capitalist class--the property
qualification