which the modern State rests, just as the
civil society of slavery was the natural foundation upon which the
antique State rested. The existence of the State is inseparable from
the existence of slavery. The antique State and antique
slavery--manifest classical antagonisms--were not more intimately
connected than is the modern State with the modern huckstering
world--sanctimonious Christian antagonisms. If the modern State wishes
to abolish the impotence of its administration, it would have to
abolish the present-day mode of living. If it wishes to abolish this
mode of living, it would have to abolish itself, for it exists only in
opposition to the same. No living person, however, would believe that
defects in his existence are due to the vital principle of his life,
but would rather attribute them to circumstances outside his life.
Suicide is unnatural.

The State cannot therefore believe in the innate impotence of its
administration. It can only take notice of formal and accidental
defects therein and attempt to remedy them. If these modifications are
fruitless, social crime must be a natural imperfection independent of
mankind, a law of God, or else the dispositions of private individuals
are too vitiated to second the good intentions of the administration.
And what perverted private individuals! They murmur against the
government whenever the latter restricts freedom, and they demand that
the government should provide against the necessary consequences of
this freedom.

The more powerful the State, and the more political, therefore, a
country is, all the less is it inclined to seek in the principle of
the State, and consequently in the existing institution of society,
whose self-conscious and official expression the State is, for the
cause of social crime, and to grasp its general principle.

Political understanding is political understanding precisely because
it thinks within the limitations of politics. The more acute, the more
alert it is, the more incapable it is of perceiving social crime. The
classic period of political understanding is the French Revolution.
Far from perceiving the source of social defects in the principle of
the State, the heroes of the French Revolution rather perceived in
social defects the source of political abuses. Thus Robespierre saw in
great poverty and great riches only an obstacle to pure democracy.
Consequently, he desired to establish a general Spartan frugality.

The princ