: The New Society by Rathenau Walther Windham Arthur Translator - Socialism; Reconstruction (1914-1939) Germany; Germany Social conditions

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Translator: Arthur Windham

THE NEW SOCIETY

BY

WALTHER RATHENAU

NEW YORK HARCOURT, BRACE AND COMPANY 1921

The present study, with its wide outlook and its resolute determination to see facts as they are, should have much value for all students of latter-day politics and economics in Europe; for though Rathenau is mainly concerned with conditions in his own land the same conditions affect all countries to a greater or less degree, and he deals with general principles of human psychology and of economic law which prevail everywhere in the world. It is not too much to say that "The New Society" constitutes a landmark in the history of economic and social thought, and contains matter for discussion, for sifting, for experiment and for propaganda which should occupy serious thinkers and reformers for many a day to come. His suggestions and conclusions may not be all accepted, or all acceptable, but few will deny that they constitute a distinct advance in the effort to bring serious and disinterested thought to the solution of our social problems, and in this conviction we offer the present complete and authorized translation to English readers.

THE NEW SOCIETY

Is there any sign or criterion by which we can tell that a human society has been completely socialized?

There is one and one only: it is when no one can have an income without working for it.

That is the sign of Socialism; but it is not the goal. In itself it is not decisive. If every one had enough to live on, it would not matter for what he received money or goods, or even whether he got them for nothing. And relics of the system of income which is not worked for will always remain--for instance, provision for old age.

The goal is not any kind of division of income or allotment of property. Nor is it equality, reduction of toil, or increase of the enjoyment of life. It is the abolition of the proletarian condition; abolition of the lifelong hereditary serfage, the nameless hereditary servitude, of one of the two peoples who are called by the same name; the annulment of the hereditary twofold stratification of society, the abolition of the scandalous enslavement of brother by brother, of that Western abuse which is the basis of our civilization as slavery was of the antique, and which vitiates all our deeds, all our creations, all our joys.

Nor is even this the final goal--no economy, no society can talk of a final goal--the only full and final object of all endeavour upon earth is the development of the human soul. A final goal, however, points out the direction, though not the path, of politics.

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