An address delivered by Ferdinand Lassalle in 1863, at Leipsic.

‘Morality and Class Rule’ (1863) by Ferdinand Lassalle from the Weekly People. Vol. 12 No. 46. February 14, 1903.

It is quite possible that the bare thought of raising into preeminence the principles that prevail among the proletariat, among the working class, may be looked upon as a most dangerous and immoral innovation, upon the ground that it would threaten to reduce both morality and culture to a condition that might be termed “modern barbarism.”

It would not be surprising if such a fear were to-day quite generally entertained. Even public opinion–thanks to the public press, which the capitalist class controls–receives nowadays its impress from the branding iron and from the hands of a privileged plutocracy.

And yet the fear is but a prejudice. It may, on the contrary, be proven that the idea of replacing the present ruling principles with those of the proletariat aims at the noblest degree of civilization and at the greatest triumph of morality yet recorded in the world’s history.

The fear of the country is, I repeat a prejudice–a prejudice peculiar to these days that are still lorded over by privilege.

In other days, during the first French Republic of 1793, for instance, we find prevailing exactly the opposite prejudice.

In those days it had become a dogma that all the upper classes were immoral and corrupt, and that morality resided only with the lowly. This view proceeded from Rousseau. In the new “Declaration of Rights of Man,” issued by the French convention, that stupendous constitutional assembly of France, the idea is even set down by a special article by article 17, which provides as follows:

“Whatever institution does not proceed upon the principle that the people sound, but the magistrate corruptible, is radically defective.”

This is just the reverse of the blind confidence that is nowadays ‘demanded and according to which there is no greater crime than to question the good intentions and the virtue of government officials, while, as a matter of principle, the people are looked upon as a kind of tiger and as the seat of corruption.

In those days the contrary dogma I went even so far that almost every one who had a good coat on was, by that simple fact, looked upon as a corrupt and suspicious character; virtue, purity and patriotism were thought to reside in those only who did not have a good coat to wear. That was the period of “Sansculottism.”

There is a certain truth at the bottom of this view of things, only. It is a truth that manifests itself in a false and one-sided form. Now, then, there is nothing more dangerous than a truth that does so manifest itself. If it is adopted in its false and one-sided form, it will, at certain periods ply the saddest havoc, as was the case in the instance of Sansculottism. If it is wholly rejected as false, by reason of its false and one-sided form, we are still worse off. A truth, as in the instance in point, will have been rejected, without the recognition of which no sound step is possible in modern society.

There is no other course left than to seek to free that clause of the French Convention from its false and one-sided form, and to attain a clear understanding of the truth it contains.

As I stated before, public opinion will to-day be inclined to pronounce the whole clause utterly false, and a bit of declamation indulged in by the French Revolution and by Rousseau. Nevertheless, even if the process were feasible thus to throw aside both Rousseau and the French Revolution, it would be utterly unfeasible with regard to one of the greatest German philosophers, the centenary of whose birth this city will celebrate next month, the philosopher Fichte, one of the most powerful thinkers of all nations and of all times.

Fichte also declared, to quote his own words, that, along with ascending social rank, there is an increased deterioration of morals. He said: “The higher the social rank, the greater the corruption.” Yet even Fichte did not go to the bottom of these maxims. He attributes the corruption of the upper classes to their selfishness. But the question immediately comes: Is there no selfishness among the lower classes? Or, why should there be less selfishness with the latter than with the former? Indeed, it must sound like a surprising contradiction to claim for the lower classes less selfishness than for the upper ones, seeing that, the upper classes have over the lower the advantage of culture and education–two elements that are recognized promoters of morality.

The real foundation for the maxim that the upper classes are the abiding seat of corruption, the solution of the contradiction that at first blush seems so puzzling, is this:

For some time the whole development of the people, the whole current of history, has been tending increasingly toward the abolition of the privileges which guarantee to the higher classes their station as the superior and ruling classes in society. The wish to continue these privileges, or be it personal interest, necessarily forthwith drives every member of the upper classes–except the exceptionally few, who, through a deep insight, have once for all raised themselves above their own personal conditions to take a hostile attitude toward the development of the people, toward the extension of culture and science, toward every healthful pulse of history and every victory it gains.

It is this conflict between the personal interests of the upper class and the nation’s development on the path of civilization that breeds the inevitable and high degree of immorality noticeable in the upper classes. Theirs is an existence the conditions to which one but needs to keep in mind in order to realize the canker that gnaws at its vitals, and the corruption it is bound to become a prey to. To be daily compelled to oppose, to deplore the success, to rejoice at the failure, to strive to stem the progress, to counteract or even to curse the achievements of all that is great and good, is like living in an enemy’s land–and that enemy is the common aspiration of the very people. among whom one moves and in the promotion of which all genuine morality consists. I say it is like living in an enemy’s land. When it is considered that this enemy in one’s own people, that it is looked upon and treated as an enemy, the conclusion is inevitable that the enmity must in the long run, be concealed by cunning, that it must be closed over with more or less artificial drapery.

Hence the necessity either to do all this in defiance of the voice of one’s own conscience and intellect, or by long habit to have silenced that voice in order to prevent being troubled by it, or yet never to have known anything else and better than the religion of prejudice.

Such a life cannot choose but lead to a total neglect of and contempt for all ideal aspirations; it is bound to suggest a commiserating smile if but the great word “idea” is mentioned; it inevitably nourishes a deep-rooted insensibility and aversion for all that is beautiful and great; it cannot but dry up all sense of morality within man and kindle in the stead of this the one absorbing passion of self-seeking prejudice and thirst for pleasure.

This conflict between personal interests, and the march of civilization is, fortunately for the lower classes of society, absent among them.

True enough, it is to be regretted, there is selfishness enough, more than there should be, among the lower classes. Nevertheless, there, whenever selfishness is found, it is rather a defect of individuals, of single persons; it is not the necessary defect of their class.

It needs not a very strong instinct to tell the members of the lower classes that in so far as each of them leans upon and thinks of himself alone, he cannot hope for any material improvement of his lot.

On the other hand, in so far as, and to the extent that the lower classes of society strive for the improvement of their condition as a class, for the improvement of their class lot, just so far and to just that extent does the personal interest of each–instead of resisting the development of history, and thereby being guilty of immorality–rather fall in line with the whole people, with the victory of an idea, with the progress of civilization, with the vital principle of history itself, which, after all, is nothing else than the development of freedom.

Accordingly, the lower classes are in that happy state, instead of being dead to an idea, their personal interests them- selves are calculated to be most sensitive to its reception. Theirs is the happy state in which that which constitutes. their true personal interests, beats in unison with the throbbing pulse of history, with the motive power of moral development. Hence they may give themselves over with personal enthusiasm to the development of history, and be convinced that their attitude is all the more moral the greater the warmth with which this pure passion may burn within them and the more completely it carries them away.

These are the reasons why the rule of the proletariat is certain to cause morality, culture and science to blossom forth as never before in the history of man.

But from this it follows that there is the duty of a totally new attitude incumbent upon all who are of the working class.

There is nothing better calculated to put upon a class a worthy and deeply moral stamp that the consciousness that it is destined to become the ruling one, that it is called upon to raise the underlying principle of its own rank to the dignity of the principle of the age, to make the idea that animates it the leading idea of the whole of society, and to remodel. the latter in its own image.

The high historic dignity of this mission must absorb all the thoughts of such a class. Thus inspired, the vices that usually accompany the oppressed are no longer becoming to it, nor the kill-time pleasures of the thoughtless, nor yet the harmless levity of the insignificant. It becomes the rock upon which the modern Church must be built.

The high moral earnestness of this thought must take possession of the mind of the working class, to the absolute exclusion of all others, it must fill the spirit of that class, and it must shape the lives of its collective membership in such manner as shall be fitting to and worthy of itself.

The moral earnestness of this thought must never leave the workingmen: it must ever be with them–in the shop during the hours of toil, in the hour of rest, in their walks, in their meetings; even when they lay themselves down upon their hard couches it is this thought that should fill their soul and should engage their thoughts until slumber overtakes him. The more exclusively the workingmen are absorbed in the moral earnestness of this thought, the more completely they give themselves up to it, all the faster will they bring on the day when the present period of history will have fulfilled its mission.

New York Labor News Company was the publishing house of the Socialist Labor Party and their paper The People. The People was the official paper of the Socialist Labor Party of America (SLP), established in New York City in 1891 as a weekly. The New York SLP, and The People, were dominated Daniel De Leon and his supporters, the dominant ideological leader of the SLP from the 1890s until the time of his death. The People became a daily in 1900. It’s first editor was the French socialist Lucien Sanial who was quickly replaced by De Leon who held the position until his death in 1914. Morris Hillquit and Henry Slobodin, future leaders of the Socialist Party of America were writers before their split from the SLP in 1899. For a while there were two SLPs and two Peoples, requiring a legal case to determine ownership. Eventual the anti-De Leonist produced what would become the New York Call and became the Social Democratic, later Socialist, Party. The De Leonist The People continued publishing until 2008.

PDF of full issue: https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/the-people-slp/030214-weeklypeople-v12n46.pdf