Landmarks of Scientific Socialism: "Anti-Duehring"

a state of society in which slavery was regarded universally as necessary. In this sense we may say that without the ancient slavery there would have been no modern socialism.

It is very easy to make preachments about slavery and to express our moral indignation at such a scandalous institution. Unfortunately the whole significance of this is that it merely says that these old institutions do not correspond with our present conditions and the sentiments engendered by these conditions. We do not however in this way explain how these institutions came into existence, why they came into existence and the role which they have played in history. And when we enter upon this matter we are obliged to say in spite of all contradiction and accusations of heresy that the introduction of slavery under the conditions of that time was a great step forwards. It is a fact that man sprang from the lower animals and has had to employ barbaric and really bestial methods in order to rid himself of barbarism. The old communal system where it persisted built up the most elementary form of the state, Oriental despotism, from India to Russia. Only where it has been dissolved has the people progressed and the next economic step lay in the development of production by means of slave labor. It is evident that as long as human labor was so little productive that it afforded only a small surplus over the necessary means of life, the development of the productive forces, the institution of commerce, the development of the State and of law and the foundation of art and science were only possible through an increase in the subdivision of labor. This implied the broad division between the mass of the workers and the directors of labor, trade, state, state-business, and later the occupation of a few privileged persons in art and science. The simplest and most natural form of this subdivision of labor was slavery. In the conditions of the ancient, and especially the Greek world, the advance to a society founded on class distinction could only be for the slaves, the prisoners of war from whom the majority of slaves were recruited instead of being murdered as they would have been at an earlier date or instead of being eaten as they would have been at a stage still earlier.

Here we add that all the historical antitheses of robbers and robbed of master and subject classes find their explanation in the relatively undeveloped productivity of human labor. As long as the actual working people claim that they have no time left at the close of their necessary labors to attend to the common business of society--the organization of labor, the business of the government, the administration of justice, art, science, etc., just so long will distinct classes exist which are free from actual labor to carry on these functions. Naturally these classes do not hesitate to lean more and more and more upon the shoulders of the working class for their own advantage. The development of the great industry with its enormous increase in the forces of production for the first time permitted of the subdivision of labor in all social grades and thus allowed of the reduction of the time necessary for labor so that enough leisure remains for all to take part in the actual public business--theoretical as well as practical. So that now for the first time the dominant and exploiting classes have become superfluous and even an obstacle to social progress, and so now for the first time they will be unceremoniously brushed aside in spite of their "pure force."