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Chapter 2
The present organisation of society and its influence on its mentality
In order really to be able to understand the above one must realise that terrestrial mankind is still on such a low step in evolution that being selfish is very much a vital necessity for its individuals. The existing authorities, with their legal and judicial system, have not yet reached a position with regard to the prevailing egoistic or animal greed in the individuals' struggle for things of value and the material benefits connected with them that would enable them to create time, peace and security for the individuals to develop their unselfishness. The drive for self-preservation today elicits in the individuals an unremitting, all-pervasive fear of poverty with its attendant subjugation and slavery because the organisation of society has not yet reached such a civilised standard that it has been able to abolish slavery, it being such that those who have nothing of value, those who own nothing, must be slaves for those who possess these things of value, and those who own nothing are bought and sold by those who have buying power. So for the moment the things of value in the world are in actual fact merely things with which one can buy one's fellow beings and force them to be co-workers who procure even more things of value for oneself, thus appropriating for oneself a kind of independence or freedom, a kind of safeguard against the slavery that lurks behind all things.
      So the existing organisation of society or administration of things of value today nurtures in every human being an extraordinarily great interest in, or desire for, the appropriation of things of value and has such an all-pervasive strength that almost none of the beings who have not yet exhausted themselves in the struggle for existence and, in the stupor of hopelessness, have sunk to the depths of a vagabond existence, of swindling and mental illness, dare or have the time to think about anything other than the continuous safeguarding of their economy. With an iron hand, society compels its individuals to see the "rich man" as one of life's greatest, most desirable ideals. And for this reason anyone whose life is tinged by the glitter of wealth is worshipped and idolised.
      Is it not so that shop assistants dance attendance on a wealthy customer, an heir to millions, who is perhaps not even used to doing the useful work of serving himself or dressing and undressing himself, rather than on a poor old man who is bent and emaciated from the grind and drudgery of work? What or whom is being worshipped here? If it were work, the worn-out, emaciated, poor old man ought to be carried in a golden chair. But is this what happens? Is he not held slightly in contempt beside the heir to millions?
      Is it then the actual person behind the millions whom one has such exceedingly great sympathetic feelings for? No, absolutely not. How do we imagine things would turn out if the same person suddenly lost his fortune and, poor and down-at-heel, came into the same shop to buy something or other on credit? Do we think it likely that the staff or the proprietors of the shop would fall over one another in exaggerated haste to fulfil this person's slightest wish?
      No, it is not the person or the human being but the millions to which homage is paid. Wherever the gold goes, the worship follows. It is in the light of one's great possessions, in the light of the glitter of one's gold that one most easily catches the world's eye. It is this glitter that most easily gives access to preferential treatment and homage from the world.
      The terror of being economically suppressed and the fear of perishing in slavery, poverty and destitution thus turn the worship of gold – that is, the development of the ability to appropriate capital or a fortune – into the instinct of self-preservation's condition no. 1. All the things that can produce capital or prosperity are, thus, the main factors in daily existence.
      Since all things of value today are already impounded and exist as the private property of other people, the aim of these factors is to find out how one can best take possession of these things of value, which are thus "owned" by others. The most primitive of these factors is simple robbery, that is, the appropriation of one's neighbour's possessions by raw, brute force. This is to a great extent the leading form of appropriation of things of value among primitive people or tribes, but is also found within a certain class of people within so-called "civilisation".
      Since this primitive way of appropriating one's neighbour's possessions has been forbidden, people of this class, who are thus in actual fact only "children of Nature", become "offenders" and incur the persecution and punishment of civilisation. We call people of this class "criminals". This does not, however, hold true when the robbery occurs under the concept of "war", which in turn means when the robbery takes place on the basis of an entire people's wish or decision to appropriate the possessions of another people. This is as yet a "heroic deed", which is blessed and honoured by salutes, parades and decorations.
      One will now perhaps think that this is, however, justified and natural when it is a matter of a "war of defence". But where can one find such a war today? Does one believe that there is any present or future warring power that does not imagine it is waging a "war of defence", regardless of how obvious it may be that it is waging a war of aggression? Is it not one of the fruits of present civilisation that everyone fights under the concept of "defence"?
      And what then is it that is being defended? Is it not generally true that the property and national boundaries of each people are realities that were appropriated at one time through attacks and assaults by the self-same peoples or their forebears? Can it be denied that they are "stolen property"? That one has "owned" them for long periods of time, perhaps even since ancient times, does not change the principle. And is one not just as justified in calling a war that is a defence of "stolen property" a "war of aggression" as one is in calling a modern war of aggression in the twentieth century a "war of defence"?
      What then is a "war of aggression", and what is a "war of defence"? Is it not true that "war of defence" is a term people use to camouflage the truth of every war? From a cosmic point of view absolutely all wars without exception are to be identified as "wars of aggression", since none of the world's territories whatsoever and none of their vital necessities or things of value in the form of raw materials have been given to one people or another or to one state or another as their absolutely "private property". That the territories today are nonetheless divided between the peoples as "private property" is due exclusively to the principle of attack, that is, the "principle of robbery", the use of superior force to coarsely and brutally seize them.
      This form of appropriation of things of value is thus tolerated between nations only where there is as yet no realistic, international or common judicial system. Among the individuals within the societies one has long since done away with this primitive form of appropriation and made it a punishable offence. But since robbery has thus been made a punishable offence, and since faulty social administration on a large scale has at the same time made desiring one's neighbour's goods a matter of self-preservation or an absolute necessity for individual human beings, these desires have given rise to a new method by means of which one can come to possess some of these goods without using ill-fated and punishable force. This method is known as "theft". This method aims, as is known, at "secretly" appropriating things of value that belong to one's neighbour. By appropriating them secretly, and continually eluding the discovery of one's action, one can thus avoid the existing punishment and avoid paying the legally required compensation for the appropriated things of value.
      Theft is thus a method by which one can, in the most fortunate cases, appropriate things of value belonging to one's neighbour with a smaller risk than by the dangerous method of robbery. But since theft is also a punishable offence, at the same time as most people protect their belongings under lock and key, behind watchdogs and security guards, the primordial instincts behind the drive for self-preservation have manifested themselves through even more refined methods for freely appropriating goods and gold than by robbery and theft. Of these methods the simplest is, like the two described above, a punishable offence and is known by the term "fraud".
      This method aims exclusively at bluffing the person whose property one wants to appropriate by paying as little as possible. This in turn means a method that is very much based on the ability to tell lies. The "fraudster", by telling lies, tries to veil the actual or real circumstances from the person he wants to cheat. This veiling is, of course, done in such a way that his victim gets the idea that complying with his (the fraudster's) wishes, on the conditions he has stipulated, is enormously profitable in financial terms or in some other beneficial way. But afterwards, when the fraudster is over the hills and far away with his loot, his victim discovers that the expected advantages of complying with the fraudster's wishes do not exist at all but were pure fabrication. And he is then left the richer for having gained an experience, but, as a rule, the poorer for having lost a possession.


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