self-government for a short time and it will become corrupted. From that very moment strife begins and soon develops into social struggles, as a result of which states are set aflame and their authority is reduced to ashes.
Whether the state is exhausted by internal convulsions, or whether civil wars deliver it into the hands of external enemies, in either case it can be regarded as hopelessly lost: it is in our power. The despotism of capital, which is entirely in our hands, holds out to it a straw which the state must grasp, although against its will, or otherwise fall into the abyss.
To him who, because of his liberal inclinations, would contend that arguments of this kind are immoral, I would propound the question: If a state has two enemies, and if against the external enemy it is permitted and it is not considered immoral to use all methods of warfare, and as a protective measure not to acquaint the enemy with the plans of attack, such as night attacks or attacks with superior forces, then why should the same methods be regarded as immoral when applied to a worse foe, a transgressor against social order and prosperity?
How can a sound and logical mind hope successfully to guide the masses by means of reasonable persuasion or by arguments if there is a possibility of contradiction, even though unreasonable, but which may appear more attractive to the superficially thinking masses? Guided entirely by shallow passions, superstitions, customs, traditions, and sentimental theories, the people in and of the mob become embroiled in party dissensions which prevent all possibility of an agreement, even though it be on a basis of perfectly sound reasoning. Every decision of the mob depends upon the accidental or prearranged majority, which, owing to its ignorance of political secrets, pronounces absurd decisions, thus introducing the seeds of anarchy into the government.
Politics have nothing in common with morals. The ruler guided by morality is