of which the intervention of the State was
necessary--a single example, but one which is worth a hundred others,
and one which is especially near at hand. When railroads were to be
built, in all German as well as in all foreign states except in some
few isolated lines, the State had to intervene in one way or
another--chiefly by undertaking to guarantee at least the dividends on
the stock, in many countries going much further than this.

The guarantee of dividends constitutes a one-sided contract of the
rich stockholder with the State--namely, if the new enterprises are
unprofitable, then the loss falls upon the State, and consequently
upon all taxpayers, and, consequently again, especially upon you,
Gentlemen, upon the great class of the propertyless. If, on the other
hand, the new enterprises are profitable, then the profit, the large
dividends, come to us, the rich stockholders, and this is not obviated
by the fact that in many countries--for instance in Prussia--certain
very uncertain advantages for the State in a very distant future are
stipulated, advantages which would result much sooner and much more
abundantly from an association of the working class.

Without this intervention of the State, of which, as I have said, the
guarantee of dividends was the weakest form, we should perhaps have no
railroads on the whole continent today.

The fact is also unquestionable that the State was obliged to take
this step; that the guarantee of dividends was a most pronounced
intervention of the State, that, furthermore, this intervention took
place in favor of the rich and well-to-do class, which also controls
all capital and all credit, and which therefore could dispense with
the intervention of the State far more easily than you; and that this
intervention was called for by the whole capitalist class.

Why then did not a cry arise at that time against the guarantee of
dividends as an inadmissible intervention of the State? Why was it not
then discovered that by this guarantee the social incentive of the
rich managers of those stock companies was threatened? Why was this
guarantee of the State not decried as Socialism and Communism?

But forsooth, this intervention of the State was in the interests of
the rich and well-to-do classes of society, and in that case it is
entirely admissible and always has been! It is only when there is any
question of intervention in favor of the poverty-stricken classes, in
favor of the in