isation which
capitalist society gives itself in order to maintain the external
conditions of capitalist production against the attacks both of the
workmen and of individual capitalists. The modern State, whatever its
form, is essentially a capitalist machine."[1125] "State administration
is very far from being the same as a Socialistic administration, as is
sometimes erroneously supposed. The State administration is just as
much a system of capitalistic exploitation as if the institutions in
question were in the hands of private undertakers."[1126] "A
bureaucracy--that is, a body of permanent officials, entrenched in
Government departments, according to whose piping ministers themselves
have willingly or unwillingly to dance--is totally incompatible with
the very elementary conditions of Socialistic administration."[1127]
"Bismarckian State control is brusque and baneful, and is certainly
not the desire of the true Socialist."[1128]

"State ownership, State tyranny, State interference exist to-day. We
have to bear them now; we have to submit to them now; we have to pay
for them now. The people, as such, own nothing. And the Socialists
demand that the people shall own everything. Not the 'State,' the
'People.' So great is the difference between the word 'State' and the
word 'people.'"[1129] "Do you propose that all these means of
production which are now owned by individuals, by this class, as you
say, should be made the property of the Government, like the Post
Office and the telegraph system are in this country, and the railways
as well in some others, or that they should be owned by municipal
bodies, as waterworks, tramways, gasworks, and so on, are in many
cases already?--No. Socialism does not mean mere Governmental
ownership or management. The State of to-day, nationally or locally,
is only the agent of the possessing class; the Post Office and the
other State-owned businesses are run for profit just as other
businesses are; and the Government, as the agent of the possessing
class, has, in the interests of its employers, to treat the employees
just as other employees are treated. The organised democratic society
contemplated by Socialists is a very different thing from the class
State of to-day. When society is organised for the control of its own
business, and has acquired the possession of its own means of
production, its officers will not be the agents of a class, and
production will be carried on for the use