The present manner of production, resting on the basis of the wage system, has as a result on the one hand the accumulation of property in the hands of a few and the corruption of these few as a result of excessive possessions; on the other hand, there is impoverishment of the masses and pauperism. The worker, in the midst of the riches which he has created, cannot satisfy his smallest necessity; privation, unhealthful workshops and factories steal his life strength, as the employer steals from him. He has no family life, for, since his wages do not suffice for existence, wife and child must follow him into the factory. For the budding daughter he has the prospect of the short, glittering misery of prostitution, or the long, leaden, sunless misery of the life of a proletariat's wife. Who that groans under the pressure of these conditions unworthy of mankind will not unite with us in the call: "Down with the wage system!" "Down with the wage system!" That is the fundamental demand of social democracy--the Alpha and Omega of our agitation. Cooperative labor and association shall take the place of the wage system with its class rule. The instruments of production must cease to be the monopoly of a class -- they must be the public property of all. There shall be no more exploiter or exploited. Production and distribution of the produce must be regulated in the interest of the whole. As the present production, exploitation and robbery must be abolished, so likewise must the present traffic, which is only fraud. In the order of equality the worker will perform all the labor necessary for the whole body of citizens. In place of the employer and his humble subservient or rebellious wage slaves there will be free comrades. Labor will be the torture of no one, but the duty of all. An existence worthy of a human being will be provided for every one who performs his duty to society. Hunger will become henceforth not the curse of labor but the punishment of the idle. And in order that this may be realized the people's state must exist--the state composed of all and for all, the state, which consists of the wise and just organization of society, the universal guaranteed establishment of happiness and culture, and the fraternal association of free and equal men.... As with every party and class that ever opposed... abuses and took for their object the removal of those abuses, so it is with the social democracy. It is slandered and abused by the selfish and deluded adherents of the maladjusted state and society; it brings disorder, class strife, destruction of property, ruin of the family and of culture, most sensual enjoyment, the deepest degradation of woman. The truth could not be more completely and shamefully perverted. The old society throws its crimes at us, for on their account we have condemned it to death.
Thanks to the wrong conditions of society and the state, woman is today without rights and in countless cases is condemned to wedded or unwedded prostitution. The intercourse of the sexes is unnatural and immoral -- socialism will bring the emancipation of woman as well as of man. It insists on her complete political and social equality and equal position with man. It will destroy prostitution, whether it walk ashamed under the mantle of marriage for wealth or convenience, or whether it run shameless painted and naked upon the street. Enough. Beginning with real conditions; not following utopian will-o'-the-wisps, but building on the acquisition of culture, we strive for the abolition of the class state, class legislation and class rule. Our end is: The free democracy with equal economic and political rights; the free society with associative labor. The welfare of all is for us the one end of the state and society.... Although we have the nearest direct sphere of our activity in the state of which we are citizens, nevertheless we do not forget the citizens of the world and the universal brotherhood of man. And we know wherever there is a struggle for the cause of labor and the oppressed people there our cause is at stake.
We seek justice and fight injustice.
We seek free labor and attack wage slavery.
We seek the prosperity of all and struggle against misery.
We seek the education of all and fight ignorance and barbarism.
We seek peace and order and combat the murder of people, the class war and the social anarchy.
We seek the socialist people's state and attack the despotic class state.
Whoever desires these things, and struggles for them, let him unite with us and work with all his strength for our cause --for the cause of socialism -- for the cause of humanity, whose victory will soon be gained.