But all this does not satisfy you! Doubtless, then, they are to _share_ with the poor? Now you are demanding that they shall abolish poverty. Aside from the point that there might be hardly one among you who would act so, and that this one would be a fool for it, do ask yourselves: why should the rich let go their fleeces and give up _themselves_, thereby pursuing the advantage of the poor rather than their own? You, who have your thaler daily, are rich above thousands who live on four groschen. Is it for your interest to share with the thousands, or is it not rather for theirs?-- --
With competition is connected less the intention to do the thing _best_ than the intention to make it as _profitable_, as productive, as possible. Hence people study to get into the civil service (pot-boiling study), study cringing and flattery, routine and "acquaintance with business," work "for appearances." Hence, while it is apparently a matter of doing "good service," in truth only a "good business" and earning of money are looked out for. The job is done only ostensibly for the job's sake, but in fact on account of the gain that it yields. One would indeed prefer not to be censor, but one wants to be--advanced; one would like to judge, administer, etc., according to his best convictions, but one is afraid of transference or even dismissal; one must, above all things,--live.
Thus these goings-on are a fight for _dear life_, and, in gradation upward, for more or less of a "good living."
And yet, withal, their whole round of toil and care brings in for most only "bitter life" and "bitter poverty." All the bitter painstaking for this!
Restless acquisition does not let us take breath, take a calm _enjoyment_: we do not get the comfort of our possessions.
But the organization of labor touches only such labors as others can do for us, _e. g._ slaughtering, tillage, etc.; the rest remain egoistic, because, _e. g._, no one can in your stead elaborate your musical compositions, carry out your projects of painting, etc.; nobody can replace Raphael's labors. The latter are labors of a unique person,[192] which only he is competent to achieve, while the former deserved to be called "human," since what is anybody's _own_ in them is of slight account, and almost "any man" can be trained to it.