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Encyclopedia Britannica - Main :: LAP-LEO |
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LASSALLE, FERDINAND (1825-1864) , German socialist, was born at Breslau on the nth of April 1825, of Jewish ex-traction. His father, a prosperous merchant in Breslau, intended Ferdinand for a business career, and sent him to the commercial school at Leipzig
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Now began the short-lived activity which was to give him an historical significance. It was early in 1862, when the struggle of Bismarck with the Prussian liberals was already begun. Lassalle, a democrat of the most advanced type, saw that an opportunity had come for asserting a third great causethat of the working menwhich would outflank the liberalism of the middle classes, and might even command the sympathy of the government. His political programme was, however, entirely subordinate to the social, that of bettering the condition of the working classes, for which he believed the schemes of Schulze-Delitzsch were utterly inadequate. Lassalle flung himself into the career of agitator with his accustomed vigour. His worst difficulties were with the working men themselves, among whom he met the most discouraging apathy. His mission as organizer and emancipator of the working class lasted only two years and a half. In that period he issued about twenty separate publications, most of them speeches and pamphlets, but one of them, that against Schulze-Delitzsch, a considerable treatise, and all full of keen and vigorous thought. He founded the " Allgemeiner Deutscher Arbeiterverein," was its president and almost single-handed champion, conducted its affairs, and carried on a vast correspondence, not to mention about a dozen state prosecutions in which he was during that period involved. Berlin, Leipzig
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While posing as the messiah of the poor, Lassalle was a man of decidedly fashionable and luxurious habits. His suppers were well known as among the most exquisite in Berlin. It was the most piquant feature of his life that he, one of the gilded youth, a connoisseur in wines, and a learned man to boot, had become agitator and the champion of the working man. In one of the literary and fashionable circles of Berlin he had met a Frdulein von Donniges, for whom he at once felt a passion, which was ardently reciprocated. In the summer of 1864 he met her again on the Rigi, when they resolved to marry. She was a young lady of twenty, decidedly unconventional and original in character, but the daughter of a Bavarian diplomatist then resident at Geneva, who would have nothing to do with Lassalle. The lady was imprisoned in her own room, and soon, apparently under the influence of very questionable pressure, renounced Lassalle in favour of another admirer, a Wallachian, Count von Racowitza. Lassalle sent a challenge both to the lady's father and her betrothed, which was accepted by the latter. At the Carouge, a suburb of Geneva, the meeting took place on the morning of August 28, 1864, when Lassalle was mortally wounded, and he died on the 31st of August. In spite of such a foolish ending, his funeral was that of a martyr
Lassalle did not lay claim to any special originality as a socialistic thinker, nor did he publish any systematic statement of his views. Yet his leading ideas are sufficiently clear and simple. Like a true Hegelian he saw three stages in the development of labour: the ancient and feudal period, which, through the subjection of the labourer, sought solidarity without freedom; the reign of capital and the middle classes, established in 1789, which sought freedom by destroying solidarity; and the new era, beginning in 1848, which would reconcile solidarity with freedom by introducing the principle of association. It was the basis and starting-point of his opinions that, under the empire of capital and so long as the working man was merely a receiver of wages, no improvement in his condition could be expected. This position he founded on the law of wages formulated by Ricardo, and accepted by all the leading economists, that wages are controlled by the ordinary relations of supply and demand, that a rise in wages leads to an increase in the labouring population, which, by increasing the supply of labour, is followed by a corresponding fall of wages. Thus population increases or decreases in fixed relation to the rise or fall of wages. The condition of the working man will never permanently rise above the mere standard of living required for his subsistence, and the continued supply of his kind. Lassalle held that the co-operative schemes of Schulze-Delitzsch on the principle of " self-help " were utterly inadequate, for the obvious reason that the working classes were destitute of capital. The struggle of the working man helping himself with his empty pockets against the capitalists he compared to a battle with teeth and nails against modern artillery. In short, Lassalle accepted the orthodox political economy
It will be seen that the net result of Lassalle's life was to produce a European scandal, and to originate a socialistic movement
gift of dominating and organizing, he might indeed have done a great deal. Bismarck coquetted with him as the representative of a force that might help him to combat the Prussian liberals; in 1878, in a speech before the Reichstag, he spoke of him with deep respect, as a man of the greatest amiability and ability from whom much could be learned. Even Bishop Ketteler of Mainz had declared his sympathy for the cause he advocated.Lassalle's Die Philosophie Herakleitos des Dunklen von Ephesos (Berlin, 1858), and the System der erworbenen Rechte (Leipzig, 1861) are both marked by great learning and intellectual power. But of far more historical interest
The best biography of Lassalle is H. Oncken's Lassalle (Stuttgart, 1904) ; another excellent work on his life and writings is George Brandes's Danish work, Ferdinand Lassalle (German translation, 4th ed., Leipzig, 1900). See also A. Aaberg, Ferdinand Lassalle Leipzig, 1883) ; C. v. Plener, Lassalle (Leipzig, 1884) ; G. Meyer, Lassalle als Sozialokonom (Berlin, 1894) ; Brandt, F. Lassalles sozialokonomische Anschauungen und praktische Vorschlage (Jena, 1895) ; Seilliere, Etudes sur Ferdinand Lassalle (Paris, 1897) ; E. Bernstein, Ferd. Lassalle und seine Bedeutung fur die Arbeiterklasse (Berlin, 1904). There is a considerable literature on his love affair and death; the most notable books are: Meine Beziehungen zu F. Lassalle, by Helene von Racowitza, a very strange book; Enthiillungen fiber das tragische Lebensende F. Lassalle's by B. Becker; lm Anschluss an die Memoiren der H. von Racowitza, by A. Kutschbach, and George Meredith's Tragic Comedians (188o). (T. K.) End of Article: LASSALLE, FERDINAND (1825-1864) If you wish, you can link directly to this article.
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