It was an extraordinarily large gain made, when the point of being regarded as possessors was put through. Therein bondservice was abolished, and every one who till then had been bound to the lord's service, and more or less had been his property, now became a "lord." But henceforth your having, and what you have, are no longer adequate and no longer recognized; _per contra_, your working and your work rise in value. We now respect your _subduing_ things, as we formerly did your possessing them. Your work is your competence! You are lord or possessor only of what comes by _work_, not by _inheritance_. But as at the time everything has come by inheritance, and every copper that you possess bears not a labor-stamp but an inheritance stamp, everything must be melted over. But is my work then really, as the Communists suppose, my sole competence? or does not this consist rather in everything that I am competent for? And does not the workers society itself have to concede this, _e. g._ in supporting also the sick, children, old men,--in short, those who are incapable of work? These are still competent for a good deal, _e. g._ to preserve their life instead of taking it. If they are competent to cause you to desire their continued existence, they have a power over you. To him who exercised utterly no power over you, you would vouchsafe nothing; he might perish. Therefore, what you are _competent_ for is your _competence_! If you are competent to furnish pleasure to thousands, then thousands will pay you an honorarium for it; for it would stand in your power to forbear doing it, hence they must purchase your deed. If you are not competent to _captivate_ any one, you may simply starve. Now am I, who am competent for much, perchance to have no advantage over the less competent? We are all in the midst of abundance; now shall I not help myself as well as I can, but only wait and see how much is left me in an equal division? Against competition there rises up the principle of ragamuffin society,--_partition_. To be looked upon as a mere _part_, part of society, the individual cannot bear--because he is _more_; his uniqueness puts from it this limited conception. Hence he does not await his competence from the I sharing of others, and even in the workers' society there arises the misgiving that in an equal partition the strong will be exploited by the weak; he awaits his competence rather from himself, and says now, What I am competent to have, that is my competence. What competence does not the child possess in its smiling, its playing, its screaming! in short, in its mere existence! Are you capable of resisting its desire? or do you not hold out to it, as mother, your breast; as father, as much of your possessions as it needs? It compels you, therefore it possesses what you call yours.