Note 232 — Chapter XXI · Fundamental Laws of Socialistic Society.

Mr. Eugen Richter in his “False Doctrines” is so amazed by the fact that in socialistic society the use of money will be dropped (it will not be abolished outright but will simply become superfluous because the products of labor will no longer have the character of goods), that he devotes a special chapter to this incident. The thing that especially puzzles him is that it will be immaterial whether the working certificate will be a printed piece of paper, gold or tin. He says: “With gold the demon of the present world order would enter the socialistic state again” (Mr. Richter obstinately overlooks that eventually there will be only a socialistic society, not a socialistic “state,” for a great deal of his argumentation would then loose ground), “for gold has independent value as a metal and can easily be hoarded, and so the possession of pieces of gold would make it possible to accumulate values to escape the duty to work and even to loan out money on interest.”—One must consider one’s readers very stupid to place such bosh before them. Mr. Richter who cannot free himself from the conception of capital, cannot see that where there is no capital, no goods, there can be no money, and that where there is neither capital nor money there can be no interest. We should like to know how a member of socialistic society could “hoard” his golden working certificate or could even loan it on interest, when all the others also own what the one offers and—on which he lives.