Note 219 — Chapter VII · (continued 2)

"The person who has led an honorable and active life until old age should not then have to live either on the charity of his children or of bourgeois society. An independent old age, free from cares or toil, is the natural reward for continuous exertions in the days of strength and health."—v. Thuenen's "Der Isolirte Staat." But how is it to-day in this bourgeois society? Millions look with dread towards the time when, having grown old, they are thrown upon the street. And our industrial system causes people to age prematurely. The very much boasted about old-age and invalid pensions in the German Empire afford but a very scanty substitute: even its most zealous defenders admit that. Their aids are still more inadequate than the pensions which the municipalities allow to the large majority of the officials whom they provide with pensions.