Mein Kampf by Adolf Hitler

that can exist. For equality cannot and does not depend on the work a man does, but only on
the manner in which each one does the particular work allotted to him. Thus alone will mere
natural chance be set aside in determining the work of a man and thus only does the
individual become the artificer of his own social worth.
At the present time, when whole groups of people estimate each other's value only by the size
of the salaries which they respectively receive, there will be no understanding of all this. But
that is no reason why we should cease to champion those ideas. Quite the opposite: in an
epoch which is inwardly diseased and decaying anyone who would heal it must have the
courage first to lay bare the real roots of the disease. And the National Socialist Movement
must take that duty on its shoulders. It will have to lift its voice above the heads of the small
bourgeoisie and rally together and co-ordinate all those popular forces which are ready to
become the protagonists of a new philosophy of life.
Of course the objection will be made that in general it is difficult to differentiate between the
material and ideal values of work and that the lower prestige which is attached to physical
labour is due to the fact that smaller wages are paid for that kind of work. It will be said that
the lower wage is in its turn the reason why the manual worker has less chance to
participate in the culture of the nation; so that the ideal side of human culture is less open to
him because it has nothing to do with his daily activities. It may be added that the reluctance
to do physical work is justified by the fact that, on account of the small income, the cultural
level of manual labourers must naturally be low, and that this in turn is a justification for
the lower estimation in which manual labour is generally held.
There is quite a good deal of truth in all this. But that is the very reason why we ought to see
that in the future there should not be such a wide difference in the scale of remuneration.
Don't say that under such conditions poorer work would be done. It would be the saddest
symptom of decadence if finer intellectual work could be obtained only through the stimulus
of higher payment. If that point of view had ruled the world up to now humanity would never
have acquired its greatest scientific and cultural heritage. For all the greatest inventions, the
greatest discoveries, the most profoundly revolutionary scientific work, and the most
magnificent monuments of human culture, were never given to the world under the impulse
or compulsion of money. Quite the contrary: not rarely was their origin associated with a
renunciation of the worldly pleasures that wealth can purchase.
It may be that money has become the one power that governs life today. Yet a time will come
when men will again bow to higher gods. Much that we have today owes its existence to the
desire for money and property; but there is very little among all this which would leave the
world poorer by its lack.
It is also one of the aims before our movement to hold out the prospect of a time when the
individual will be given what he needs for the purposes of his life and it will be a time in
which, on the other hand, the principle will be upheld that man does not live for material
enjoyment alone. This principle will find expression in a wiser scale of wages and salaries
which will enable everyone, including the humblest workman who fulfils his duties
conscientiously, to live an honourable and decent life both as a man and as a citizen. Let it
not be said that this is merely a visionary ideal, that this world would never tolerate it in
practice and that of itself it is impossible to attain.
Even we are not so simple as to believe that there will ever be an age in which there will be
no drawbacks. But that does not release us from the obligation to fight for the removal of the
defects which we have recognized, to overcome the shortcomings and to strive towards the
ideal. In any case the hard reality of the facts to be faced will always place only too many
limits to our aspirations. But that is precisely why man must strive again and again to serve