For the Prussian armies are, pre-eminently,
the advance guard of the Servile State. I say this scientifically, and
quite apart from passion or even from preference. I have no illusions
about either Belgium or England. Both have been stained with the soot of
Capitalism and blinded with the smoke of mere Colonial ambition; both have
been caught at a disadvantage in such modern dirt and disorder; both have
come out much better than I should have expected countries so modern and so
industrial to do. But in England and Belgium there is Capitalism mixed up
with a great many other things, strong things and things that pursue other
aims; Clericalism, for instance, and militant Socialism in Belgium; Trades
Unionism and sport and the remains of real aristocracy in England. But
Prussia is Capitalism; that is, a gradually solidifying slavery; and that
majestic unity with which she moves, dragging all the dumb Germanies after
her, is due to the fact that her Servile State is complete, while ours is
incomplete. There are not mutinies; there are not even mockeries; the
voice of national self-criticism has been extinguished forever. For this
people is already permanently cloven into a higher and a lower class: in
its industry as much as its army. Its employers are, in the strictest and
most sinister sense, captains of industry.
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