Courtesy: Encyclopedia of Marxism: Glossary of People
"Ferdinand Lassalle took part in French Revolution of 1848. Created the Democratic Socialist Party in Germany. In 1862 proposed a theory (Lassalleanism) in opposition to Marxism, explaining that while bourgeois society "guaranteed" all individuals unlimited development of their individual productive forces the moral idea of the proletariat is to render useful service to the community.
Lassalle wrote the Science and the Working Man:
"The course of history, is a struggle against nature, against ignorance and impotence, and consequently, against slavery and bondage of every kind in which we were held under the law of nature at the beginning of history. The progressive overcoming of this impotence is the evolution of liberty, of which history is an account. In this struggle humanity would never have made one step in advance, and men gone into the struggle singly, each for himself. The state is the contemplated unity and co-operation of individuals in a moral whole, whose function it is to carry on this struggle, a combination which multiplies a million-fold the forces of all the individuals comprised in it, and which heightens a million times the powers which each individual would be able to exert singly."
Lassalle believed that the proletariat represented community, solidarity of interest, and reciprocity of interest. He believed therefore that the cause of the workers is the cause of humanity; when the proletariat gains political supremecy a higher degree of morality, culture and science would occur which would further civilisation.
Lassalle believed in the State as Hegel did, as the organ of right and justice. He believed that only through the State could victory be gained, explaining the state as "the union of individuals which increases a million-fold the forces of the individuals." He explained that "The aim of the State is the education and development of liberty in the human race." He believed that the State would hear the cause of the proletariat, and so revolution was not necessary.
Killed in a duel by the Wallachian Count von Racowitza on August 31, 1864.
His works included:
Die Philosophie Herakleitos des Kunkeln (1858)
Das System der erworbenen Rechte (1861) "
