“Abolition of the family! Even the most radical flare up at this infamous proposal …
On what foundation is the present family… based? On capital, on private gain. In its completely developed form, this family exists only among the property owners. But this state of things finds its complement in the practical absence of the family among the working class, and in public prostitution.
The … family will vanish as a matter of course when its complement vanishes, and both will vanish with the vanishing of capital.
Do you charge us with wanting to stop the exploitation of children by their parents? To this crime we plead guilty.
But, you say, we destroy the most hallowed of relations, when we replace home education by social.
And your education! Is not that also social, and determined by the social conditions under which you educate, by the intervention direct or indirect, of society, by means of schools, &c.? We have not invented the intervention of society in education; we do but seek to alter the character of that intervention, and to rescue education from the influence of the ruling class.
The … clap-trap about the family and education, about the hallowed co-relation of parents and child, becomes all the more disgusting, the more, by the action of modern industry, all the family ties among the workers are torn asunder, and their children transformed into simple articles of commerce and instruments of labor. “
Where is such nonsense coming from? In only slightly edited form from here.
