Walther Rathenau opens The New Society with a stark criterion for complete socialization: 'it is when no one can have an income without working for it.' This definition, offered in the first paragraph, immediately distinguishes his approach from mere redistribution or welfare. Yet the excerpts show the book quickly moves beyond economic mechanics into a broader cultural diagnosis. Rathenau, a German industrialist and wartime organizer, turns his analytical eye on the national self-image that prevailed under the Hohenzollern dynasty, dissecting what he calls 'stereotyped phrases' such as 'German faith, French knavery' and the claim that Germans possess 'Culture' while others have only 'Civilization.'

A Criterion, Not a Goal

Rathenau insists that the sign of socialism—no unearned income—is 'not the goal.' He acknowledges that some unearned income will persist, for instance in old-age provisions. The goal, left unspecified in the excerpts, is something beyond mere income equality. This framing suggests Rathenau is less concerned with redistribution than with the moral and structural transformation of work and reward. The opening thus sets up a tension between a clear, measurable benchmark and a more elusive ideal, a pattern that recurs throughout the text as he moves from economic to psychological and cultural analysis.

The Critique of National Myth-Making

In a striking passage, Rathenau attacks the 'profound insincerity' of wartime propaganda that glorified the German people while tying loyalty to the dynasties. He lists the 'stereotyped phrases'—'German faith, French knavery,' 'the world is to find healing in the German soul'—and notes how quickly the dynasties were discarded when convenient. He then challenges the claim that Germans are a 'race of thinkers and poets,' arguing that the old upper classes produced individuals of 'mighty endowments' in music, poetry, and philosophy, but the lower classes—'nine-tenths of our present population'—contributed little to those glories. Instead, he credits them with industry, discipline, and adaptability to mechanization, not creative genius.

The Limits of National Psychology

Rathenau questions the very basis of 'national psychology,' calling the term 'quite unjustified.' He observes that scholars have rarely studied national characteristics seriously, instead confusing the achievements of a 'thin upper stratum' with the character of the whole people. Individual endowment, he notes, is often tacitly taken as evidence of national character—a logical laxity he sees as pervasive wherever judgment replaces measurement. This skepticism about collective identity runs counter to the catalog subject 'Socialism' and suggests that Rathenau's critique is as much epistemological as political: he distrusts the categories used to define both nation and class.

Readers should note that the excerpts cover only the preface and the first chapter, plus a later passage on national psychology. The book's full argument—how Rathenau connects his opening economic criterion to his cultural critique, and what 'new society' he envisions—remains to be discovered. The translator's preface claims the work 'constitutes a landmark,' but the text itself invites a more cautious, analytical reading, attentive to the gaps between its stated signs and its unstated goals.