50 Years Ago: The Need for Socialism

Today the human race is living out of conformity with its environment. The operation of social forces has separated society into two classes, with different modes of living and a different outlook on the world. The dominant class has thrown off all pretence of function and has become solely parasitic, a cancerous growth in the body of the social organism. Its presence is detrimental to the race. The only useful class is robbed of the results of its labour ; the wealth goes to feed the cancer, the useless class. Increasing powers of production, instead of giving the workers leisure and opportunities for self-development, only increase their sufferings and intensify their labour. The result of longer hours, of technical education and training, is only so much more food for society’s malignant growth, so much more wealth for the capitalist class, from which to hire the forces that overawe the workers and keep them in subjection.

The very existence of such forces, when capital has become international, reveals their purpose to the workers, whose every effort on the industrial field is thwarted by them. Antagonism that only shows itself on the industrial field sectionally and spasmodically, stands out as class antagonism when the armed forces are used against all sections of the workers in turn. The political machine then becomes a challenge to the workers ; it stands out as the symbol of capitalism, the nucleus of the capitalist State. Its control means power.

The working class have nearly exhausted the long chapter of blunders that characterised their history during the nineteenth century—machine smashing, Chartism, Liberal-Labour representation, etc. They must either begin over again or make a serious study of their real position and find that control of the political machine is within their reach and is the first step that must be taken towards freedom.

[From the SOCIALIST STANDARD, July 1913]