“Malingerers”
It is in the nature, apparently, of the mass of our class to be unable to recognise the open and brutal insults showered upon by their owners. Servility—the legacy of ages of slavery, an assiduously fostered belief in their own inferiority, coupled with a supreme ignorance of politics, has developed upon them a skin which, metaphorically, rivals in toughness that of a crocodile. Drilled in their infancy to worship in humility such fetiches as kings, flags, masters and pastors, and the rest of the malignant growths which have sprung from the institution of private ownership, and having had as far as is possible, all knowledge other than that supplied forcibly by their owners for the purposes of the latter, denied them, it is only natural that the instinct that readily perceives, keenly feels, and fiercely resents an insult, however conveyed, should be lacking entirely or covered with the skin aforesaid.
That there are many who resent such insults as that offered by the clauses in the Insurance Act which relate to “malingering” is probably true, but their resentment is largely that of the “grumble and pay” variety, and carries no weight politically. It is, further, merely a type of resentment that the scheming mouthpieces of capitalism know well how to soothe by assuring the frowning slaves that such clauses protect the honest and diligent working-man from the waster. Such added insult to our class is usually received with applause by the hard-headed sons of toil and tears who know themselves to belong to the former category.
But it is the purpose of this article to try and show those complacent dupes, whose help we demand in ridding our class of the parasites that batten upon us, a few of the insults flung at them and the reason why.
In the first place, a few definitions in order to help a possible lame dog over the style.
(1) Malingerer = One who feigns illness to avoid work.
(2) Politics = The art of Government.
(3) Parliament = An assemblage of the governing class (or their agents) who meet to discuss and enact laws for the maintenance of their position as a class of owners of the means of life.
(4) Working Class = Those who have no means of existence other than by the sale of their mental and physical energies.
Bearing in mind our last definition the gentle reader whose case it fits will recognise that his economic condition is exactly the opposite of that of the class referred to in definition three. That class we know as the capitalist class. It is to them or their agents that we of the working class must go for permission to work to live. They will grant this permit only on such terms as will ensure to them a continuance of the monopoly of the means of life. That is to say, the labours of the working class, using the raw material, tools, and implements owned by the capitalists, must result in an amount of wealth in excess of what it takes to keep the working class physically capable of continuing the wealth-producing processes.
Reasoning thus, it will be obvious that : (1) The working class produce all wealtk by operating the means of production that are owned by the capitalist class. (2) That this wealth is never the property of those whose labours produce it, but of the owners of the means, i.e., the capitalist class. (3) Tho owning class must exercise governing powers over their slaves in order to obtain and keep as much of this wealth for themselves as is compatible with the maintenance of an efficient working class.
Now our benerolent owners, while enjoining upon ua the virtues (?) of contentment, gratitude, thrift, etc., etc. ad nauseam, are never content with the surplus-value we are forced to pour into their greedy maws, would scorn to practice domestic thrift themselves, and are in no degree grateful to us. On the contrary, they are ever concerned to extract more and more surplus wealth from our labours by increasing our efficiency and devising means to prevent their slaves from avoiding work. Workers exist but for one thing in the capitalist estimation—to work !—to produce surplus value. Hence the fearful anxiety of the capitalist class that we do not malinger.
When this briefly put position is understood the time-serving cant of the capitalist Press, pulpit, and politician, that suggests that we should be thankful and dutiful to our exploiters is both an insult to our intelligence and fuel to the fires of our hate. The class that robs us of all that makes life worth living, and dares with impunity to hurl the epithet “malingerer” in our faces, is only bold enough to thus scourge us because our hands are manacled by the ignorance of our fellow slaves.
This ignorance, that makes opportunity for the contemptible prizefighters of the capitalist class to befuddle the untrained intellect of our class with the putrid cant of a false morality, a hypocritical sympathy for our poverty, and the impossible promise of betterment at the hands of our despoilers, it is our duty to dispel. And in doing that duty we must strip capitalist reform legislation of its deceptive beneficent appearance and lay bare its sordid reality and objective, which is simply to squeeze every possible cent of profit out of that productive tool— the working class.
Learn, then, fellow workers, why your masters call you ‘”malingerers.” “wasters,” “unwashed lower orders,” “canaille” ! Learn, then, why you are held in contempt, insulted, reviled and spat upon ! Learn that it is because, being politically ignorant, you do not recognise these heaped up insults that make the hearts of your politically enlightened brethren volcanoes of hate for their murderous and insolent oppressors. Learn, lastly, before you fill the early grave that is the lot of the majority of our class, that the only way to put an end to the robbery, insult, degradation, and murder which are our reward at the hands of the class we turn our life’s blood into wealth for is to organise with your fellows in the Socialist Party for the purpose of gaining control of the political machinery of the State in order to make what is now the private property of a parasitic class into the common property of all. There is no other way.
WOLLIE