We pride ourselves on our system, which we call “civilised,” and compare it with those primitive forms of society which we call “barbarian.” We point to our great works of art, our wondrous discoveries in science, our massive buildings and our machinery of all sorts.
Yet our “civilisation” has a class of people called capitalists – those good, kind, benevolent employers, to whom we go cap in hand, cringing for the privilege of being permitted to work for them. His place in our social system is to extort a profit out of the worker by buying our services as much beneath their true value as he can possibly procure them. The more extensive his trade, the greater will be his power over his employees. The wealth he has accumulated from his labourers gives him the power to regulate commerce. He has so much wealth he can live in idle leisure if he so wishes. This the labourer cannot do, for our earnings have nearly all gone within a matter of a few days.
These grand works of art exist, true enough but rather than enjoy their beauty, they are bought and speculated as an investments. Wondrous scientific discoveries are constantly being made, but the reward is to the owner of the patent and not to the people. No sooner is a thing produced than it passes into the hands of others. The builders do not live in the fine houses they construct, but live in wretched inner-city tenements or tiny suburban boxes.
We are engaged today in a class war; and why? For the simple reason that society has been mainly divided into two economic classes—a small class of capitalists who own practically everything and workers who possess very little. Between these two classes there is an irrepressible conflict. Unfortunately, the worker has not fully understood the nature of the conflict, and for this reason has failed to accomplish any effective unity of his class. It is a vain and hopeless task, wasting time and energy, to endeavour to harmonise the interests of the boss and his hired hand. Nor is it part of the mission of the Socialist Party to conciliate the working class with the capitalist class. We are organised to fight that class.
War and strife of all kinds mark this civilisation’s success and regardless of government they all rest upon appropriation and exploitation. All law is made to protect property and proprietors and there is no law for the poor. The exploitative employer is the economic master and the political ruler in capitalist society. Plutocracy rules.
The average worker imagines that we must have a leader to look to; a guide to follow. We have been taught to be dependent. We have relied too much on leaders and not enough on own self-reliance. As long as we can be led by an leader, we can be betrayed by a leader. Not all leaders are dishonest or corrupt. That would be a too sweeping a statement but we should not place our trust in any and instead take responsibility for own decisions.
We are engaged in a barbaric competitive struggle in which workers are fighting each other to sell themselves into slavery and fighting each other to keep soul and body together. And this is called civilization! What a mockery! There is no real civilisation in the capitalist system.
Surely, the present system cannot go on for ever. The present system is destroying us and the planet we inhabit. We, wage-slaves have to emancipate ourselves. It can be done. It must be done. It shall be done for the last day of the capitalist system and the first day of the socialist commonwealth is in our own hands. Today there is nothing so easily produced as wealth abundance wealth enough for all. Today there is no excuse for poverty. And, today, we can begin to change this.
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