On Capitalist Civilization 1919

Capitalist Civilization

Far from emancipating mankind, civilisation under the capitalist system has put the last and finishing touch to the art of exploiting the workers to the supreme limit. As E. T. Kingsley, the veteran Canadian Socialist shews in the following article, capitalist civilisation is but the third stage in the evolution of human slavery.

If we are to believe what the spokesmen and apostles of the present order tell us, civilisation has been saved from the forces of evil that sought to destroy it. It seems that while the death of one man upon the cross was all that was required to save humanity from paying the penalty of its transgressions and sins, it has cost the lives of more than ten million, the mutilation of probably twenty million more and misery and agony of a countless multitude besides, to save this glorious civilisation from the fell designs of a certain Mr. Hohenzollern, who, however, has thus been happily frustrated in his wicked purpose.1 Now, if it be true that this glorious civilisation has been saved, it would perhaps be well to know what it has really been saved from and for how long a period that salvation may be assured.

Chattel Slavery Dogs

Capitalist civilisation is the third stage in the evolution of human slavery that has followed in the footsteps of what has been termed barbarism. The first stage of that evolution is commonly referred to as chattel slavery. During that period the slave was owned openly and outright by the master, like a horse, an ass or an ox. For thousands of years that type of slavery and the civilisation built upon it held sway. Its reign extended over practically all of the then known world. Great empires rose from the toil, sweat and agony of the cruelly-driven slaves of those times, and each in turn crumbled to decay.

All fell to ruin through the corruption and rottenness bred from the foul crime of slavery upon which they were built. Human institutions, human society, a civilisation based upon that parent of all lesser crimes, slavery, can be no less criminal than that from which they spring. That which is based upon crime cannot long survive. It will inevitably perish from its own poison and corruption if not sooner brought to its end by other means. It will eventually meet dissolution by its own hand if it be not otherwise destroyed. Practically the last trace of chattel slave civilisation has long since passed away.

The Next Stage

Let it be noted that the next succeeding form of slavery was not born from the womb of chattel slavery. It rose from the ruins of Roman civilisation when that rotten old slave empire had fallen to complete decay. Out of the ruin and chaos eventually arose the new slavery, but between the downfall of the old and the birth of the new a considerable period lapsed, that is all but a blank in human history.

The new slavery was not a child of the old, but was rather a resurrection of its spirit garbed in more deceitful habiliments. Though changed in outward appearance its essence was the same. The slaves were either trimmed of the result of their labor in times of peace or fed into the furnace of hell in times of war, by their overlords and owners, just as had been the lot of their predecessors the chattel slaves.

The Workers under Feudalism

The second stage of slavery is known as feudalism. The slavery of the toilers was thinly camouflaged under the guise of being attached to the land and bound by ties of fealty to the lord thereof. Feudal serfs were not sold from hand to hand as were chattel slaves. They remained within their lord’s domain, however, and were not allowed outside thereof without proper permission. Within that domain they were allowed certain privileges and so-called rights that were unknown to their chattel slave predecessors. But like the latter they were compelled to work for their feudal lord without payment therefor. Out of their unpaid toil and sweat the pomp and magnificence of feudal civilisation was built.

In time that stage of development of human slavery passed away and the era of Capitalism followed. The late delightful ruling class family row in Europe, and which is perhaps not yet entirely finished, is but a part of the cleaning-up process that is sweeping away the surviving remnants of the old feudal regime that preceded Capitalism. The mid-European survival of feudalism having been tumbled to ruins under the lusty strokes of the child of its own loins, practically clears the world stage of the last feudal rubbish, with the exception of an Oriental remnant that is now courting the same fate.

Capitalism is now supreme in so far as its erstwhile feudal parent is concerned. Capitalist civilisation has thus been saved from being strangled by its wicked progenitor. All this talk about France and other Allies having “found their souls” in the late blood feast is pure nonsense, but they did at last find the requisite stranglehold to prevent the wicked parent from destroying its virtuous offspring.

The Supreme Limit

It has been left to the third stage of slavery—capitalist civilisation—to put the last and finishing touch to the art of exploiting slaves to the supreme limit. Alongside of the achievements in this line of the last hundred or so years, those of ancient chattel slavery and the feudalism of the medieval age appear like the work of unskilled amateurs.

Never before were such gigantic undertakings accomplished; never were such tremendous fortunes garnered; never were such magnificent and luxurious military spectacles of slaughter and rapine possible; never before was it within the power of the ruling class to recklessly and deliberately cast ten million slaves to the slaughter and cripple and damage probably twice as many more, without suffering any material loss. The highest efficiency of a civilisation based upon human slavery is measured by the stern repression and exploitation of slaves in times of peace and their wholesale conscription and slaughter in times of war. Ruling class efficiency can be expressed in no other manner.

The High-Water Mark of Civilisation

The high-water mark of achievement in this line has easily been attained by the splendidly-efficient ruling class of this most glorious age. Never in all of its bloody history did a ruling class ever succeed in pulling off such a magnificent spectacle of blood, guts, gore and devastation as that staged during the past four years. And there is every reason why it should have been a grand spectacle, for it represents all the knowledge the ruling class has been enabled in the noble art of human butchery, rapine and devastation. It is a splendid display of the full flower and fruitage of a crime ten thousand years old.

That countless millions of slaves could thus be made to go daily forth to kill and be killed for no more noble purpose than that of perpetuating their own slavery and incidentally composing the quarrels of their bloodthirsty and unscrupulous owners and masters, speaks volumes for the efficiency of the ruling class in training slaves to act as good slaves ought to act, when the word of command is spoken by authority. Under no form of slavery were the slaves more docile and well-behaved than under Capitalism and at no period in history were they so productive of wealth and grandeur for their owners and masters. Especially is this true of the slaves of this western contingent. All of which is no doubt due to the fact that their slavery is so completely camouflaged with the outward appearance of freedom that the slaves actually believe they are free indeed.

E. T. Kingsley