Skip to main content

Class Warrior: On Economic Organization. 1911

Class Warrior
On Economic Organization. 1911

  • Show the following:

    Annotations
    Resources

  • Adjust appearance:

    Font
    Font style
    Color Scheme
    Light
    Dark
    Annotation contrast
    Low
    High
    Margins
  • Search within:
    • Notifications
    • Privacy
  • Project HomeClass Warrior
  • Learn more about Manifold

Notes

table of contents
  1. Cover
  2. Foreword
  3. Introduction
  4. Part I: Selected Writings of E. T. Kingsley
    1. 1900   On Washington State’s Primary Law
    2. 1903   On Political Action
      1. On Reformism and Electoral “Fusion”
      2. On Trade Unions
    3. 1905   On the Single Tax
      1. On a Journey to Seattle
    4. 1906   On the Arrest of US Labour Leaders and State Power
    5. 1908   On the Socialist Movement and Travels across Canada
    6. 1909   On War
      1. On the Vancouver Free Speech Fight
    7. 1911   On Property
      1. On the Workers’ Awakening
      2. On Economic Organization
      3. On the Capitalist State
    8. 1914   On the Causes of the First World War
    9. 1916   On Carnage
    10. 1917   On Slavery and War
      1. On War Finance
      2. On the War Effort
    11. 1918   On the Bolshevik Revolution
      1. On Capitalism Getting Rich Quick
    12. 1919   On Control of the State by the Working Class
      1. On Reconstruction
      2. On Collaboration between Labour and Capital
      3. On Wealth
      4. On Gold
      5. On Class War
      6. On the Paris Peace Conference
      7. On Capitalist Civilization
    13. 1921   On the 1921 Canadian Parliamentary Election
  5. Part II: Selected Speeches of E. T. Kingsley
    1. 1895   On the Aims of Socialism
    2. 1896   On Socialism and the Economy
    3. 1899   On American Imperialism in Cuba and the Philippines
    4. 1903   On the Labour Problem
      1. On the Political Organization of Miners in Cumberland
      2. On Stirring the Emotions of His Audience
      3. On Wages, Profit, and Capital
      4. On the 1903 British Columbia Election
    5. 1905   On the 1905 Russian Revolution
      1. On Workers and Rockefeller
      2. On the Mission of the Working Class
    6. 1906   On the Paris Commune
    7. 1908   On Labour and Its Economies
      1. On the Working Class Using Clubs If Necessary
      2. On Working-Class Political Power
    8. 1912   On the Vancouver Free Speech Fight
    9. 1913   On the Vancouver Island Miners’ Strike
    10. 1914   On the Komagata Maru Incident
    11. 1917   On Conscription
      1. On Working-Class Opposition to Conscription
      2. On Conscription and Wiping Out Ruling-Class Laws
      3. On the 1917 Conscription Election
    12. 1918   On the Formation of the Federated Labor Party
      1. On Laws
      2. On Reconstruction
      3. On the Armistice and Postwar Moment
      4. On Allied Intervention in the Russian Civil War
    13. 1919   On Lenin and Trotsky
      1. On the Belfast General Strike, Unemployment, and the Postwar Challenge to Capitalism
      2. On the Bolshevik Revolution
      3. On the One Big Union
      4. On the Class Struggle
      5. On the Machine
      6. On Capitalism
      7. On the Defeat of the Winnipeg General Strike
      8. On the Machinery of Slavery
      9. On Civilization
    14. 1920   On Mechanization of Production
      1. On the Paris Commune
      2. On the Collapse of Civilization
      3. On the Bankruptcy of the Capitalist System
  6. Part III: The Genesis and Evolution of Slavery
    1. 1916   The Genesis and Evolution of Slavery: Showing How the Chattel Slaves of Pagan Times Have Been Transformed into the Capitalist Property of To-day
  7. Part IV: On the World Situation
    1. 1919   On the World Situation
  8. Appendix
  9. Kingsley’s Speeches
  10. Index

On Economic Organization 1911

An article by Kingsley published in the Western Clarion in 1911 examining the topic of economic organization of society and of the working class, responding to the rising current of industrial unionism among British Columbia workers with the formation and growth of the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW), which provided an alternate pole of attraction for working-class sympathies and activism to Kingsley’s SPC.

Economic Organization

The reading of the history of mankind from the materialist standpoint shows the trend of industrial evolution to have continually been in the direction of a more perfect, complete and powerful organization of the powers of wealth production, i. e., more efficient economic organization. The purpose lying behind this development, and in obedience to the irresistible force of which it has been pushed forward, is, evidently, that of enabling mankind to supply itself with the material requisites for its comfort and well-being with the least possible expenditure of human energy. Men, either as individuals or aggregations of individuals, have been but instruments in the hands of the underlying forces that have pushed humanity along the pathway of material progress. That they have turned things to their own advantage in many cases, and away from the really proper and beneficent purpose of the general well-being, is undoubtedly true, but that the ultimate outcome of all of the turmoil, agony and travail of past and present times will be the eventual uplift of the race to a greater degree of comfort, happiness and general well-being, would seem to be equally beyond question.

The organization of the powers of wealth production, i. e., the economic organization of human society, is rapidly approaching that degree of perfection where it can no longer be held in subjection and subservience to the whim or caprice of anything less than the whole people acting together in the common interest. In fact it can no longer be kept from performing its proper function of providing human society, even down to its humblest unit, with the material requisites to a full, fair and healthful existence, in return for services rendered in the interest of the commonweal.

There is evidence upon every hand to show the near approach of the collapse of the present or capitalist control of the economic organization and its assumption by human society as a whole for the common good. That this impending change will be effected by the action of the working class does not in the least alter the facts in the case. The victory of the working class in the impending conflict with the capitalist class merely signifies the application of the benefits arising from the highly developed and powerful economic organization, to all of the members of human society, instead of to a favored few as at present.

To effect this change, so imperatively demanded by the needs of the hour, necessitates the conquest, by the working class, of that sole point of vantage from which the ownership—and therefore control—of economic organization and power can be dictated and enforced. This point of vantage is government, the organized power of the state. It is this power alone which today withholds, from all but a favored few, any participation in the benefits arising from the powerful modern economic organization. It is the power that holds intact the present or capitalist form of property in the means of wealth production, and thus preserves to the capitalists the control of economic power and the absorption of the wealth arising from its exercise. It is the power that holds the working class in its present condition of economic bondage, or wage-servitude. It is the power that must be broken before the present economic organization of human society, the product of centuries of development, can be put to its proper use of lightening the burden of toil upon the shoulders of the individual man.

Individual zealots, who are carried off their feet by sudden waves of enthusiasm brought on by Utopian visions of glorious prospects opened to their admiring gaze by the magic wand of their own conceit, would build what they term “economic organization” in which the workers are to be “drilled” for the task of “taking over and successfully operating” the industries, when capitalism shall, by some mysterious process, have been overthrown. These worthies, however, overlook the fact that the only possible, or even thinkable, economic organization already exists and the workers have grown up with it; have been drilled into its operation, and today are operating it with all the measure of success possible under its present form of ownership and control. That these workers have little or no participation in the accruing benefits, does not arise from their lack of ability to operate, but in the capitalists’ power to apply these benefits to other purposes. The action by the working class that is necessary in order to deprive the capitalists of the power to thus appropriate the fruits of industry to their own purposes, has already been mentioned and needs no further elaboration. It is so palpably self-evident that it could not well escape the notice of any one with his eyes open.

E. T. Kingsley

—“Economic Organization,” Western Clarion, July 1911, 18–20.

Annotate

Next Chapter
On the Capitalist State. 1911
PreviousNext
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons License (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0). It may be reproduced for non-commercial purposes, provided that the original author is credited.
Powered by Manifold Scholarship. Learn more at
Opens in new tab or windowmanifoldapp.org