The Genesis and Evolution of Slavery Showing How the Chattel Slaves of Pagan Times Have Been Transformed into the Capitalist Property of To-day

Introduction

The history of civilization has been written in letters of blood and fire. The enslavement of man by man was the primal curse, that fundamental crime, from which such a multitude of evils and afflictions have followed that modern society has become a festering nuisance and a stench in the nostrils of crime, corruption and debauchery run rampant in all lands and at all times. The social evil grows in magnitude and spreads its poison over an ever-widening area of the social life. The most open and brazen corruption in public life stalks abroad in the open light of day without danger of anything more serious than passing comment. The most [illegible— . . . ess] indifference to the welfare of the slaves [illegible—by?] industry is manifested throughout the entire employing world, and not the slightest safeguard is afforded the lives and limbs of the workers [illegible—that?] can in any way be avoided. Politicians, professors and press writers lie like horse thieves about mundane matters while pulpiteers weave [illegible—entrancing?] fables about the heavenly beyond [illegible—for] the purpose of chloroforming slaves into [illegible—forgetting?] their chains and meekly submitting to [illegible—the?] continuation of their crucifixion upon the altar of ruling class plunder.

In all the calendar [illegible—of?] crime from murder down, there is scarce [illegible] even conceivable except as the [illegible—legitimate?] child of slavery. From that fundamental [illegible—lie?] all others follow. It is the prolific mother of the whole detestable brood. No further proof of this is required than the simple fact that [illegible—these/the?] evils were practically unknown until after [illegible—t . . . .] of that delectable institution. From that [illegible] this they have been so continually [illegible] increase, and have become, such a part of the every day life of all civilized states, as to be considered a necessary part of the divine plan.

The rulers of the world have frequently been seized with fits of blood madness, that nothing could quell but a plentiful spilling of blood upon the part of their slaves. The slaves have always loyally come through with the goods when called upon. Surfeited with plunder and drunken with the intoxicating fumes of world trade as a means of profitably disposing of that plunder, the rulers and plunderers of half the world are now engaged in conducting a blood fest of such magnitude, that it seriously threatens the complete collapse of the entire structure of ruling class civilization. But whether the present blood letting results in the suicide of capitalism, or merely forces its development to the culminating stage of state capitalism, matters not. That which does matter is that the working class is the only factor in human society that has either the numerical strength or the justification to bring order out of chaos, by the abolition of its own slavery and the placing of the affairs of human society upon a basis that will make it possible for all people to live in fraternal peace, plenty and decency, in the common enjoyment of the fruits of their common labor.

To bring about this consummation so devoutly to be wished it becomes necessary for the workingmen to know something of their class position in present civilization and how and why they are compelled to sweat for their masters in time of peace and bleed and die for them in time of war. The requisite knowledge to enable the workers to act intelligently in the coming crisis in human affairs, which ruling class madness and ambition is forcing upon us, must be gathered by the workers themselves against all of the intellectual forces marshaled in the service of the ruling class. These forces will be used for the purpose of still further blinding the workers to their class interests, and thus prolonging the rule and power of the master class.

Though the workers are slow to think, and even slower to act in defence of their interests as a class which produces the wealth of the world, I have the utmost confidence in the ultimate triumph of the working class in the age-long struggle against the rulers and the masters of the earth. All the knowledge that is of any value to the human race is possessed by the working class, for it is that class alone that knows how to produce food, clothing, and shelter for all. Without that knowledge there is nothing. When the workers shall have gained a knowledge of their enslavement, and have developed the necessary class solidarity to break the bonds of servitude and assume the mastery of their own means of life on behalf of their class, the battle will have been won and the curse of slavery lifted from the human race. With the hope of being able to assist, be it ever so little, in the good work, I offer the following pages for the consideration of the workers, and all others who may be interested in labor’s struggle for emancipation from the bondage of capitalist exploitation.

E. T. KINGSLEY

Vancouver, B. C., September, 1916.

Man

Just how long man has existed upon the earth is not known. It is safe to assume, however, that it has been many thousands of years. The written history of the human race reaches back into the past but a few thousand years, at the most. All that we know of the race prior to that has been gathered through a study of the relics of ancient civilizations and conclusions and analogies drawn from the observation of the more backward and primitive peoples now extant. The result of the most careful research leads conclusively to the fact that man was not always the wonderful creature, as we know him today, with his highly developed faculties and marvelous command over the forces of nature. It is generally conceded that back in remote antiquity he was low in the scale of being, with ill-developed faculties and little, if anything, to distinguish him in habit and instinct from other animals that roamed the earth at that time. But at last he raised himself above the level of the rest, by taking on one peculiar characteristic or habit, which has ever since been the distinguishing mark separating him from all other animal kind. That characteristic or habit was the making and using of tools with which to obtain his living. All other animals rely solely upon the means with which nature has already supplied them—teeth, claws, etc.

Man, then, is a tool-making and using animal. When he first raised himself above the balance of animal kind, the tools he used must have been primitive and puny things. Very likely a sharp stick or stone, by aid of which he dug a root or killed some weaker animal for the purpose of satisfying his hunger, was among his first ventures along this line. Having, however, adopted this primitive tool he opened for himself a career that was as destined to eventually make him not only master of all animal kind, but master of the forces of nature as well.

The history of the human race is a history of the growth and development of the means and methods whereby mankind feeds, clothes and shelters itself. In fact the history of man can be correctly written only in economic terms. That is in terms of wealth production. Human society and its institutions are but a reflex of this economic basis. Social conventions, morals, ethics and religions of any given period are only of such a character as are made possible and imperative, by the economic development of that time.

As the tool grew from primitive form, with each successive step the productive power of man increased, and by slow degrees the operations of industry assumed a more complex character. Individual production gradually gave way to industrial processes carried on by the collective efforts of an ever-increasing number of persons, resulting in a greatly augmented volume of product. Along with this development there logically followed many changes in social institutions, from time to time, in order that human society might adapt itself to the ever-increasing pressure of this economic development going on within it. That these changes would, as a rule, be brought about by the same slow and imperceptible process that marked the growth and development of the tool of production, goes without saying, but that any interference with such process of change would eventually result in more or less violent upheaval, may easily be understood. Such periods of sudden and violent change are spoken of as revolutionary epochs. The social horizon is now replete with signs and portents of the approach of an epoch of revolution that promises to be more far-reaching in its consequences to mankind than any that have preceded it. It will be accompanied with less of violence and leave less of misery and sorrow in its wake, if every man bestirs himself to understand the nature of the change that has been made necessary by the industrial development of the past. The more widespread the knowledge of the impending change, and the necessity for it, the less will be the shock incidental to it.

Man as a Savage

Man, then, emerges from the ranks of the lower animals by adapting himself to the making and using of tools with which to gain his living and protect himself against other more savage and powerful animals. The family, the community, the tribe, the nation, government, religion, etc., are unknown quantities to him. His language is, as yet, but the chatter or screech of an animal; his code of morals and ethics that of a beast. He is simply a savage, very low down in the scale of being. By slow and painful experience he develops and improves his means of living. He learns how to make fire and obtain fish for food. He gathers with his fellows into primitive communities along the ocean, stream or lakeside, where fish may be conveniently obtained. A more fixed abode and the learning of how to store food for times of scarcity, lays the foundation of the family, which begins to take form from out of the previous promiscuous sex relations. This is still further hastened by the growth of the spear, stone axe and club, into the bow and arrow, thus adding the products of the chase to his food supply. It is needless to say that this development must have been painfully slow, probably covering hundreds of thousands of years. But it is beyond question that the basis of our boasted present-day industrial power was in this manner laid by our savage ancestors of remote antiquity.

Man as a Barbarian

Emerging from savagery, man entered upon his career as a barbarian. The art of making pottery was acquired. The domestication of animals and the cultivation of cereals followed. He learned how to make garments from textile fabrics; how to build of wood and stone; how to smelt ores and fashion implements of iron and copper. The canoe of the savage was improved upon by adding the sail and rudder. The insignificant savage community grew into the powerful tribe, taking on more and more the character of the nation. The family continued to develop towards the monogamous form.

But the achievements of savagery and barbarism can only be hinted at in this article. Suffice it to say that man’s power to produce wealth during these periods had been greatly increased. His wants had, no doubt, likewise increased in similar proportion during the same period. It remained for the closing years of barbarism to bring his power of production up to the point where human slavery was not only possible, but inevitable. So long as it required all of a man’s time to provide himself with the necessaries of life, the motive to enslave him would be lacking. Whenever the power of production had passed that point, to any appreciable extent, the motive would be there to prompt the stronger or more cunning to enslave their weaker fellows at the first opportunity. That opportunity came at last, and out of the tribal wars that arose over possession of territory, as tribe crowded upon tribe, arose the custom of the conqueror enslaving the conquered.

Civilization

Civilization announced its advent upon the stage of events by the inauguration of human slavery. Civilization, property, slavery, these are virtually synonymous terms. With the birth of civilization was ushered in the regime of property, and the slave constituted that property. He was owned by the master; he worked for the master and the wealth he brought forth, likewise belonged to that master. The master saw that the slave had food, etc., sufficient to enable him to work on the morrow. If he allowed his slave to starve, he might be unable to get another except at considerable cost.

With slavery there came the possibility of carrying out works of far greater magnitude than was formerly the case. Under the lash of the master the mighty achievements of Assyria, Egypt, Babylon, Greece and Rome were accomplished, tasks that were undoubtedly impossible except by enforced labor. However useless these accomplishments, in so far as conserving any legitimate human need is concerned, through some thousands of years these burdens of civilization were slowly and painfully borne upon the backs of cruelly sweated and tortured human chattels. The tools of labor were by the same token being continually improved upon and made more perfect, thus increasing the productive power of the slave. This continually increasing power to produce wealth eventually surfeited the master class and debauched its institutions until the civilization of that time, rotten to the core, went to pieces at the touch of the barbarians of a more northern clime; and out of the chaos of its ruins there emerged a slavery wearing a different outward garb, but in essence the same.

Under this later slavery the master became a feudal lord and the slave a serf, and the period of its life is termed the reign of feudalism. The feudal serf worked a part of the time for his feudal lord for nothing. During the balance of his time he was allowed to work for himself, upon land that was set aside for his own use. He kept himself and family by this latter labor. His lord was kept in luxury and magnificence, by means of the former. The time he was allowed to work for himself was, as a rule, very cleverly adjusted to the actual requirements to enable him to work for the feudal lord the balance. His predecessor, the chattel slave, worked for the master all of the time. The feudal serf worked for his master but a part of the time. But inasmuch as neither of them got more than the bare necessaries of existence, the difference between them was one of appearance only. The very essence of their servitude was the same in either case. They were both well shackled and well plundered slaves.

For some hundreds of years the feudal system of slavery held sway. The tools of labor were continually being perfected, and the power of production increased. Like their predecessors, the chattel slave masters, the feudal lords eventually became gorged with wealth and rotten with profligacy. Feudal civilization became a nuisance in the pathway of human progress, and therefore doomed. The wealth the feudal slaves could produce in excess of their own keep, became so great that it could not be consumed by their feudal lords. It cried out with ever-increasing insistence to be disposed of, but this was impossible within the confines of the feudal regime. The feudal bonds had to be broken and the power to do so came from the enslaved class below.

Skilled workers in the towns first partially broke loose from feudal rule. Master workmen with their own tools in their hands and these tools ever becoming more perfect and powerful, scented rich returns in the production and sale of their wares, if the restrictions of feudal-rule could be brushed aside and they be allowed to carry their products into the markets of the world. The feudal lords were unable to withstand the pressure of this economic power developing within feudal society, and were forced to surrender the sceptre of rule into the hands of the master work men, who were destined to speedily develop into factory lords. A new master class had been born, the capitalist class, and the slaves discarded the garb of serfs and gleefully bedecked themselves in the raiment of “free laborers,” the wage slaves of modern times.

As the feudal system gave way to the new order a vista was opened up before the workman that had every appearance of being that freedom of which he had long dreamed. But it has long since proven to be a delusion. The individual workman in the individual shop grew into a collection of workmen in a larger shop and the sub-division of labor. The worker no longer made an article entire. He performed a certain part of the work and passed it along to other workers to be finished: The hand tool grew into a machine and the process of production became more complex and the necessary equipment more costly. It became more and more impossible for the individual worker to lift himself from the rank of worker to that of master. Awakened from his dream of freedom, he found himself, held in the grip of a veritable industrial monster that squeezed the last drop of juice from his quivering carcass, even more thoroughly than ever did chattel slave master or feudal lord. Though he appeared to be free, inasmuch as he might refuse to labor if he so chose, he awakened to the fact that he was compelled to surrender his life to his industrial masters, sooner or later, in exchange for the price of that which the chattel slave got at first hands, and the feudal serf was allowed to produce for himself, viz., the bare necessaries of existence.

After dreaming of freedom, to be awakened to the stern reality that wage labor is but another name for slave labor, is a rude awakening indeed. The wage slave does for his master precisely what the chattel slave and the feudal serf did for theirs. No one would be impudent enough to assert that either of the latter were paid for their work, yet, in common parlance; the wage worker gets paid for his. The fact asserts itself with the greatest emphasis that chattel slave, feudal serf and wage slave worked for practically the same thing, viz., a bare existence, and this has been rendered continually more insecure and uncertain as each of these successive stages of civilization became more highly developed and rotten.

Property

Reference has already been made to the synonymity of the terms civilization, slavery and property; that civilization began with slavery, and that the slave was property. It is true that property existed prior to the birth of slavery, but it consisted merely of personal belongings, and was entirely devoid of the attribute of being a means of bringing a revenue to its possessor, without exertion upon his part. The owner of such property could not obtain something for nothing, merely by virtue of such ownership. With the establishment, however, of slavery the term property took on a new or added meaning. It became possessed of the attribute of being able to bring to its owner a revenue, without effort upon his part. It became the means whereby the owner could obtain wealth for nothing. His property—slaves—would produce the wealth. He, as the owner of such slaves, would merely take the wealth they produced. Out of that wealth he would allow the slaves to be fed, so that they might continue the process on the morrow. The balance he would appropriate to his own purposes of comfort and aggrandizement.

The slave bears the distinction of being the only sort of property ever invented that could bring to its owner something for nothing. It is that type of property that rules the world today. There is none other that can be measured in terms of exchange, for the very simple reason that there is none other that can conjure forth something for nothing, for the owner thereof. There is no other property out of which a profit can be made. Consequently there is no other kind that is worth owning. The slave of today little dreams that the entire civilized world worships at his shrine. But it is a fact, nevertheless. The world worships at the shrine of property, and the slave is that property. No god, either Christian or Pagan, ever had so large and devoted a following.

It is true that slaves are not now listed as property in the charts of the world. In fact slavery is not supposed to exist in the highly civilized nations of today. Lands, factories, shops, mines, railways, steamships and all similar things are listed as property and the titles thereto are continually passing from hand to hand. The valuation of these properties runs up into countless billions of dollars, and yet not a foot of land, not a factory, a mine, a railway, or any other part or parcel of this alleged property possesses in itself an iota of exchange value. As a means, however, of commanding the service of enslaved labor, in the processes of wealth production, these listed properties become immensely valuable. But they are valuable only because they become the medium through which the enslavement of the workers is [illegible—effected?] and their life force coined into wealth for the owners. It may be seen from this that the value which lies within industrial processes of modern times, and which is quoted as resting in the physical properties referenced above, lies solely within the ranks of the enslaved workers. The ownership and control of the aforesaid physical properties carries with it ownership and control of the sole wealth producing factor in human society, the working class. Stocks, bonds, deeds, mortgages and such like paper evidences of title to property, are only title deeds to human slaves, the only sort of property from which an owner ever did or ever could procure a living without effort. The doxology of the modern property owner might very appropriately be, praise slaves, from whom all material blessings flow.

Capital

If anything like a clear understanding of the real meaning of the term Capital was first obtained, a great deal of confusion might be avoided in dealing with the many problems that are continually arising under its baneful rule. There is nothing so very mysterious about it. Once the scalpel of inquiry is thrust into it and it is ripped open for examination, it quickly resolves itself into an exceedingly flimsy verbal covering for an extremely coarse and clumsy piece of rascality. As flimsy as that covering is, however, it has been ample to so mask the rascality as to lead the victims of it to long believe that it did not exist.

The term Capital is applied to the means of wealth production, when those means of production are used for the purpose of making a profit out of the employment of labor. As means of production owned and operated by the same person or persons, could bring to such owners nothing beyond the products of their own labor, it is self evident that such means of production would not, under the circumstances, function as capital. As profit is something gotten for nothing, no profit could accrue from such circumstances. If, however, the means of production were owned by one man or set of men and operated by other persons whose labor power had been purchased, the situation would be entirely changed. Out of the labor so employed a profit might be made. Something could thus be gotten for nothing. In such case the means of production would function as Capital and the owners thereof would be termed Capitalists.

But granting all of this, capital has not yet expressed any definite material thing. In assuming that the means of production referred to have functioned as capital, nothing has been expressed that could be measured in material things, either money or anything else. What, then, has been expressed? Absolutely nothing but the relation of master and slave, existing between the owner of the means of production and the slaves who did the work. And that is all there is to this mysterious thing called capital. It consists of nothing but the power to command the services of human slaves in the processes of wealth production. It expresses no wealth, but merely the power, vested in the capitalist, to obtain wealth for nothing. Be it money or what it may, that the wiseacres term capital, it never functions as such until this money or other material thing is literally consumed in expressing that relationship between master and slave. That capital is necessary, or in any manner an aid to production, is pure and unadulterated “bunk.”

The chattel slave masters of old owned their slaves, outright; body and soul, and they made no bones about it, either. They never tried to disguise the fact with anything less pretentious than a club. No attempt was made to cover up their rascality in ruling and robbing the producers of wealth. The feudal lords of the middle ages made no pretense of being other than the conscienceless rascals they were. They held their serfs in bondage without attempting to excuse their brutality and rascality by specious and hypocritical pretense. It has remained for the modern capitalist class, however, to mask its rascality under the cover of artfully spun economic fables, not the least of which is the fable of sacrosanct capital.

What is termed the growth of capital is only the extension of the economic empire of the capitalists over an increased number of slaves. The huge corporations that dominate industry and commerce today, have all grown up from small beginnings made by those early pioneers of capitalist production who freed the productive powers of labor from the restrictions of feudal rule. These gigantic combinations of capital now number their slaves by the millions, the holdings of individual concerns in some cases running to upwards of a hundred thousand. And the wage slaves of today are just as truly held in bondage by their capitalist masters as were the chattel slaves of antiquity held by theirs. Though they may leave an individual masters [sic] if they so choose, they must needs soon find another or perish. They can not escape the master class. They must surrender their labor power to that class if they would live.

Labor Power and Wages

Prior to the advent of civilization, production was carried on for the sole purpose of supplying the needs of the producer. The resources of the earth can not be converted into form usable for the satisfaction of human needs, without the expenditure of at least some effort. As the things requisite for the satisfaction of such needs are termed wealth, and these things are brought forth solely by human effort, then it is correct to assert that all Wealth is produced by labor. The labor, if it could be so called, of the savage and the barbarian was expended only for the purpose of producing things for their own use. With the advent of the era of civilization, however, a change occurred in the purpose for which all productive processes were to be carried on. It is manifestly clear that industry operated by the labor of slaves could only be carried on for the purpose of bringing gain to the masters of those slaves. There could be no other motive for slavery. True it is that the slaves have always been fed, that is if they have been fed at all, out of the products of their own labor, but that in no manner alters the fact that production, under slavery, is not carried on for such a purpose. That slaves have to be fed, is, from the masters’ standpoint, an unfortunate circumstance incidental to the process, due no doubt to some oversight upon the part of the creator. Production under the regime of capital is carried on for the purpose of profit, and this is more especially true of that portion of it which is operated exclusively by wage labor.

Production for profit necessarily implies production for sale. By thus disposing of the things produced is the only way their values can be transformed into terms of money upon the right side of the owners’ bank account. If the owner cannot sell, he can realize no profit. Anything placed upon the market for sale is termed a commodity. All of the wealth of the modern world takes on this commodity form.

Everything is for sale. Foodstuffs, wearing apparel, furniture, tools, houses, lands, stocks, bonds and every conceivable thing in the category is upon the market as a commodity seeking a purchaser. As commodities they pass from hand to hand until, perchance, they fall to the possession of some one who desires to appropriate them to his personal use. Then they cease to be commodities; they disappear from the market and, as a rule, are known no more in the annals of exchange.

A commodity then is anything for which the owner has no use, but must sell in order to obtain the things which he desires to use. A steel mill, for instance, turns out steel products for which the owner has no use. He sells such products in the market and thus obtains the money by means of which he obtains other things which he may require. In this manner he exchanges steel which he does not want, for such other things as he desires. Now, according to capitalist morality and ethics there is but one legitimate and honorable way to make a living in this world, and that is by selling something. To live by charity is not considered commendable, and to live by crime is severely condemned, that is if the crime be too open and coarse, and the criminal be caught at it. But to make a living by selling something is strictly according to the rule and highly commendable. It makes not the slightest difference what is sold, either, so long as it has been obtained anywhere near in conformity with the rules of the game of getting. The steel magnate lives from the proceeds of the production and sale of steel; the beef magnate, of beef; the oil magnate, of oil and so on down the long line of slave masters and first citizens. He who has nothing to sell is certainly in a bad way, for he will have no alternative but to resort to either crime or charity, or perish by the wayside. And even if he has something to sell and cannot find a purchaser, he is in an equally bad fix.

We now come to the consideration of that large section of the producing class that works for wages. Without ownership or control of any means whereby they can employ themselves in the production of the things requisite for the sustenance of themselves and families, the workers are compelled to offer the only thing they possess as a commodity upon the market, in order to convert its exchange value into the purchase price of the things they needs [sic] must have or starve. The only thing they possess that can possibly have any market value, is their energy and ability in industry, that is their labor power. It happens that this particular commodity is the only one in all the category of commodities that is absolutely indispensable to all production. It is the one commodity that upon being consumed in the industrial process, not only reproduces its own exchange value, but actually multiplies it. These additional new values thus, brought into existence constitute the eternal fountain of delight from which comes the intoxicating profit that has brought the capitalist world to a veritable delirium tremens of trade and blood.

The labor power of the otherwise propertyless working man is, therefore, sold as merchandise in the market. Possessing no means whereby he may expend this energy upon his own behalf, he is forced to dispose of it to some one who can utilize it. The price he receives for it is termed wages. Wages expresses the exchange value of the commodity, labor power, at the time of sale. Like all other commodities, the price of labor fluctuates up or down, according to the circumstances and conditions of the market. As a rule and under normal conditions, commodities exchange, one for another in the market, upon the basis of the relative amount of labor time necessarily embodied in their production. That is to say, for instance, if a pair of shoes of a given quality, and a barrel of flour exchange equally in the market, they do so because it has required as much labor time to produce the one as the other. If this exchange is effected through the medium of a five dollar gold piece, it merely signifies that a similar amount of labor time is necessarily embodied in the gold contained therein. Fluctuations, either one way or the other from such basis of exchange, frequently occur, but as Marx puts it, the average exchange approximates very closely to the point of actual value for value. For instance, if the supply of any article be appreciably in excess of the demand, this condition will tend to have a depressing effect upon the price and if such condition persists, no power on earth can prevent prices falling until the supply is brought down some where near to the actual requirements. The scarcity of any article to the extent of likewise disturbing the balance the other way will send prices upwards until the normal balance between supply and demand has been once more regained.

Now let it be supposed that the wage of the working man is $3.00 per day. This sum then is the price, expressed in money terms, which he receives in exchange for his labor power, for one day, let us say of 8 hours. Now, if one day’s labor power is equal in value to the sum of $3.00, it must be for the reason that the amount of labor time necessarily expended in the production of one day’s labor is equal to that necessarily expended in the production of $3.00 in gold. Whether the money used in the transaction is gold, or some paper promise or substitute, makes no difference, for the reason that all of the great capitalist countries are under the gold standard, hence gold must be our money reckoning. Into the production of a day’s labor power must go some certain quantity of food, clothing, shelter and other actually necessary ingredients. In other words, the human engine must be stoked in order to generate labor power, just as a steam boiler must be stoked in order to produce steam power, the only difference being in the material used in the stoking, and the fact that the former stokes itself while the latter cannot do so. The food, etc., required to generate sufficient energy to enable the workman to do a day’s work, has also been produced by labor, previously expended. As the exchange equivalent of our day’s labor power is $3.00, then it follows that the amount of labor time necessarily expended in the production of the amount of food, etc., sufficient to generate one day’s labor power, and the amount necessary to the production of $3.00 in gold, are equal. That is why $3.00 will purchase a day’s labor power, or a day’s labor power will purchase $3.00, which ever way we care to put it.

To sum this matter up we find: That labor power is a commodity, bought and sold in the market just like any other commodity and subject to the same inflexible, though unwritten, laws of the market and of exchange, as all other commodities; that wages are the money expression of the exchange value of labor power and that upon the average the sellers of labor power get the same close approximation to the correct exchange value of their commodity as do the sellers of any and all other commodities. The logical conclusion is that the seller of labor power gets, as a rule, all that is properly coming to him as a seller of that particular commodity.

The Farmer

The greater portion of that vast volume of agricultural and kindred products that is poured into the channels of capitalist trade, and commerce, is the product of a class of labor whose exploitation is so completely hidden behind the mask of property in land and tools, as to lead the victims themselves in many cases to fancy that their hardships are due to their own shortcomings, or to other causes entirely apart from that of being robbed as wealth producers. This small farming class, consists of a kaleidoscopic array of petty proprietors ranging all the way from the few who still have their holdings free from debt, down through the extended ranks of those who are struggling under loads of mortgage indebtedness, to the ever-increasing number who eke out a precarious existence as tenant farmers. The sole property of these tenant farmers often consists of a span of horses or mules and a few farming implements. When these are lost, the only alternative is to be swamped in the gulf of wage servitude, from which there is next to no escape. As a rule these small farmers carry on their operations chiefly with their own labor and that of their families. If, perchance, they do employ some outside labor at times, this is frequently offset by labor of their own expended elsewhere. Countless thousands of these small proprietors are compelled to depend upon the sale of their labor power or that of some portion of their families, for at least a part of each year in order to be able to hang on to their small properties. Their small property, instead of being the badge of their independence, becomes a sort of last straw to which they desperately cling in order to avoid being engulfed in the maelstrom of hopeless wage slavery. And well may they struggle against such a fate for the noise of turmoil and strife, the wails of anguish and distress, and the moral stench arising from the wage shambles of capitalism offers no very seductive invitation to any one to seek entrance therein.

The position of the small farmer is a sort of cross between that of the feudal serf of the middle ages and the wage slave of the present. At least a part of his product is consumed by himself and family, but the balance has to be surrendered to the tender mercies of the market, which usually renders returns not calculated to swell the fortunes of the small proprietor. In consuming direct a part of his products, such as vegetables, fruits, meats, etc., which represent at least a considerable portion of his living, he bears a very close resemblance to his feudal serf predecessor. Such portion of his product represents the result of his efforts while working for himself and surrendering nothing to his over-lords. That is what the feudal serf did in tilling the lands set aside for his own use by his feudal lord, only in his case, it covered his entire living, instead of only partially doing so, as in the case of the small farmer. All that the farmer produces outside of that which he and his family consumes at first hand, must be thrown into the market, a veritable funnel through which by far the greater part of the wealth he produces is poured into the coffers of capitalist property. He must be content with the market returns, no matter how small. The capitalists are his over-lords, and are in a position to exact their tribute, no matter how vigorously he may object. That the small farmer is closely related to the wage slave is shown by the fact that both are producers of exchange values which they are compelled to surrender to the hungry maw of their common enemy capital, through the merciless channels of a world’s market over which they have no control. Still further confirmation of their kinship is found in the striking similarity that exists between them in the matter of earnings. The total earnings of either is, upon the average, equivalent only to the amount actually requisite for their existence as workers. When the farmer figures up at the end of the year, he is fortunate if he comes out even, and so is his kinsman, the wage slave. The latter sells his labor power as a commodity, and delivers it direct into the market. The former converts his labor power into other commodities, such as wheat, corn, cotton and a multitude of other things, and then turns these commodities into the market. All that he gets out of the market for these products is, at the best, only the equivalent of the exchange value of the labor power actually requisite for their production. Not the labor power that he may have expended in their production, but the labor power that is necessarily expended in such production when carried on upon a modern scale and with high-class and powerful equipment. For instance, the exchange value of wheat is not determined by the labor expenditure of John Hodge, whose agricultural activities are carried on with an ox team, a walking plow, a sickle, and a flail, but by the labor cost upon the big fields of Canada, Argentina, and the United States, where costly power-driven machinery is used to greatly multiply the result of human effort. It is the small farmer’s misfortune that such is the case.

The small farmer then works for just what the wage slave does, that is, upon the average, a bare living. Together the working farmers and wage workers produce all the wealth of the world. They constitute the working class. Their over-lords constitute what is termed the capitalist class. The workers make the wealth, the capitalists take it. The one is useful, the other is not. That is all the difference there is between them. The wage slave is more than often compelled to turn wife or children, or both, over to the tender mercies of the labor market in order to eke out the family subsistence. The farmer is likewise compelled to impress members of his family to the service of his over-lords by utilizing their labor in the fields with himself. But in either case the average family home is equivalent to no more than actual cost of a bare existence. As the wage slave surrenders his labor power directly to the purchaser, the fact of his exploitation is more easily and readily brought to his notice. He is not blinded by any fancied property rights. He soon recognizes his slavery and the chains become galling to his limbs. He soon ripens for revolt and although his efforts are at first directed more especially along rebellious lines, he sooner or later becomes an apostle of the revolution that shall bring an end to slavery by breaking the rule of capitalist property and asserting the rights of the toilers in the control of their products and their lives. With their vassalage masked by their fancied property rights, thousands of small farmers are still strangers to the fact that the struggling wage slaves of capital are, economically speaking, bone of their bone, and flesh of their flesh. As common victims of a common crime, they should stand shoulder to shoulder for the common defense and for the purpose of bringing their miseries to an end by freeing their class from the chains of a common bondage. Speaking of property rights, it is well to note that in spite of such rights, the farmer is compelled to surrender his products into the hands of capital, and he has nothing to say about it, either. This ought to convince most any one as to where the real title to the farmer’s property rests. The fact is that slaves can not own property, for they are themselves property. Though they may be in possession of certain things, the real test of ownership lies in the power to absolutely command not only those things, but all else that may issue therefrom. The farmer is not only compelled to surrender his products into the hands of capitalist property, but he always has to sleep with one eye open in order to avoid being dispossessed of that which he hath. Thousands of his kind are losing their holdings every year in spite of all their efforts to hang on. About the only advantage the farmer has over the wage slave is that his job is steady all the year around, while the latter’s is subject to dislocation at most any moment. Living in the country away from the smells and hells of congested industry is another modification of the infamy of slavery that is also in his favor.

Profit

The purpose lying behind every business venture is to get more out of it than was put into it. If for every dollar ventured upon any undertaking, there is brought back in the way of returns something in excess of that sum, the venture is said to have been a profitable one. No matter what the circumstances may be that make it possible for this very desirable result to be attained, it is strictly in conformity with all the moral and ethical conceptions of Christian civilization that the recipient of such gains should flaunt his good fortune in the face of all the world and even proclaim himself as moulded from a superior brand of clay to that which has been incorporated into the corporeal substance of his fellow mortals. And he who is successful in gathering much substance in this manner, is looked up to and reverenced by the gaping multitude just as though his pretensions were based upon the undisputable fact. Individuals and concerns gather to themselves through the schemes of profit, wealth running into such fabulous sums as to be beyond human conception, while the average man in the street, ragged though he may be, seldom dreams there is any connection between these masses of wealth and his own shabby circumstances. Wage slaves sweat, bleed and die in the shambles of capitalist industry, and few of them ever realize that their agony is the price they pay for the magnificence and display of accumulated wealth. Farmers drift into the cities and stand in speechless awe in the presence of such vast wealth, little realizing that it has been piled up at the expense of their narrow and stunted lives. And what is this thing called profit, that all the world worships and which brings such a plethora of wealth and magnificence to its favored devotees? By what strange alchemy can such splendid results be brought about? Possibly there is nothing mysterious about it, once it is closely examined.

To come right down to brass tacks, as the saying goes, profit is merely something gotten for nothing. Away back in those primitive days when man was a savage, having not yet acquired that moral and ethical excellence and superior culture that is so peculiarly characteristic of our present civilization, an occasional individual no doubt, in obedience to his acquisitive promptings, went forth with a club or other weapon and obtained that which he required by the easiest and simplest method known at that time, that is by knocking some other savage on the head and taking his goods. What he thus obtained, however, could not be termed profit; because he did not obtain it for nothing. He at least had to expend some energy and assume some physical risk. What he got might more properly be termed a reward for his initiative and enterprise, and a reasonable compensation for the risks he was compelled to assume in his venture. It has remained for the civilized man to not only discover and develop the art of absolutely getting something for nothing, but to clothe it with an importance and dignity that commands the admiration and worship of all, including even those to whom all other fine arts are as pearls before swine.

Something cannot be gotten for nothing, without some one getting the worst of the deal. What one gets for nothing, some one else must lose. As profit deals material things only, and those things converted into profit can only be so expressed in terms of money, then every dollar of profit made by any one or more persons must mean an equivalent amount lost, by some other person or persons. Commodities exchange in the market, one with another, upon the basis of their relatively necessary cost. That is value is [sic] exchanged for value. Out of such a transaction, no profit can be made. Suppose a farmer sells a bushel of wheat for one dollar, and for the dollar purchases a monkey wrench: Now then he has exchanged a bushel of wheat for the monkey wrench, value for value. Neither he or the merchants with whom he has dealt, have made any profit out of these transactions. The farmer received for his wheat what it was worth at that stage of its journey from the soil to the consumer’s table. He paid for the monkey wrench what it was worth at the end of its journey from raw resources in the bosom of the earth to the hands of a consumer. At each successive step along its line of travel it increased in exchange value, because of the labor time continually being added to it. By the same token will the exchange value of the bushel of wheat increase as it goes through the various stages of transformation into the finished product bread, and its transportation to the hands of a consumer somewhere on earth.

Labor produces all exchange value and as all profit is gathered in the shape of exchange value, in order to fathom the mystery of its gathering, we must delve down into the productive process and discover, if possible, what occurs there. Mention has already been made of the fact that the expenditure of the commodity labor power, in the production of further wealth not only reproduced the value of that labor power, but brought into existence values that did not previously exist. That result is due to the fact that one day’s labor in the production of those things that are necessary to the sustenance of a worker will bring forth sufficient food, clothing, shelter, etc., to sustain a worker for a much longer period than one day. This power of production has been brought about as a consequence of the introduction of highly developed tools into the industrial processes, and this power is constantly increasing as the tools are made more perfect. It is safe to say that the average daily product of labor in the production of the actual necessaries of life is sufficient to feed, clothe and shelter the ordinary family for a week. But all that a worker gets as wages is just what his labor power is worth as a commodity. All of the value that the expenditure of that labor power brings forth in excess of its value as measured by the wage he receives, constitutes the reservoir from which is drawn all the rich profit of the capitalist world. The wage slave, and the farmer whose slavery is masked beneath his fancied property ownership, constitute the slave army that keeps the reservoir well supplied with the delicious juice.

That which is left after the expenses of production and distribution have been met, is what has been termed by Marx as surplus value. It should be remembered that all the expense of production is embodied in the cost of labor. As there is nothing else that goes into production but labor, this must necessarily be so. The assertion is often made that capital is required in order to carry on production. Capital being nothing but the control of labor, it may be easily seen that its significance in production can only express itself within a society based upon human slavery. Instead of being an aid to production, it is a scourge upon the backs of slaves. Its iniquities and inflictions are the penalties the workers are called upon to pay for the supreme folly of being slaves.

Trade

It is the function of the slave to produce wealth for the master. It is the master’s business to appropriate that wealth and put it to such use as may please his fancy. In the earlier days of slavery it was possible for the master to consume the surplus that was left in his hands after the slaves had been fed. But as the tools of production became more highly developed and the productive power of the slaves thereby increased, there came a time when this surplus became so great that it was practically beyond the power of the master to consume it, no matter how extravagant his tastes. Slavery cannot continue unless its products can be disposed of. As they could no longer be consumed in toto by the master, it became the practice to sell the overplus to others, who might be able to offer something as an equivalent in exchange. By thus disposing of what he could not otherwise use, the slave master converted it into the means of purchasing more slaves, enlarging his establishment and raising himself to a social level above that of his less fortunate fellows. That this method of disposing of the plunder taken from slaves began in a very small way is certain. But that it has long since grown into a gigantic and world-wide process is obvious. Trade has now become the fetich of the whole civilized world. In that alone is found the safety valve through which the more highly developed slave states seek relief from the terrific pressure of their own economic forces, a pressure that must be relieved or dire disaster will follow. It is needless to say that this safety valve of world trade is but a temporary make-shift. The volume of wealth poured out into the world market by the great slave nations, fastens itself upon all to whom it is brought, as veritable tentacles, hopelessly enmeshing them in the net of a world-wide slavery. As nation after nation falls into line and becomes a hive of capitalist industry, pouring its surplus into a world market, the safety valve becomes closed, for the very simple reason that there are no more new fields to conquer. There is no further territory to be brought within the jurisdiction of capitalist property and its wage slavery. There is no longer an economic vacuum into which can be poured the stupendous volume of plunder taken from a world of slaves. Then comes either the smothering of civilization in its own blood and fat, or a world-wide slave revolt that shall wipe out capitalist property and its baneful rule. Judging from the present outlook, especially in Europe, the blood and fat theory appears to be the more probable.

To extend their trade has long since become the dominating policy of all great commercial nations, and the lesser ones are all animated by a desire to reach the trading status as speedily as possible and join the trade procession. Trade has become an obsession, an overmastering delusion, that casts its baneful spell over its victims as well as its beneficiaries. Thousands of working people are led to believe that their welfare is in some manner conserved by the world’s trade. Were they but to give the matter a little thought they should be able to see that trade is called into being solely through the existence of their own slavery. It is the method whereby the masters dispose of the plunder coming into their possession through the unpaid toil and sweat of their slaves. The slave is, therefore, the very basis of trade. As labor produces all wealth and the world’s trade is carried on in wealth, then it logically follows that this boasted trade is really a traffic in human flesh. Capitalist property consists of human slaves. Capitalist trade is merely the traffic in their flesh. That this human flesh is first coined into other things by no means alters the fact nor removes the curse.

The State

The State is the instrument of the ruling class. It has grown up with the ruling class. It is really the executive committee of that class. Its function is to conserve and protect the interests of the ruling class, as against the interests of any opposing class or classes in human society. A ruling class implies a class or classes to be ruled. To rule is to enslave; to enslave is to rob. No other motive could prompt man to set himself up as ruler and master of his fellows. No other motive was responsible for the chattel slave master and the feudal lord, and none other has yet been discovered to satisfactorily account for the modern capitalist. The state, with its organized powers of repression, is inconceivable except in connection with a human society that is split into warring factions, through a conflict of economic interests. The advent of slavery into human affairs laid the foundation upon which the state, of necessity arose. Slaves must be governed, otherwise they will not remain slaves. That they were first governed by the master direct, his own vocal powers delivering the legislative “thou shalt nots,” and his strong arm wielding the club that enforced his decrees, is perhaps true, and would be quite in keeping with the crude and primitive beginnings of slavery, itself. But from those small beginnings slavery has grown to world proportions, enmeshing all peoples in its net, and its state has grown into a police force that encompasses the earth. The undisguised ruffianism of the club has long since given way to the soporific influence of courtly pomp, parliamentary profundity, and blue papers, by means of which the victims are ushered into innocuous dreamland with less shock and injury to their corporeal substance. In case they are afflicted with dangerous insomnia, the club, amply reinforced by the bayonet, lies immediately in the background and instantly available. In other words, the hand of ruling class ruffianism now wears the velvet glove, but the glove is easily discarded whenever any rough work is necessary.

The ramifications of government extend down into and encompass even the most sacred private affairs and relations of those over whom its powers are exercised, the enslaved workers. Its “thou shalt not” stares the exploited producer of wealth in the face from the cradle to the grave, always prohibiting him from appropriating anything to himself outside of the pittance that the market of his masters and rulers has decided as ample for his material and spiritual wellbeing. And this pittance is to be obtained only by surrendering his entire life force to his masters, irregardless of the amount of wealth that the expenditure of that life force may bring forth. It requires no very keen perception to be able to discover that the higher a person is in the scale of wealth, the less does government interfere with him. The great dominant capitalist interests of modern times are above the law. This causes much squawking among the lesser capitalists, and that fantastic and frazzled array of cockroach merchants and small fry property owners all the way down to the semi-shirtless proletariat. And even out of this semi-shirtless mob there ascends to high heaven a torrential flood of squawking protest because such and such concerns defy the law. Now it happens that these huge capitalist interests that dominate the field of economic activity today are also in control of the machinery of the state, of government. It is by control of the latter that they hold control of the former. These interests therefore become owners, masters and makers of the law. It is theirs, and as the creator is greater than that which he creates, it logically follows that they must be above the law. They cannot be subjected to its limitations, any more than could the biblical creator of the universe be subject to the ten commandments that he fixed up for Moses.

The slave masters of the ancient world constituted the state of those days. The big slave masters, not the small fry. The latter were ruthlessly gobbled up by the bigger fellows, in spite of all their squawks of protest, and the big ones got bigger by the gobbling. The feudal lords constituted the state during the middle ages. The big feudal lords, not the petty ones. The smaller ones got put out of business by their bigger and more powerful brethren and the big ones became more powerful, thereby. The big capitalists constitute the state of today. A mere handful of men actually dominate the political and economic life of hundreds of millions of people. They determine what shall or shall not be enforced. They are guided solely in their actions by the requirements of the property interests they control and those property interests consist of, and cover nothing else than the ownership and exploitation of human slaves. Because of their dominant holdings in the great controlling industries, such as iron and steel, textiles, leather, meat, sugar, flour, oil, coal, transportation, etc., along with the banking, insurance, trust and loan adjuncts to the great skin game, these comparatively few men actually own and control all the lesser properties, clear down to the meanest and most humble slave of the lot. It was stated upon the floor of the United States senate not long since that less than 100 men owned and controlled all the wealth within the Great Republic. This statement has not been successfully denied, as yet. The large holdings are rapidly absorbing the smaller and sooner or later there will be none of the latter left. The state will then be in even fewer hands than at present. The real significance of government may by that time become so plain that an occasional slave will be able to see it.

The Class Struggle

The requisite basis then for the state is an economic situation that divides society into warring factions or classes. History records no wars that did not have a distinctly economic basis. A society that is composed of warring factions must possess within itself an economic reason for such friction. The history of human society, beginning with the ending of that period termed barbarism and right down to the present time, has been largely a history of class struggles. That tribe warred against tribe over the possession of hunting grounds or pasture lands, prior to the advent of civilization, is doubtless true, but it evidently remained for slavery to bring the conditions requisite for an internecine warfare throughout human society, that would not end so long as slavery remained. The irrepressible conflict of interest between the masters and the slaves afforded the conditions out of which such a struggle must and did come, and which still remains to be fought out in the future. There can be no peace within human society as long as a slave remains shackled, for that slave will rise in revolt and though beaten into submission a thousand times, will yet revolt again. During the centuries that slavery has cursed the earth millions of slaves have been slaughtered in revolt, and yet the spirit of manhood still survives in the breast of those who are yet in chains. The revolt of countless millions against their masters during the past, and the revolt of more millions now living, has been directed along lines that could bring no permanent relief, but even at that the case would have been utterly hopeless had that spirit of revolt, that stubborn determination to fight, against no matter what odds, been lacking. Some day, and the signs upon the horizon indicate its near approach, that spirit of revolt will be directed along intelligent lines and slavery will be speedily brought to an end.

Between the slave and his master there never existed an interest in common. The interest of the master is to hold the slave in subjection, and get as much out of him as possible. The interest of the slave is to break away from the master and regain his freedom. So long as he is held by the master the slave’s interest is to do as little as possible, and get away with as much as he can. The more he does and the less he gets for himself, the more does he further the master’s interest, at the expense of his own. This was true of the ancient chattel slave, it was true of the feudal serf, and it is equally true of their legitimate successors, the working farmers and wage slaves of today. Having no interests in common there is bound to be friction and continual ill-feeling between masters and slaves, and it does not lessen the trouble by terming them employers and employees. That this irrepressible conflict of interest should frequently result in violent displays of temper upon the part of the belligerents and the severance of diplomatic relations, either by the masters declaring a lockout or the slaves going on strike, is not to be wondered at under the circumstances. But whether such outbreaks are finally quieted through concessions granted by either side, or merely by having burned themselves out, nothing has been settled. The resumption of relations is merely the hoisting of a flag of truce. The same old underlying cause is still there and future outbreaks of ever-increasing frequency and greater magnitude will inevitably occur, while that cause remains.

The class struggles of the past have been fought between sections of the exploiting class; the nobility against the autocracy; the uprising capitalists against both; the capitalist class of the north against the chattel slave oligarchy of the south, etc.; but in every case the enslaved workers were used plentifully as cannon fodder by both sides to the controversy. The ruling class has always depended upon its slaves, not only for its living but also for its blood and butchery entertainments. And that dependence has not been in vain. A vast majority of the slaves still respond when either the factory whistle or the bugle blast calls them to the sacrificial shambles.

A class struggle can have but one purpose. Upon the part of an oppressed class that purpose must be to break the rule of its oppressor and lift itself to the position of mastery, thus relieving itself of the burdens forced upon it by that oppressor. Upon the part of the opposing class the purpose must be to thwart the efforts of the oppressed class to break its chains. The enslaved producers of wealth, the workers, constitute a distinct economic class in human society. This class constitutes the wealth of the world, because it alone brings forth all that vast multitude of things requisite to the continued existence and well-being of human kind. It lives by producing what is commonly termed wealth. All the rest of mankind lives by taking what the workers produce. It in no manner aids in production, but is a drag upon it. It constitutes the master class, the capitalist class. Its ranks may be split into various quarreling factions and at times their quarrels may become fierce, but when it comes down to a matter of the slaves becoming animated with a spirit of unrest and demanding some alleviation of the burdens pressing upon them, these factions forget their differences and become a harmonious whole in defence of the right of their class to rule and rob the working class. In the presence of a common danger they stand as a solid phalanx against a common foe.

The struggle of enslaved workers against their masters has down to quite recent times been confined exclusively to efforts of more or less isolated bands of workers against their individual employers or employing concerns. The purpose of the struggle has been loudly acclaimed as that of obtaining “better conditions” for labor. This betterment is to be attained through increased wages, shorter hours and other improved conditions of employment, without disturbing the relation of master and slave now existing between the capitalists and the producers of all wealth, the workers. In other words the struggle has been in the nature of a protest against some of the inevitable evils of slavery, instead of an attempt to overthrow the institution itself. It has been but a feeble and ineffective attempt to palliate the ills of slavery, rather than a manly effort to wipe it out. The entire old line labor movement does not for a moment question the right of capitalists to own and control the means and avenues of employment, in spite of the fact that such ownership and control carries with it the ownership and control of the working class itself. If the confirmation of such ownership and control of the working class is required, it can be found in the fact that the capitalist class is the owner of all of the product that the workers bring forth through the operation of industry. Labor then is merely a mill grinding out wealth for capitalists, and who else can be the owners of a mill except they who have the power to appropriate the product turned out?

The class struggle of the enslaved workers against their masters must be for the purpose of destroying the right of those masters to rule and rob. As they do so now under the guise of property rights in the means of production, it may easily be seen that their power cannot even be threatened except by an attack upon those property rights. So long as those rights remain intact their power is not diminished, no matter what petty regulation may be furthered for the purpose of pleasing the slaves. The evils of which slaves complain are the inevitable consequences of slavery itself, and not the result of the moral delinquencies of slave owners and masters. No attack upon the property rights of the capitalists can be made through other than political channels. The class struggle is purely a political struggle. To gain control of the capitalist state is the goal aimed at, so that its guns, which are now trained upon the working class, may be spiked, as against that class. The state, with its terrific repressive powers, is the sole instrument upon which the capitalists rely for the continuation of their golden regime. It is by means of these powers that the workers are withheld from all control over industry and the shackles of bondage kept riveted upon their limbs. In most countries the workers possess some semblance of a franchise, and to that extent at least they have the legal right to conquer the state for their own purposes. In countries where the workers do not possess the franchise, or where there are such limitations placed upon it as to nullify their superiority of numbers, they are justified in exercising their political power in any other manner they may choose for the attainment of the end in view. In Canada and the United States, there is nothing in the way of a working class conquest of the public powers at the polls at the present time, except that peculiar perspicacity of the slave that usually enables him to readily discern his master’s interests, while at the same time remaining blissfully blind to his own. The stability of slavery has always depended upon the ignorance and docility of the slaves and the foundation is still in fairly good repair.

What of the Future?

The golden age of Labor does not lie in the past. It is just ahead of us, and still to be, gained. It will be, and can only be, gained by and through the triumph of the enslaved working class over its constitutional enemy, the modern capitalist class. That triumph will mark the demise of property and the birth of man. It will not be attained through petty squabbles over the amount of rations that shall be measured out to slaves, or the length of time they shall tug in harness for their stipend, but by open and honorable battle against the accursed institution itself that forces the only useful members of human society into the ignominious position of slaves chained to the galley’s [sic] of capital and driven to their tasks under the lash of necessity, because, for sooth, by no other route may they obtain the sustenance they needs must have or perish. It is not a battle for wages, hours and better conditions of servitude within the sacred precincts of capitalist property. It is a fight to a finish upon the part of the working class against the master class, for the purpose of bringing the regime of capital to an end and freeing the working class from the curse that has rested upon it ever since the birth of civilization, property and slavery, that trinity of evil, that three in one, and one in three.

And what has Labor gained through its long struggle to obtain an amelioration of its conditions under slavery? We might as well be honest with ourselves and admit that Labor has gained nothing at all commensurate with the efforts put forth, even if it has gained anything at all. The conditions of the workers all down through the ages of slavery have fluctuated all the way from bad to a condition of badness that could be adequately described only through use of adjectives that would not meet with the approval of the piously inclined. They were never good, unless judged from the premises that anything is good enough for slaves. The average status of the slave of today is little if any above that of his predecessors of centuries ago. It is doubtful if his hold upon the means of warding off starvation was ever more insecure than at present. And it can never be made more secure under the rule of a master class, for the slave’s condition is at all times at the mercy of such fluctuations and changes as may occur in the slave market. These ups and downs are not altered by calling it the labor market.

What has Labor to lose by conquering the capitalist state in its own behalf! It has nothing of value to lose, for the very simple reason that it has nothing possessing that attribute. Surely even the crassest stupidity upon the part of an administration composed of the most unlettered workingmen in all the world, could not make working and living conditions any worse for the working class than they are at present. It is inconceivable that any more damnable result could possibly be reached than the conditions surrounding the workers today, and which by the way, are the very best that has been possible, of realization as a result of ten thousand years of slavery, powerfully aided during recent years by innumerable boosts and battles for higher wages, shorter hours and “better conditions.” It is positively terrifying to contemplate the awful conditions that would have prevailed had this powerful aid not been available. Either that or the whole thing is a joke. The size of the matter is that the working class of the world has nothing to lose but its chains, as Marx has tersely put it. And the sooner it loses those chains the sooner will it begin to live, instead of merely vegetating as at present.

Every effort that is made by any body of workers to ward off any of the brutal exactions of their masters and ease the harness galls of slavery, calls into immediate activity the forces of the state. The first yelp of rebellion calls into requisition the soothing policeman’s club and the mollifying court injunction. Gunmen, thugs in plain clothes and thugs in uniform quickly follow. All are garbed with the authority of the state. All of this power is utilized for the purpose of holding the slaves in quiet subjection to the merciless dictum of the labor market, the masters knowing full well that the conditions of that market are at all times such as to preclude the possibility of any dangerous gratification of the appetite of slaves for more fodder. Against a well-supplied, and more especially an over-supplied market, no movement for increased prices can prevail. That is the chronic condition of the labor market, in spite of all pretensions to the contrary notwithstanding. And for that reason wages cannot be forced up. So long as workers will insist upon remaining slaves, they must submit to the conditions that slavery imposes upon them. As long as they do so insist, their protests against the logical results of slavery sink to the level of puling impudence.

To seize the reins of public power in their own behalf becomes the mission of the workers. It becomes a class shibboleth and a class fight. The downfall of capitalist property and the uprise of Labor to the supreme command of the production of wealth in behalf of the working class, will destroy the world’s market, that sink of iniquity into which slaves and their products are now poured, and turn those products to the comfort and use of those whose labors bring them forth. The erstwhile slaves will be transformed into free men and women, free because they are no longer ruled and robbed. To accomplish that result requires the best efforts of the working class, and it is well worth the price. Whatever is worth having in this world is well worth the taking, no matter what the cost. Without liberty all is lost and life is not worth living. The history of the last ten thousand years is but the history of a hideous nightmare to the working class. The chains of slavery have been continually upon their limbs. They have not lived, they have merely died lingering deaths. Millions are even now being ground ruthlessly and recklessly into profit in the industrial torture chambers of modern slavery in order that a few already hog-fat capitalists may still further increase their fat. And the only rainbow of promise upon the social horizon presaging the coming of a better day is seen in the slowly but surely awakening consciousness of the workers to the hideous wrongs that slavery has heaped upon them; and their stubborn determination to wipe it out. It is a cause that must eventually enlist the energies of every worthy member of the working class. To enlist under its banner for the very culmination of the long drawn out battle for human freedom, is a duty that every slave who loathes his chains, should hail as a blessed privilege. In the words of a good Canadian comrade: “What grander, loftier motive could stir the heart; inspire the brain; nerve the arm; or touch as with a live coal from liberty’s altar the lips, than to do all and dare all in this glorious struggle.”