On the World Situation 1919

This is an abridged version of a series of two essay-length articles by Kingsley that he published in the Labor Star in February 1919 and that he indicated would subsequently be published in pamphlet form. In some ways, it anticipates some of the arguments made in Karl Polanyi’s 1944 masterpiece, The Great Transformation. There is no evidence that the pamphlet ever appeared.

A Size-Up of the World Situation—The Result of the War

(This Series of Articles Will Be Issued in Pamphlet Form as Soon as Concluded.—Editor Labor Star.)

The feudal survival of Central Europe has fallen. Capitalism stands triumphant over its fallen foe. The absolutism of open brutality has been broken; the absolutism of cant and hypocrisy is now in the saddle. But its reign promises to be short, for the Morning Star of Labor is rising red in the east, proclaiming the approach of Freedom’s dawn. The Red Spectre that has long disturbed the dreams of king ruffians; has sorely affrighted political clowns and diplomatic mountebanks and terrorised the bargain-hunting bourgeoisie, is looming ever more threateningly in the foreground. The proletarian hosts, awakening to consciousness, are rising in every land. The Red Flag of human brotherhood is flung defiantly to the breeze and with the songs of revolution upon their lips ever increasing millions are marching beneath its folds, to the overthrow of the ruling class state; to the release of its victims from the thralldom of exploitation and torture; to the ending of the long, dark night of Slavery and the ushering in of Freedom’s morning.

With the signing of the armistice by the Central Powers the real trouble of the ruling class the world over begins. The social atmosphere is already surcharged with the electricity of the coming storm that shall wreck this slave civilization and sweep its ruins into oblivion. The gathering of the hungry vultures of exploitation and its aftermath of trade, commerce and finance, at the victor’s banquet board to invoice the assets and apportion the plunder, will not calm the storm, but increase its fury. The disbanding of armies and the incitement of an ignorant soldiery and an equally ignorant citizenry to deeds of violence against those who raise their voices against tyranny, oppression and murderous brutality, will not exorcise the ghost of retribution that persistently camps upon the trail of the callous and bloodthirsty class that still rules and robs the world. The frantic lying of the scurrilous press of the ruling class; the unblushing hypocrisy and deceit of its alleged statesmen and diplomats; the canting sophistry and hollow prayers of its priests; the utterly false teachings of its professors; the deliberate swindling of its economists and financiers, and, on top of it all, the ruthless use of the military and police powers of the ruling class State, will not still the furious elements nor bring peace to the troubled waters.

Nothing in the history of governments has been more unprincipled, impudent, vicious and intentionally destructive of all human liberty, than the orders-in-council, military service acts, war time election acts, espionage acts, and other similarly sinister federal edicts promulgated by the self-touted democracies of this western hemisphere since the breaking out of the ruling class family row in Europe in 1914. Never were more deadly blows struck at democracy. Never were more complete and sweeping repudiations of all liberty and democracy registered among nations. Not even in the black and bloody history of the British Isles—and candor compels the admission that it has been black and bloody enough—has anything ever been recorded to equal in infamy the “espionage act” in the U.S., or the “orders-in-council” wiping out and destroying the freedom of speech and press in Canada. The banning of scientific literature, much of which has been long and universally acknowledged to be of the utmost value, is a distinction in intellectual bankruptcy and vulgar reaction without other justification, that has been left to the brilliant statesmen at Ottawa, who hold their high office by virtue of their deliberately concocted “War Time Election Act,” and not by the freely expressed will of the Canadian electorate. It is but fair to acknowledge that even the unscrupulous and brutal kaiser of Germany and his autocratic school of “kultur,” never put anything over that was any more viciously criminal and destructive of all liberty and democracy, than have our own precious political tools of the ruling class. In that, as in most everything else, this western continent may justly lay claim to being in the lead.

What a grand and harmonious chorus of deliberate lying is now rising full-throated from the kept-press prostitutes of our rulers and masters, in regard to world events, more especially as they appertain to the actions of the enslaved working class of the earth. Alongside of such achievements old Ananias himself belongs in the George Washington class of falsifiers. It is doubtful, it is much more than doubtful, if a single word of truth in regard to the so-called European Bolsheviki has intentionally found its way into the columns of the lying press of capitalism, since the Russian Revolution occurred. Although the term “Bolsheviki” means nothing more dangerous and dreadful than “majority,” and has been adopted to signify the majority faction in the Socialist movement of Russia, it has been magnified and distorted into a word of terror by the defenders and stool pigeons of the ruling class, and is especially used to arouse the prejudice and incite the ignorance of the unthinking mob to deeds of violence against those who battle against autocracy, tyranny and oppression, and on behalf of real democracy, and freedom. In loyal response to the incitement ignorant blackguards and cowardly ruffians answer the call and are acclaimed as heroic souls who spontaneously rose in defense of king and country and chastised the seditious. Any brutality and infamy may be safely pulled off at a moment’s notice, provided it be done in the name of patriotism and its victims be accused of “sedition.”

In spite of all efforts of the apologists and defenders of the present order, to justify its existence and bolster up its regime of slavery and rapine, its perpetuation becomes more and more impossible. It becomes more and more unsteady upon its legs. No sooner is the bloody deluge of war halted by an armistice and the certainty of peace assured, than there sets in a veritable financial and commercial delirium tremens that threatens to culminate in an industrial collapse, and bring our boasted civilization tumbling in ruins about our ears. Even the greatest financiers stand appalled at the impending bankruptcy of the capitalist world. The accursed thing that has grown from the shackling of the first slave and the rise of the first master, to the stupendous world-dominating and world-terrifying force that now so sorely afflicts the earth; the slave civilisation that has made of the earth a shambles and a torture chamber for the last ten thousand years, has now become a veritable Frankenstein Monster, that is destined to destroy its creator by tumbling in one common ruin both the ruling class and its enginery of exploitation, slaughter and rapine.

Turn which way they will the rulers of all lands are faced with overwhelming disaster. They can neither maintain great standing armies nor yet disband them. To maintain them spells the swift completion of the bankruptcy that is already imminent; to disband them brings immediately in its train the greatest industrial collapse imaginable with its accompaniment of huge armies of unemployed, that are almost as costly and far more dangerous than armies of war. In either case bankruptcy and collapse will quickly ensue. The liquidation of slavery is inevitable; the maudlin and meaningless talk about “reconstruction”; the utterly impossible speculations about huge indemnities to be collected from enemies that are already bankrupt; the blind fury of the military maniacs and the insipid vacuity of the utterances of the alleged statesmen and ridiculous diplomats of these glorious days, heralds to the world that this slave civilisation is already on the rocks of adversity and pounding to pieces under stress of a storm it can not weather. As the rotten old hulk has neither chart, compass nor rudder, and the crew can neither navigate nor swim, small wonder that signals of distress are being sent up and weird calls for help are heard.

What is slavery? It is that social condition wherein one part of the population is robbed of that which it produces, by the other part of the population. Chattel slavery, feudalism, and the present so-called system of “free labor,” are identical in that one respect. Under each the producers of wealth were robbed by their masters. Nothing was left to the producers beyond just sufficient upon the average to keep them in working condition. The slave was the cornerstone of civilisation down to the collapse of the Roman Empire. Feudalism rose from the ruins of that Empire, and slavery was its cornerstone. The slave was termed a serf. Capitalism was born from the loins of feudalism, and the slave was, and still is, its cornerstone. The slave is now termed a free laborer or an independent producer, but he is none the less a slave. He is more completely and ruthlessly exploited than ever was chattel slave or feudal serf, for the gigantic industrialism of this age represents the very apex of the development of human slavery, the highest achievement in the exploitation of slaves for the profit and glory of their owners and masters. It represents the utmost that it has been possible to attain during the ten thousand or more years of the evolution of human slavery from its primitive beginnings to its now well nigh perfect state.

What is freedom? It is the opposite of slavery. It is that social condition wherein there is neither exploiter nor exploited; where there is neither robber nor robbed. It is the complete negation of all that exists under this civilisation. It is the message of the Revolution. And that message will be delivered.

Capitalist Civilization

If we are to believe what the spokesmen and apostles of the present order tell us, civilization 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 the 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. Now, if it be true that this glorious civilization 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.

Capitalist civilisation is the third stage in the evolution of human slavery, that form of human society 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, just like a horse, an ass, or an ox. For thousands of years that type of slavery and the civilization 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.

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, out between the downfall of the old and the birth of the new a considerable period elapsed, 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 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 civilization 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 civilization 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 bloodfest is pure nonsense, but they did at last find the requisite stranglehold to prevent the wicked parent from destroying its virtuous offspring.

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 achievement 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 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 to acquire during the last hundred centuries 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 gaily 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 continent. 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.

Wealth Production under Capitalism

The so-called wealth of the world today is estimated in figures that are staggering in their magnitude. It is a common boast that the power to produce wealth has been multiplied, many times within the last couple of centuries and that as compared to our forefathers of long ago we are infinitely better off in so far as obtaining the necessary things of life is concerned. In fact the history of the past, and more especially that of the last few centuries, is commonly spoken of by those who pass for the economic wiseacres of our time, as the story of the uplift of the human race from the penury of slow and laborious production of the things of life by the primitive methods once in vogue, to that lofty pinnacle of affluence that has now been reached through the advent of power-driven machinery and socially-organised labor into the productive processes. And, according to the wise ones, as the present capitalist system of property in slaves and driving of these slaves in production for the sole purpose of bringing gain into their owners and masters, the capitalists, grew out of the preceding, or feudal system of slavery, it logically follows that the next succeeding order of society must likewise grow out of the present one and carry on the glorious work of evolution and uplift of the race to still higher planes of civilization. It is particularly noticeable that almost without exception, if not entirely so, the advanced thinkers of the world along economic lines, look upon chattel slavery, feudalism and capitalism merely as evolutionary stages in the growth and development of the human race from the so-called savagery and barbarism of the past, to something infinitely higher and better in the perhaps dim beyond, and whether we term it Socialism or “Bolshevism” it must be based upon the method of production in vogue today, i.e. the giant industrialism of the capitalist regime. Lenine, the present head of the Russian Soviet Republic, has so stated the case quite recently, and no objection thereto has yet been heard.

There is one weakness that is universal among the sons of men, and that is to accept the average plausible statement as the gospel truth, and having learned to parrot it nicely, proceed to promulgate it as an indisputable fact. We are altogether too prone to parrot the conclusions of others rather than to be put to the bother of doing a little thinking on our own account. But however, if we do thus fall into error and such error has eventually been disclosed to us either through our own efforts or by that of others, it is our first duty to acknowledge our mistakes and be henceforth more careful where we tread. He who takes the precaution to weigh most carefully the premise and conclusions of others before accepting them, will stand a much better chance of not getting lost in the fog and confusion that blind ignorance often stirs up around matters and problems that are in themselves quite simple.

Chattel slavery, feudalism and capitalism are, no doubt steps or stages of evolution, but it is the evolution of human slavery from the crude and simple to the efficient and complex. There is no clear connection between the two former stages, other than that they are in essence alike. As has already been mentioned, the one did not issue from the womb of its predecessor, but rose from its ruins and ashes at a considerable period after its dissolution. Capitalism, however, is the direct and legitimate child of feudalism, its foundations were laid in the bosom of the parent and the child came forth in due course and has carried forward the development of human slavery to what appears to be the very zenith of its growth and power. But that the evolution of slavery has anything to do with the attainment of freedom, except that it may sometime crumble to ruin because it can evolve no farther, as was evidently the case with the ancient slavery of Roman days, or be destroyed by a slave revolt and thus enable the race to regain its ancient freedom, is so ridiculous as to scarce be a matter for discussion. That a society of free people, call it Socialism or what we will, can be based upon the methods and mechanism of production that have been designed and brought into being solely for the purpose of exploiting slaves and erecting a ruling class empire of material substance out of the plunder, is, to say the least, a conception bordering upon the grotesque. Under any form of society based upon the exploitation of robbery of the wealth producers, every institution, whether economic, political, spiritual or educational must have for its life principle the same motive and purpose of that from which it springs. The method of industry must be made to conform to that purpose. Nothing which could in any manner lessen the slavery of its exploited victims and, thereby, enlarge their freedom, could be for a moment incorporated into the mechanism, methods, and institutions of such a civilization, for to do so would be equivalent to allowing that which would eventually nullify the very purpose of such a civilization and destroy it. Institutions, methods and mechanism of industry calculated to serve the purposes of a ruling class, cannot be made to conserve the interests of a society of free men. Slavery and freedom are direct opposites. The one is the complete denial and negation of the other. Consequently, the institutions, of whatever character, the methods of industry, the very mechanism thereof, the morals, the ethics of the one, must be an equally complete denial and abnegation of the institutions, methods of industry, the morals and the ethics of the other.

Every institution in ruling class civilization, as well as that of civilization itself, is a complete denial of all liberty upon the part of the wealth producers of the world. Every institution, whether it be government itself, that Institution into which all others merge, or those of power subsidiary thereto, is a complete denial of freedom and an emphatic affirmation of human slavery as the corner stone upon which they all rest. And this is no less true of the method and machinery of capitalist industry than of any of the balance of the paraphernalia of the grand process of ruling and robbing slaves. In every sense of the term wealth production under the present capitalist regime is production carried on by enslaved human beings for the enrichment, and aggrandizement of rulers and masters. Nothing is or can be produced under such a regime that does not in some manner conserve the interests of those rulers and masters and add to their power over their victims, the slaves. If perchance something, along educational lines for instance, does surreptitiously creep in, it is soon expelled by the censor. Not a mechanical device has been invented, adopted and incorporated into the industrial and murder mechanism of ruling class society since its birth, that did not add to the power of rulers and intensify the slavery and misery of their exploited victims. It has evidently been the mission of the capitalist era to bring the development of slaves by machinery to its highest possible stage of development. Let our revolutionists, who expect to base their Socialism upon the gigantic industrialism of today, not overlook the fact that this industrialism, with all of its powerful and complicated machinery and methods, has been designed from its very incipiency for the specific purpose of exploiting slaves, and not for the purpose of emancipating them from their chains.

Production of Essential Things

The essential things of life, those things which are actually requisite to the comfort and welfare of every human being, and which must be forthcoming before the production and enjoyment of superfluous things may or can be realized, do not really constitute a very lengthy list. Food, clothing, housing, household utensils and furniture and the tools and animals requisite for their maintenance pretty well cover the list. With the knowledge long since acquired by the human race of how to domesticate, breed and care for the useful animate, till the soil and convert its products into articles of domestic use, and with a suitable allotment of land upon which to operate, the matter of providing an ample and healthful living for the average family would be an extremely simple and easy matter, if it could be done without the family being compelled to surrender any part of its products to others who take no part in the production thereof, in other words, if the production of the essential things of life was carried on solely for the purpose of providing the producers thereof with those essential things, all that is or can properly be implied by the term human freedom would be realized. The freedom enjoyed by our primitive savage and barbaric ancestors, before the glorious institution of slavery was born, consisted solely of freedom from exploitation, which is but a polite way of saying, freedom from being robbed. Exploitation and robbery are synonymous terms, but the former is less shocking to the ears of the class that exists only by ruling and robbing slaves.

Now there is something that is strikingly peculiar to the production of the essential things of life, that seems to have been overlooked by the average student and observer of things economic, and that is, that there has been but little if any improvement in the production of such essentials during the last five hundred or more years. Of course the surface skimmer will immediately be thrown into high dudgeon at the assertion, but let him calm himself for a moment and make at least a cursory examination of the facts before passing judgment as to the sanity or otherwise of he who makes the assertion. It is a fact easily of demonstration that horses, cattle, sheep, hogs, poultry, vegetables, fruits, etc., are not and cannot be raised by machinery. It is also a fact that the production of wheat oats, rye, barley, corn, buckwheat, cotton, wool, leather, etc., is expedited only to an insignificant extent through the application of machinery to the productive process, and it can be clearly proven beyond all reasonable doubt that with the application of machinery, the cost of production is increased rather than lessened. If the production of these essentials was carried on for use instead of for the present ruling class purpose, the use of complicated and costly machinery would be absolutely barred because of the tremendously increased cost of production that would result therefrom.

A pound of anything like good woolen yarn will cost in Vancouver today from three to four dollars, and a yard of men’s suitings of first quality will cost close up to ten dollars. Just what the producer of wool got for his product the past season is carefully hidden from view, but it is a safe bet that he did not average fifty cents per lb. And yet the old time weaver with hand card, spinning wheel and loom, would have soon accumulated a fortune could he have gotten but one quarter of the difference between fifty cents and ten dollars for converting each pound of wool into a yard of cloth. It is no doubt true that a modern textile mill can turn out a much greater quantity of cloth in a given length of time with a given number of employees than could be turned out by a similar number of hand spinners and weavers, but it should not be forgotten that the present method of producing cloth and other things entails the services of a vast number of slaves outside of those directly employed in the cloth mills and other factories. A vast number are involved in the making of the machinery and the transportation and handling incidental to the factory processes. If all the labor that is involved in the making of cloth is counted in it would no doubt be made plain why the cost per yard is greater than it was in the days when its production was merely a hand process. At least in so far as the production of the essential things of life are concerned the introduction of machinery into the process has had the opposite effect to that of economy.

It is a perfectly safe conclusion that there has as yet been no way devised by man whereby the essential things of life; food, clothing, shelter, etc. can be more easily and cheaply obtained by the producer than by confining himself to the production of that which is necessary to satisfy his own needs and that of his family, and doing so by the use of only such tools and implements as he may be able to operate with his own hands. At no period in human history has the producer so easily supplied himself with these essentials as he did before Slavery was born and machinery invented. While it is true that a man could dig up the ground and plant potatoes to better advantage with a spade and hoe than he could with a sharp stick, it is by no means true that he could still further improve upon his methods by equipping himself with a steam plow and a high power potato planter, that is if his purpose was to raise spuds for his own use. It would cost far more labor to thus equip himself than it would to raise all the potatoes he would require during a lifetime. And so it is with all other essential production. The amount of labor required, that is provided the laborer be not robbed, in order to produce all the essential things for himself and family is so small, that he can ill afford to expend a greater amount of labor in providing himself with tools and machines that can only make his task the harder. Just who invented the term “labor saving” for the machines of capitalist exploitation is not known, but he at least must have possessed a certain sense of humor. He evidently knew the peculiar psychology of the slave, and fully realizing his overmastering propensity to absolutely believe the impossible and the false, rather that [sic] the possible and the true, our inventor dubbed his contraption a “labor saver” which it is not, rather than a labor waster which it usually is. The real purpose of machinery and the part it plays in the capitalist empire of plunder, magnificence and slaughter, is not generally understood.

Interpretation of the World Situation

(This Concludes a Series of Articles Which Will Be Reproduced in Pamphlet Form at an Early Date—Editor Star.)

The Supreme Illusion

The last century and a half has marked far greater strides in the evolution of human slavery than witnessed by all of the preceding centuries since that delectable conception became the cornerstone of the so-called social structure. With the invention of the steam engine, the spinning and weaving machinery, etc., during the latter half of the eighteenth century, a vista of illimitable possibilities was opened to the delighted vision of the slave masters of the world, and the realization of an empire of power and magnificence beyond their wildest dreams announced its swift approach. Instead of their previous petty and narrow empires, confined to more or less circumscribed limits, the whole earth was to be speedily laid at their feet and every human being thereon compelled to pay them tribute. The means of accomplishing this had been discovered. The magic key that was to unlock the most gigantic treasure chest of all time had been found. The means whereby an ever increasing number of slaves could be released from the production of essential things of life and turned to the upbuilding of such a ruling class empire as the world never saw before; an empire embellished with pyramids of human achievement alongside of which the stone piles of ancient Egypt would appear like unto the mudhouses of little children in comparison; an empire that would bring misery and degradation to the uttermost parts of the earth and eventually spread pestilence, death and destruction broadcast by the bloody hand of war, upon a scale of magnificence and prodigality such as the world had never known before. And the splendid possibilities opened to the ruling class of the world by the fortunate discovery of how to harness the forces of nature to do the bidding of slave masters and rulers has been taken advantage of to the utmost. The mightiest and most potent slavery the world has ever known has been brought to its grand culmination in the most prodigal display of blood spilling and human slaughter imaginable. In war as well as in industry the factory process is complete and at least in the noble art of human butchery and devastation it must be acknowledged that the machine has brought about a tremendous economy over the clumsy and primitive tools and methods of the slave civilization of long ago. And no doubt this splendid development has brought great joy to the rulers and masters of all lands. The slaves also appear to take quite kindly to the improved method of killing each other.

There is no more food produced now per inhabitant of the globe than there was before a mechanical device was introduced into the processes of agriculture. It is doubtful it is more than doubtful, if any less human labor is required to produce the food, clothing and shelter requisite for the comfort and well-being of all, than was the case before machinery was invented. In fact it is a matter capable of proof that in so far as the actually essential things of life are concerned there has as yet been no method discovered whereby they can be more easily obtained by the producers thereof, than by the simple and so-called primitive tools and methods in vogue 500 years ago. As a matter of fact it has never cost the wealth producers of the earth so dearly in labor to feed, clothe and shelter themselves as it does now. Never did it require so many day’s [sic] labor per year upon the part of a workman to provide himself and family with bread as now; never did it cost him so much labor to clothe his family as now; never did he have to work harder and longer in order to make a living than in these glorious days when it is alleged that the productive power of labor has been tremendously increased, because of the introduction of power driven machinery into the productive processes.

It would seem that the first thing that should occur to us would be, that, given a civilization based upon the enslavement of the producers, nothing could be introduced into such a civilization and incorporated into its very being, unless it in some manner conserved and furthered the basic principle of that civilization. Civilization spells human slavery. The period known as the civilized period is that which began with the introduction of human slavery and has continued down to the present. There has been nothing devised by man and incorporated into this civilization that did not directly conserve the interests and requirements of the ruling class. If it could in any manner be utilized to relieve the slavery imposed upon those over whom rule was exercised, it could not, and most certainly would not be tolerated. No improvement of the tools whereby slaves have produced wealth was ever yet devised and adopted, if the slightest benefit could possibly accrue to the slaves thereby. All there is to evolution is growth and development to a higher form of life, for that which is under consideration. The industrial evolution—or revolution—that has occurred since slavery was born, has been put [sic—but] a part of the evolution of that slavery from its primitive beginnings to its present highly perfected state.

In regard to the essential things of life there is a limit beyond which production cannot go without incurring an expense and waste that soon reaches prohibitive proportions. For instance in the matter of food, the amount grown in one year is only calculated to last until the following year’s crop comes in. To produce sufficient in one season to last for several years would only result in loss through deterioration and the expense and risk attendant upon storing and caring for such stocks. The greater the quantity thus stored up for future requirements, the greater the added cost entailed. The ultimate of economy lies in providing a quantity that is safely sufficient to carry over until the next crop comes in. The same rule holds good in regard to clothing, housing, and in fact all other of the essential things of life. The world’s yearly output of these essential things of life is never above the requirements of the population for a similar period. As far as the “accumulation of wealth” is concerned it at least does not include the essential things of life, for no such accumulation is at all possible. It may be classed along with all other similar fables, such, for instance, as that equally absurd yarn about getting rich through saving. To sum it up the production of each year is used up within a corresponding period.

When it comes to the production, however, of those things that measure the wealth and magnificence of the ruling class, it is a different story. To this sort of production there is no limit except the capacity of its army of slaves. And the increasing of the capacity, or power, of slaves to produce ruling class requirements, is the sole function of the gigantic power driven machinery of industry that has been conjured forth by the capitalist successors of the feudal lords of old. In the ancient chattel slave days it required the labor of a hundred captive Jews for 20 years to build a single pyramid upon the banks of the Nile for their brutal rulers. The slaves of these days, armed with the mechanical contrivances that have been designated for the purpose of exploitation, can turn out far greater pyramids in endless profusion, almost in the twinkling of an eye. But one glance at the myriad of cities, great cities and cities small, with their miles upon miles of streets lined with shops, warehouses, factories, mills, foundries, banks, sky scraper office buildings, spiritual dope shops, brain embalming institutions, bawdy houses, prisons, barracks, reformatories, court houses, street railways, telephones, water works, sewers, scavenger carts, and all that is implied therein and connected therewith, and at least some idea may be gained of the magnitude of labor that is expended in these days building pyramids that are no less useful nor more ornamental than the pyramids built by the slaves of ancient Egypt. For let it be known to all men that nothing is done in these great cities, these pestholes of human slavery, that aids in any manner in bringing forth the essential things of life. Not a thing is done in these cities that lessens the burden of toil upon the slaves either of city or country, but on the contrary these are entirely builded at the expense of those slaves and they conserve no other purpose than that of rulers and masters. True it is that cities were builded before the age of machinery arrived, but the building of them was an infinitely slower process. They were built by slaves who had not yet been armed with highly developed and powerful tools devised in the interest of their masters and especially designed to multiply the productivity of their labor. Now these great cities spring up like “a mushroom in the night.” Such mighty achievements were never known until down within the last century or so, but all of these great achievements are great to the ruling class alone. To the slaves the building and maintenance of them is but a long drawn out agony, a veritable nightmare of horror. There is no great city that is not a reeking cesspool of moral degradation and vice. They poison and pollute the social atmosphere, so that not even the most remote districts escape the evil results. Their very existence is unthinkable except as part of the phenomena of human slavery.

The transportation system, the ramifications of which reach even to the uttermost parts of the earth, affords another striking illustration of the part that machinery plays in the world wide game of plundering slaves and rearing an empire of ruling class magnificence out of that plunder. The pulse of every slave in the land beats the quicker at the sight of a train loaded with rich products of our time rushing with the speed of lightning across the land, or of a mighty ship plowing the seas rich freighted with wares and merchandise of trade. And it never occurs to any one of them that the sole purpose of railways and ships, the sole purpose of the entire world transportation system in fact, is that of taking away from the producers that which they produce, and never under any circumstances returning anything to them unless it be something that is imperatively necessary so that they can produce still further quantities of wealth to be despoiled of. Whether a car or ship is loaded or otherwise always determines which way it is going. If loaded it is going away from the slaves who produced that with which it is loaded; if empty it is always returning for another load.

Another thing might be mentioned that should throw at least some light upon the motive that prompted the introduction of railways and ships into this civilization that many look upon as something delightfully grand and uplifting. All transportation schemes and enterprises originate in the cities. The cities produce practically nothing that the country districts need or can use. The country, however, does produce what the ruling class of the city must have, not only for its own sustenance but for the sustenance of the slaves upon whom it depends for the rearing and maintaining of its empire of plunder and magnificence. City workers almost in their entirety are engaged in ruling class service other than the production of the essential things of life. All such production is purely parasitical. Just as the ruling class is parasitical so it is all of that vast bunch of slaves in its service, who in no manner aid in the production of the essential things of life. The slaves of the country districts, they who produce all of the agricultural products, the grain, meat, fruit, vegetables, wool, flax, cotton, leather, building material, ores, etc., that constitute the essential things, are compelled to feed the whole lot. And that they get nothing for it goes without saying. As they produce all the food they surely cannot be paid in food, and everybody knows that they do not get paid in sky scrapers and other city buildings, in railways, rolling mills, canals, battleships, submarines, or any other ruling class junk. As the seat of ruling class power is in the cities and the cities produce nothing in the way of food, etc., it should be easily seen that there is every reason why all kinds of schemes should spring up in the city that would be calculated to bring the products of the country within reach of the city dwellers. Whenever any scheme is sprung it is a safe rule to follow, before investing in or approving of it, to find out from whence it originates. If it is a city scheme let the denizens of the country districts look out that they do not get stung. The reader may have noticed that all kinds of schemes of “reconstruction” and adjustment are now being touted in the cities. We may rest assured that whatever may be suggested will not be calculated to militate against those interests that are invariably centred in the cities.

The enormous significance of this ruling class production—the production of things that are nonessential to the wealth producers themselves—is little realized by the average person, including even those who pose as authorities upon the matter of economics. And, there are none so ignorant as the professional economists of the ruling class. But in all of the statistics of wealth production furnished by and through the official channels of ruling class governments, there runs a perfectly plain story of the magnitude of the robbery perpetrated upon the wealth producers under the present regime of gigantic industrial production. And the story is so plainly written that it would seem that even a school boy ought not to fail to understand it. For instance the U.S. government is authority for the statement that there was mined in that country last year nearly seven hundred million tons of coal. Now if that means anything it is that about seven tons per head of population was mined during the year, or close to thirty-five tons per family. At least half, and probably more than half, of the people of that country never use a pound of coal in their lives. And it is a safe presumption that the balance do not use an average of thirty-five tons in each decade, and even they who do use coal for fuel purposes only do so because they are principally cooped up in cities and compelled to do so. At any rate we will be safe in assuming that thirty-five tons per family, counting all the families in the land, is not used up in a whole generation. And what is more not one-half of that amount could be used up for really essential purposes. The fact of it is that nearly all of that huge production of coal is used solely for ruling class purposes and not for any purpose that is essential to the comfort and welfare of the producers of wealth. It is used for the upbuilding and upkeep of the ruling class establishment of pomp, magnificence and power. The most of that coal production, as well as all the rest of the nonessential production of capitalism during the last four years has been utilized for the glorious purpose of staging the most gorgeous display of ruling class ferocity and blood lust that the world ever saw, and incidentally the grandest wholesale slaughter of slaves yet recorded in history.

The same authority asserts that the production of iron in the United States for the same year period was seventy-five million tons. This would be approximately three-fourths of a ton for every head of population, or about four and a half tons per family. It would be next to impossible for a family to use up one ton of iron in a whole generation if it were used only for really essential purposes, that is for such tools and utensils as would be required to equip and conduct the family establishment and its necessary operations. Yet this enormous amount of iron was produced in one year and, presumably, it was mostly used for the eminently laudable purpose of making the world safe for ruling class democracy by killing several million slaves and other animals. Neither the amount of coal or iron mentioned could have been produced in that length of time had it not been for the machinery that has been brought into existence to serve the interest of the class that rules and robs, and the highest efficiency of which is exemplified in war, slaughter and devastation. In times of peace—only there are no such times under class rule, and what is more there can be none—practically all of this huge production of coal, iron, copper, oil, lumber, chemicals and a thousand other things that contribute to ruling class power and glory, are lavishly poured out for the enlargement of the empire of trade, commerce and finance, and in preparing for war. In time of war, which is practically all of the time, a tremendously large part of it goes into the upbuilding of armies, navies and all that that implies as against the day when freedom and democracy shall be imperilled at the hands of wicked autocracy and other evil shapes. And now it has so become that even the noble art of slaughter is no longer a hand process as of old. The art of human butchery has been so brought to a high efficiency that is carried on almost exclusively by machinery. Being really and truly a ruling class enterprise it is indeed meek and proper that it should keep abreast of, or even ahead of, all other branches or ruling class industry. There is every reason why it should become the most highly developed and powerful part of the great factory system, a distinction that it has long since gained for war, glorious war, is the crowning achievement of the ruling class regime, an achievement beyond which it cannot go. It is the supreme attainment, and to hear the disciples, the lickspittles, the apologists, the pimps, the defenders and the hypocrites of ruling class blood-lust and ferocity prate about “last wars” and “war to end war” is enough to make a mule laugh, let alone a horse. A slave civilization inevitably breeds war, for the enslavement of one man or set of men by another or others, is in itself an act of war. It is a war of masters against slaves, and no matter whether such a civilization exists for one year or ten thousand it must inevitably express itself in continuous turmoil, trouble and conflict. There can be no peace. Liberty cannot exist. Democracy can be nothing but a joke.

And what did these agricultural workers get for all this? The answer is easy. They got nothing. That is all that exploited people ever get for what they do. There is a very simple reason for this. The producers of wealth produce all there is wherewith anything like payment can be made. As this wealth is taken from them it does not require a set of baby’s building blocks to clearly demonstrate that they can receive no payment, for there is nothing to pay with. There being nothing wherewith to make payment it stands to reason that if the wealth is taken from those who bring it forth by their labor, it can only be taken for nothing. In the olden time it used to be taken away by the persuasive influence of a promise to pay that which is impossible of payment, because there is nothing on earth nor in the waters under the earth wherewith to make payment.

As has already been said there is no more of the essential things of life produced now, according to the population, than was the case 500 or a thousand years ago. There has been very little if any improvement in the method of production of these essential things. But there has been a very decided improvement in the method of production of the ruling class things of empire and power. The simple and easily acquired hand tools of freedom, have been transformed into the powerful, complicated and costly machinery of a highly developed human slavery, and the task of producing the essential things of life has, gradually been forced upon a decreased percentage of the population by compelling them to work all of their time when their primitive and free forebears did not work at all, while another ever increasing percentage of the population has been turned to the production of purely ruling class things, things neither essential or of any use whatever to the wealth producers, but out of which an empire of vulgar magnificence and unbridled power has accrued to the rulers and masters of slaves. The tools of free men did not and could not serve the interests or satisfy the ambitions of rulers and masters. The mighty industrial machinery of the ruling class, that has so greatly multiplied the productive power of slaves in the production of ruling class requirements, can no more conserve the interest of free men and satisfy their requirements, than could the simple tools of freedom satisfy their masters and rulers.

As the great industrial mechanism of the ruling class has been developed it has gradually drawn the one-time free agriculturalists into its fatal net. Just as rapidly as they were led to imagine that the machine for reaping grain, for threshing grain, for planting seed and for cultivating the field was designed for their benefit and they adopted it, just so rapidly were they enmeshed in the gigantic web of slave production of wealth, upon the masters’ plan, and all of their one-time liberty was lost. Production for use gave way to production for profit and that profit was always the profit of the masters of the great dominant industrial mechanism of the day. Step by step the diversified agriculture of the olden time has largely given way to the production of some special crop, under the fatal lure that riches might be accumulated more speedily by that route than by any other. The less the variety of products raised by the agriculturalist the more does he become compelled to purchase from the market, and once in the clutch of that method of getting the things he needs must have or perish, the more completely is he at the mercy of the ruthless masters of exploitation and rapine. The more completely is he enslaved.

When one comes to realize that from a very few acres of decent soil and with but a few simple and easily acquired tools practically all of the essential things of life can be obtained without the expenditure of one-half the labor now required by the city and country laborer, it becomes difficult to account for the fatal illusion that possesses the minds of men, that the great machinery of production of this slave age marks a tremendous advance over the days of our forebears. And yet the fact stares us in the face that the worker now, whether in the country or the city, is compelled to work all the time in order to make his living. If the boasted mechanical achievements of the last century and a half measure any degree of human progress and the producers now have to work all of the time to make a living, how long must the worker of the olden time have been compelled to work in order to live? The fact of it is that he never did work until he was enslaved. The word “work” was not invented until the slave was shackled and then it became necessary to invent some term to describe his state of beautitude [sic]. Slaves, either biped or quadruped, work. Free animals never work. Man is an animal, and probably the most stupid of the lot.

That machinery has lightened the labor of man is the great illusion. It has been the means of perfecting his enslavement and bringing it to its supreme culmination. It need not be inferred from this that no machine could be devised that could serve the purpose of free men. Machines may be of such a simple character as to be easily made and operated by a single person and enable him to gain by their use. But the real machines that have been called into being by the master class to conserve its interests and enlarge its power, cannot be utilized by wealth producers to secure their freedom and perpetuate it, for the simple reason that such machinery practically in its entirety is designed for and used only in producing that which is absolutely useful to a ruling class only.

If this useless production could be cut out and the production of the necessary things of life be distributed, as it should be, among all the people, so that all should once more produce their own living, the day of human freedom would have returned. The long dark night of “work” would have ended. But the great illusion that machinery has improved the condition of man, or that it is easier to get a living by means of this huge, complicated and enormously costly and cumbersome mechanism than by the simpler, less costly and less cumbersome tools and methods of the freedom of long ago, must first be removed from the minds of men. It is painful to note that this fatal illusion is yet as firmly fixed in the minds of those who call themselves Socialists and rate as the most advanced thinkers of our time, as it is in the mind of the dullest wage slave that ever affirmed his freedom by bawling for a job.

Change the Ownership

The stock phrase dealing with the ownership of the modern machinery of production indulged in by the average alleged Socialist is “change the ownership so that all may enjoy the benefits of the machine.” Of course this change of ownership is to be from the capitalists to the people as a whole. Now that all sounds fairly good, but will it make any difference who owns and controls and operates an industrial machine that has been built from the ground up to conserve the interests of a band of brigands? If so how? If the purpose for which a certain part of this boasted industrial mechanism has been designed and created has been to bring forth 75,000,000 tons of iron per annum, all but one million tons of which is to be used solely for ruling class purposes, what sort of a change of ownership will be required to turn the entire output to the purposes of the new owners, the “people,” who having dumped their rulers are now busily engaged in “running the iron business?” As the iron output has previously been used chiefly for the purpose of building railways, factories, bridges, ships of war and ships of trade, cannon, rifles, bombs, shells, prisoner’s cages, skyscrapers, tunnels and a multitude of similar junk useful to the ruling class only, what things other than those already mentioned are the new owners going to turn out for the benefit of themselves and their heirs and assigns forever after?

The only sort of things that can be produced upon a gigantic scale and by the use of machinery is that which is being produced today. And that production implies a ruling class at the top and a slave at the bottom. It means powerful exploiters in the saddle of authority and miserably exploited and tortured working animals eking out a narrow existence under the lash of necessity. Either the slaves will rise, seize the reins of power, take charge of the capitalist machine of exploitation and murder, and dismantle it piece by piece and step by step, sloughing off that which is no longer essential and turning the workers hitherto employed in useless ruling class production to the production of their own essential things, or the whole establishment will soon be in collapse and all will go down in one common ruin. There must be an ultimate beyond which human slavery cannot go. Then it must perish. There are many signs upon the social horizon that indicate the end is close at hand.

The Financial Problem

If there is a greater pleasure in life than can be found in buying things cheap, it is in selling them for more than they cost. It is especially pleasant and soothing to the bourgeois soul, for it is the only way that has ever yet been discovered to get something for nothing and do it honestly. For instance if the labor power of a slave is bought for a dollar per day and the product of that labor power is sold for two dollars, the enterprising purchaser of labor power has cleared a dollar through his business sagacity, the slave has been paid for what he did, no one else has been wronged. Then again, our enterprising trader may purchase other goods than labor power and sell them for more than he paid and thereby turn more honest dollars or pennies, as the case may be. Probably the most interesting and satisfactory feature of all this buying and selling is that everything, apparently, is either paid for on the spot, or arrangements mutually satisfactory are made whereby payment will be forthcoming later on. As to the final payment, however, there seems not the slightest doubt, and because of this there is probably no word in the language of men that hath a more satisfying sound than the very word “payment.”

One of the greatest discoveries ever made by man is that of how to pay for things when there is nothing on earth wherewith to make payment, and at the same time make the recipient of such payment actually believe that payment has been rendered. This has happily been provided for by the invention and use of what is termed money. The story of money is a tale of one of the most interesting and widely prevalent superstitions that has ever fastened itself upon the mind of men.

The earliest form of exchange of which we have any knowledge consisted of the direct barter of one thing for another, but as trade spread its tentacles over an ever widening field it became more and more impossible for the owner of a given commodity who wished to acquire some other specific commodity in exchange thereof, to find an owner of the desired commodity who would be agreeable to such an exchange. It then became necessary to select some specific commodity to function as a sort of go-between in the matter of the exchange of commodities, a commodity that would be of universal acceptance for that particular purpose. Many different commodities have been used at different times and in different countries, but gold has long since become the universally accepted commodity for the purpose of exchange. All other commodities are now compared to gold in order to translate their exchange value into the monetary terms with which the various governments of the earth have endowed that particular metal.

The production of the metal, gold, at no time constitutes in value more than an infinitesimal portion of the total commodity values produced. Such being the case no argument is necessary to clearly show the utter impossibility of gold being capable of being used as a means of payment. If a million dollars’ worth of commodities were produced and sold, including say 350,000 in gold, it is manifestly apparent that the gold could not pay for what had been produced and sold. And it should not be forgotten that the gold is produced by the same enslaved labor that produces the other commodities. In itself the gold is but one commodity in an extended list of commodities. All the function it ever did play, or plays yet, in trade, commerce and exchange, is as a generally accepted means of determining the relative exchange values of commodities, itself among the number. Every time the exchange value of a commodity is translated into terms of gold, at the same time the exchange value of gold is translated into the terms of that commodity. For instance, if a barrel of flour is quoted in the market as worth $10, it is equivalent to quoting that amount of gold as worth one barrel of flour.

The products of labor enter the market in endless procession as commodities for sale and they continue to loiter or wander about as commodities until some purchaser lifts them from the market by acquiring possession for the purpose of consuming them. In the market there is a perfect babel of buying and selling, every one is trying to buy cheap and sell dear. There is haggling and trickery and cheating and swindling and every other sinful thing imaginable, but there is no honesty. In fact the market is no place for an honest man. Above the gates of the world market should be writ large the words “Abandon honesty, all ye who enter here.” The reason of it is not far to seek. In the first place goods, merchandise, commodities can not enter the market except they are first produced, and all are produced by labor. And it requires a peculiar type of labor to bring forth commodities, things for sale in a world market. It requires an enslaved, an exploited labor, to do it. The market, the trade and commerce of the world is but the means whereby the masters of slaves realize on the plunder they take from those slaves, by transmuting it into an ever extending empire of pomp and power throughout the earth. Without trade and commerce to spread their plunder and convert it into continually increasing means and power of further exploitation, even to the uttermost parts of the earth, this capitalist civilization whose boasted grandeur is based solely upon the plunder of slaves, would collapse like a house of cards.

If the workers, the slaves of modern industrialism and of the field and forest, produce all the wealth that is poured into the markets of the world, it is manifestly impossible that the producers, the enslaved workers, can receive any payment therefor. As they produce all exchange value and it is taken from them, it must be taken without payment, there being nothing outside of what they produce wherewith to make such payment. As there is nothing wherewith to make any payment to the producers of all wealth, by the same token is there nothing wherewith the trading fraternity, whose delectable function it is to dispose of the plunder, can render payment one to another when transferring this wealth from hand to hand and disposing of it. As there is nothing to pay for the wealth produced in the first place, there can be nothing with which to make any payment whatsoever at any subsequent time. The plain fact is that slaves produce wealth for their masters for nothing, and the trade and commerce of those masters is the means whereby that wealth is turned to ruling class purposes, either by being eaten up, worn out, shot away, or turned into additional capital for the purpose of extending the empire of exploitation and torture more completely over the earth.

Under the earlier forms of slavery the slaves were shackled and driven under the lash without any other pretense than that of the power to do so. It has been left for this last stage of slave civilization to cover up its loathsome tracks of rule and robbery under the lying and hypocritical pretense of payment. The slaves are taught to believe that they are paid for their misery, and the world of trade, commerce, finance, diplomacy and government seems to be as completely deluded as the slaves themselves. Either that or our statesmen, business magnates, big and little, financier, professors, preachers and all that rag-tag and bobtail intellectual horde that boosts for the ruling class and defends its crimes, are the veriest liars and hypocrites that ever went unhung. All the pretense of ruling class civilization are false, but none more completely so than the pretense that anything in the nature of wealth produced by labor is ever paid for except by the seat and misery of the enslaved workers who bring it forth. This bloody war that has been on for the last four years has been paid for in full by those who fought it and those whose labor brought forth the wherewith to carry on its glorious work. Millions died upon the battlefield and millions more have been crippled for life. Other millions worked themselves to the bone in order to keep up the murderous game. And still other countless millions have been starved and trampled under foot without mercy by the ravaging host of heroic souls bent upon murder and devastation at the behest of conscienceless rulers and military ruffians. And half the world or more has been and is still being swept by pestilence, taking deadly toll for the iniquities of ruffianly rulers and their bloody regime. Pay for the war? The bill has already been paid in full in the misery, the agony, the suffering, the death and devastation that has already been inflicted upon the sons and daughters of men, and it will be paid again and again by the agonies yet to come to the countless crippled victims of the awful holocaust and the endless train of evils that will long follow in its bloody and devastating wake. And that is all the payment that can ever be made.

Outside of the very limited amount of so-called metal money in existence all money is merely an unredeemable promise to pay. Metal money such as gold, silver, copper, etc., carries the commodity value of the metal of which it is made, but even this exchange value in no case functions as payment. It is merely an equivalent in exchange for some other commodity. In spite of all the efforts of rulers and their financial sharps to endow gold and silver with supernatural and mysterious powers, they still remain in the category of simple and ordinary commodities, just like iron, flour, leather or any other. Paper money is nothing but a promise to pay, that can never be redeemed. No matter how many times it may change hands in the processes of exchange it still remains as persistently unredeemable as before, and continues serenely upon its way as an immortal falsehood. The reason that payment can not be made and the promise made good, is the same as that which first called it into being. There is nothing and there can be nothing wherewith payment can be made. Paper money carries no commodity value in exchange, for it costs next to nothing to produce it. Once issued it remains forever as a demand against such products as the slaves of a ruling class production may bring forth, of the amount indicated by the figures upon its face. It functions as a perpetual order upon the ruling class warehouse, the contents of which are so perpetually replenished, for nothing, by the toil and sweat of the enslaved producers of all wealth. It has been wisely ordained by the benign providence that presides over the destinies of the grand game of exploiting slaves and building vulgar and grandiloquent empires out of the plunder, that only sufficient money (orders on the warehouse) shall be allotted to the slaves to enable them to lift therefrom just enough food, etc., to keep them in reasonably good working condition, upon its same principle that a horse, ass or ox is allowed only the amount necessary to enable them to efficiently draw the plow or cart. The mule is also treated in the same judicious and commendable manner.

This immortal falsehood called money, this accumulation of promises to pay that can never be kept, this flimflam and subterfuge well calculated to camouflage the coarse and ruffianly art of ruling and robbing slaves with a semblance of decency and freedom, constitutes the sacrosanct capital of the world. Issued by authority of the masters of the slaves and the warehouse, as rapidly as it is issued and sent forth upon its pretended mission of “payment” it returns with equal rapidity to the source from whence it came, even as a “dog returns to his vomit,” there to be recorded to the credit of its individual owners, the industrial, commercial and financial brigands and pirates who stand supreme masters of the slave camp of ruling class civilization. All bonds, stocks, deed, debentures, loans, investments, and others paper evidences of so-called property ownership belong in the same category as paper money. They are all in the nature of orders upon the production of the future, that can never be met and can only be gotten rid of by complete repudiation.

The alleged payment of a note, bond or any other form of debt, pays nothing. It merely transfers an order upon the future from one person or persons to another or others. The debt still remains unpaid. The order upon the future still pursues the “even tenor of its way” as an immortal flimflam. The so-called payment of a note or bond, or any other obligation always sets up other obligations in its place so that the result upon the sum total of the world debt, capital, investment or money, whichever you prefer to call it, remains nil. Cheques drawn upon banks merely transfer evidence of debt from one account to another. A. draws a cheque in favor of Z. in payment for merchandise, let us say. Upon presentation of the cheque at the bank the amount called for is charged to A. and credited to the account of Z. The bank now owes Z. what it formerly owed A. There is neither more nor less wealth in existence than before and the total debt of the world remains unchanged. All financial transactions are of the same character, no matter whether they are carried out by the exchange of cheques, currency or other means of financial jugglery. The raising of the huge “Victory” and “Liberty” loans, even if it be granted that either victory or liberty could be yoked up with a pawnshop device, neither increased or decreased the sum total of the world’s debt. What the governments borrowed was debt already in existence: promises to pay that could never be met. These figures, either upon bank notes held by individuals or upon bank ledgers to the credit of individuals, were transferred to government account. Instead of the banks then owing the individuals who purchased the bonds, the governments owed such persons. Where the banks were formerly debtors to depositors and note holders, the governments assumed the obligation and the banks were released. The world’s debt had not been either increased nor lessened. The governments at once proceeds [sic] to turn loose the brave array of figures representing debt that can never be paid, by making payments for supplies in the shape of war materials, cannon food, etc., and, lo and behold! These brave figures representing wealth that has been wrung from slaves without recompense or reward, march solemnly back via the channels of exchange and once more perch with “grave and stern decorum” in orderly column upon the same old roost from which they were sent forth to do battle for “victory” and “liberty,” viz., the pages of the bank ledgers. The debt of the world is neither more nor less than before. Not an order upon the future toil and sweat of slaves has been canceled. The magnitude of the impossible is in statu quo. The greatest loans in all history have been successfully “floated” by the eminent financiers whom divine providence hath appointed to finance us and the sacred cause of “victory” and “liberty” has thus been happily advanced, as far at least as it is possible to do so by means of “bonds.” The term “floated” is used advisedly, for we are not unmindful of the fact that it is only those things that happen to be properly ballasted with specific gravity, that can be “floated” at all. The trade of financing being so very simple and so much more easily learned than hand-soling shoes or pressing pants, it is a matter of wonder why so many keen and intellectually capable men persist in learning and following those intricate and difficult trades, in preference to the comparative sinecure of merely shuffling figures upon scraps of paper and bank books. And then too, the half-soler of shoes might, through an unlucky slip of his knife, cut his thumb and thus incapacitate himself for a considerable period, or the pants-presser might spoil his customers’ breeches with too hot an iron, thereby causing at least some material loss, but the financier, the juggler of figures, might so mess up the whole lot that they could never be again properly rearranged and sorted out, and not a penny of material loss would occur, not even as much as a cut thumb would result.

If the total capital in the world at a given time amounted to let us say $1,000,000,000, and the result of the exploitation of the slaves during the next twelve months increased that capital to $1,500,000,000, that increment would represent what Marx has termed “surplus value.” The following year would register a still further increase, for it is an axiom that “capital” must bring to its owners a profit or it can not continue to function, and the world would thus be left in a terrible plight. At least that is what we are told by those who are supposed to know all about it, and who are we that dare dispute it? Now as all money, bonds, stocks, debentures, mortgages, investments, titles of ownership and paper evidences of property constituting what is termed capital, happen to all be merely evidences of debt held against the future, and debt that can never be liquidated, as has already been shown, and as all of this heretofore mysterious ruling class junk steadily increases each year in volume, it may readily be seen that the great problem forcing itself upon the so-called financial world, is not how to provide “capital” sufficient to meet all requirements, but how to prevent the complete bankruptcy of this slave civilization, through the accumulation of such an overwhelming mass of this debt (capital) that ultimately the hoax of its pretended value will expose itself to even the dullest slave that ever worshipped at the shrine of his masters. And that accumulation of debt can not be stopped or even checked, for the more highly developed becomes the art of skinning slaves and converting their hides into “surplus value,” the more rapid becomes the augmentation of capital; the greater in magnitude becomes the total of the world’s debt. Every dollar of capital, of debt expressed by the paper flimflams already enumerated, represents wealth that has been wrung from the exploitation of slaves in the past without recompense or reward. The volume of it now in existence, great though it be, measures but a tithe of that which has been squeezed from the slaves of the past, for each dollar, each lying promise, repeats over and over again the process of relieving slaves of their labor power and products, without the rude necessity of first hitting them over the head with a club. The sum total of this debt, which even great statesmen like Lloyd George and Woodrow Wilson often refer to as “our national wealth,” is the sum of the accumulated “surplus value” that ruling class cunning and brutality has realized from the wine press of slavery, since the mailed fist and the jackboot of feudalism gave way to the hypocrisy of “democracy” and the lie of payment. And the sum grows greater each year with a regularity that is, figuratively speaking, terrifying to the financiers of the world. And it is nothing but figures. Figures on bankbooks, bonds, stocks, currency, and such articles and subterfuges that pass for real wealth, in the minds of diplomats, financiers, and wise guys generally. There are schoolboys not above the age of ten, who are capable of understanding that a promise to pay a bushel of wheat, is not a bushel of wheat, and more especially if the wheat has not even been planted yet. But there are millions of adults running around loose who haven’t sense enough to know that a promise to pay, when there never was anything, is nothing now, and can never be anything to pay with, is not payment, but a d___d [damned] lie. There are millions who believe that figures representing huge amounts of wealth that have been taken from slaves in the past, without so much as by your leave, and that has long since been consumed and forgotten, are really wealth. Some there are who fancy that one who accumulates those figures to any considerable extent is guilty of accumulating wealth. But the truth is that if all those figures were wiped off the slate, and could never be resurrected, there would be just as much wealth in existence as before. The whole thing is a swindle, a hoax, a grotesque farce, a clumsy camouflage, that has long done good and deluding him into a lusty belief in his own freedom. While it is the frailest yoke ever put upon the necks of slaves, the pretense of freedom and the lie of payment has done, and is still doing, better service in holding them in docility to the torture chamber and shambles of exploitation, than any previous method known to the owners and rulers of human chattels.

The financial problem is indeed some problem when you once begin to understand it. The world’s wealth, measured in figures of debt is rapidly becoming so great that even the greatest financiers are puzzled to know how to longer successfully administer it. Everybody must admit that they have done an excellent job so far, but it may be easily possible that it will prove to be beyond even the ablest financial brains to make such an enormous mass of figures representing nothing but a material impossibility, forever continue to so comport themselves as not to disclose the fact that there is nothing behind them but nothing, and that even the realizable value of that is of most doubtful certainty, for no one can look far enough into the future to accurately determine what nothing will be worth then. At any rate it is some financial problem for those brainy financiers of the world whose mission in life is to demonstrate how a ruling class can get everything for nothing, pay everybody for everything they either do or sell when there is nothing to pay with, and at the same time amass hundreds of billions of dollars of wealth although all that is produced is consumed as fast as brought into being. Also how nations, either singly or collectively, can get rich by accumulating figures of what does not exist because it has all been consumed, and if so why are not all of the nations lately engaged in the “Fatherhood of God and Brotherhood of Man” now, actually far richer now than they were before that christian love feast broke loose? They surely never had so much figurative wealth before, but they will later on, no doubt. A great problem, that financial one. The more it is probed into the greater it becomes. That is, the greater joke it becomes, but the slave is the butt of the joke. There is little doubt about that.

—“A Size-Up of the World Situation—The Result of the War,” Labor Star (Vancouver), 6 Feb. 1919, 6, 7; “Interpretation of the World Situation,” Labor Star, 13 Feb. 1919, 2, 3, 5.

Appendix: Partial Record of E. T. Kingsley’s Public Speeches and Lectures