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Appendix
Morality is the greatest thing in the world; but paradoxical as it may seem, there is one greater thing, liberty – the liberty which is freedom to learn, interpret, live and teach the truth as it is revealed by the facts or acts of nature. Without this freedom there can be no morality, and of course no true religion, politics or civilization.
SURVIVAL OF THE FITTEST
In northern climes, the polar bear
Protects himself with fat and hair,
Where snow is deep and ice is stark,
And half the year is cold and dark;
He still survives a clime like that
By growing fur, by growing fat.
These traits, O bear, which thou transmittest
Prove the Survival of the Fittest.
To polar regions waste and wan,
Comes the encroaching race of man,
A puny, feeble, little bubber,
He has no fur, he has no blubber.
The scornful bear sat down at ease
To see the stranger starve and freeze;
But, lo! the stranger slew the bear,
And ate his fat and wore his hair;
These deeds, O Man, which thou committest
Prove the Survival of the Fittest.
In modern times the millionaire
Protects himself as did the bear:
Where Poverty and Hunger are
He counts his bullion by the car:
Where thousands perish still he thrives —
The wealth, O Croesus, thou transmittest
Proves the Survival of the Fittest.
But, lo, some people odd and funny,
Some men without a cent of money —
The simple common human race
Chose to improve their dwelling place;
They had no use for millionaires,
They calmly said the world was theirs,
They were so wise, so strong, so many,
The Millionaires? – there wasn't any.
These deeds, O Man, which thou committest
Prove the Survival of the Fittest.
– Mrs. Charlotte Stetson.
I. SCIENTIFIC SOCIALISM
The working class and the employing class have nothing in common. There can be no peace so long as hunger and want are found among millions of working people and the few, who make up the employing class, have all the good things of life.
Between these two classes a struggle must go on until the workers of the world organize as a class, take possession of the earth and the machinery of production, and abolish the wage system.
We find that the centering of management of the industries into fewer and fewer hands makes the trade unions unable to cope with the ever growing power of the employing class. The trade unions foster a state of affairs which allows one set of workers to be pitted against another set of workers in the same industry, thereby helping defeat one another in wage wars. Moreover, the trade unions aid the employing class to mislead the workers into the belief that the working class have interests in common with their employers.
These conditions can be changed and the interest of the working class upheld only by an organization formed in such a way that all its members in any one industry, or in all industries if necessary, cease work whenever a strike or lockout is on in any department thereof, thus making an injury to one an injury to all.
Instead of the conservative motto, "A fair day's wage for a fair day's work", we must inscribe on our banner the revolutionary watchword, "Abolition of the wage system".
It is the historic mission of the working class to do away with capitalism. The army of production must be organized, not only for the every-day struggle with capitalists, but also to carry on production when capitalism shall have been overthrown. By organizing industrially we are forming the structure of the new society within the shell of the old. – Preamble of the Industrial Workers of the World.
The following Synopsis of Scientific Socialism will serve both as a summary of and supplement to my little book. It is the introductory part of a catechism (a series of questions and answers) entitled "Scientific Socialism Study Course" published by Charles H. Kerr & Company, 341 East Ohio Street, Chicago, and is reprinted here by their consent, with certain changes in the interests of brevity and perspicuity. As a whole this short Study Course of only thirty small pages in large type is the greatest piece of catechetical literature of which I have any knowledge. Even the synopsis as given here contains more of the education which makes for the good of the world than all the catechisms of all the churches. The Catechism was published in 1913.
1. How do you explain the phenomena of History?
Ans.: History, from the capitalist point of view, is a record of political and intellectual changes and revolutions of so-called great men, wherein the economic causes for these acts and changes are ignored or concealed; but, from the socialist view point, history reveals a series of class struggles between an exploited wealth-producing class and an exploiting ruling class over the wealth produced.
2. What effect have "great men" had on history?
Ans.: Great men were simply ideal expressions of the hopes of some class in society that was becoming economically powerful. They formed a nucleus around which a class gathered itself in attaining economic conquests in its own interest, and in establishing social institutions in harmony with, and for the perpetuation of, such class interests. These men had to embody some vital principles from the economic conditions of their time and represent some class interest. The same men with the same ideas would not be great men under a different mode of production when the time for their ideas was not ripe.
3. What great factor is responsible for the rise of "great men?"
Ans.: The fact that the ideas of these men coincided with the class interests of some class in society that was becoming economically powerful. Therefore economic conditions must exist or be developing which find their highest expression in the ideas of such men.
4. Why do social institutions change and not remain fixed?
Ans.: Because the process of economic evolution will not permit them to remain fixed. The development and improvement of the means of production and distribution produce economic changes, therefore social institutions (the state, church, school and even the family) are forced to change to conform with changing economic conditions. These are due to evolutionary and revolutionary processes connected with the means of production and distribution.
5. What is responsible for the birth of new ideas, and do they occur to some one individual only?
Ans.: New ideas, theories and discoveries emanate from material conditions, and such conditions act upon individuals. The same idea or discovery may be brought out by different individuals independently and apart from each other. This proves that it is not great men who are responsible for material conditions, but that material conditions (modes of production and distribution) produce the men best able to marshal the facts and express the idea; usually in the interest of some class.
6. What single great idea occurred to both Darwin and Wallace independently?
Ans.: The theory of "Natural Selection" which showed that the closely allied ante-type was the parent stock from which the new form had been derived by variation.
7. What single great idea occurred to both Marx and Engels independently?
Ans.: The "Materialistic Conception of History."
8. Name the three great ideas developed by Marx and Engels which now form the bed-rock basis for the socialist philosophy.
Ans.: (1) the Materialistic Conception of History, or, the law of economic determinism, (2) the Law of Surplus Value, and (3) the Class Struggle.
9. Explain, briefly, the "materialistic conception of history."
Ans.: "In every historical epoch, the prevailing mode of economic production and exchange and the social organization necessarily following from it forms the basis upon which is built up and from which alone can be explained, the political and intellectual history of that epoch." The laws, customs, education, religion, public opinion and morals are in the long run controlled and shaped by economic conditions; or, in other words, by the dominant ruling class which the economic system of any given period forces to the front.
10. What is the most important question in life?
Ans.: The problem of securing food and shelter.
11. What bearing does this have on the materialistic conception of history?
Ans.: It gives us the only key by which we can understand the history of the past, and within limits, predict the course of future development.
12. What effect does the prevailing mode of production and exchange in any particular epoch, have on the social organization and political and intellectual history of that epoch?
Ans.: "Anything that goes to the roots of the economic structure and modifies it (the food and shelter question in life) will inevitably modify every other branch and department of human life, political, ethical, religious and moral. This makes the social question primarily an economic one and all our thought and effort should be concentrated on it."
13. Do the ideas of the ruling class, in any given epoch, correspond with the prevailing mode of economic production?
Ans.: They correspond exactly, as all connective institutions, civil, religious, legal, educational, political and domestic have been moulded in the interest of the economically dominant class who control these institutions in a manner to uphold their class interests where their ideas find expression.
14. What effect do these ideas of the ruling class have on the interests of the subject class?
Ans.: The effect is detrimental to the interests of the subject class as the different class interests conflict. Therefore the ruling class finds the institutions mentioned very useful in either persuading or forcing the so-called "lower classes" to submit to the economic conditions that are absolutely against their interest, even though they are the wealth producing class.
15. Distinguish natural environment from man-made environment.
Ans.: Natural environment which consisted of the fertility of the soil, climatic conditions, abundance of fruits, nuts, game and fish was all-important in the early stage of man's development. With the progress of civilization this nature-made environment loses its supreme importance and the man-made economic environment becomes equally important.
16. Explain, briefly, the law of Surplus Value.
Ans.: It is the difference between what the working class as a whole gets for its labor power at its value in wages, say an average of five dollars per day, for producing commodities, and what the employing class as a whole gets, say an average of twenty-five dollars, for the same commodities when sold at their value. According to this conservative estimate capital is upon the whole and in the long run robbing labor of four-fifths of the value of its productive power. Capitalism is therefore the great robber, the Beelzebub of robbers.
17. Since the economic factor is the determining factor, what does the law of Surplus Value furnish us?
Ans.: "Surplus Value is the key to the whole present economic organization of society. The end and object of capitalist society is the formation and accumulation of surplus value; or in other words, the systematic, legal robbery of the subject working class."
18. Define value and state how measured.
Ans.: Value is the average amount of human labor time socially, not individually, necessary under average, not special, conditions for the production or reproduction of commodities.
19. What determines the value of labor power?
Ans.: It is determined precisely like the value of every other commodity, i. e., by the amount of labor time socially necessary for its production or reproduction by the raising and support of children to succeed their parents as wage-earning slaves.
20. Since labor power is a commodity, what condition is it subject to?
Ans.: It is subject to the same conditions that all other commodities are subject to without regard to the fact that it is the source of all social value. The worker in whom the commodity labor power is embodied, does not get the value of the product of his labor, but only about one-fifth of it, enough to keep him in working order and reproduce more labor power in his children. If the worker received the value of the product of his labor he would receive much more than enough to keep him in working order and to raise his family. Such an economic condition would abolish all forms of surplus value or profit, also the wage system, by substituting economic and social organization in the interest of the working class. No other class could remain in existence and the class struggle would be ended.
21. In what economic system, past or present, does surplus value appear?
Ans.: It is the root of all social systems since the rise of the institution of private property, but only under the present system (capitalism) has labor power assumed the commodity form. Labor power is a commodity with a two fold character: it has a use and an exchange value. Its use value consists in its being capable of producing values over and above its own needs for sustenance and reproduction. Its exchange value consists in the amount of socially necessary labor time required for its production and reproduction.
The chattel and feudal systems of slavery were not directly concerned with the production of commodities for the profit of the masters, but rather with the producing of the necessities of life for all, masters and slaves, and the luxuries for some, the masters. That which was not produced for immediate consumption was sold, if opportunities presented themselves, and occasionally the professional traders developed, for example, the Phoenicians; but they were an exception to the rule. The same holds good for feudalism, except that during the latter stages of that system commercialism arose; but this commercialism was no feature of feudalism – it was the rising capitalism that began to unfold and assert itself.
22. Name the three great systems of economic organization upon which the structure of past history and social institutions have their basis.
Ans.: (1) Chattel slavery, (2) serfdom, or feudal slavery and (3) wage slavery.
23. Explain, briefly, how the subject class was exploited under each of these economic systems.
Ans.: 1. Under chattel slavery the laborer was a chattel (possession or property) the same as a mule or horse, and only received his "keep," that is, enough food, clothing and shelter to keep him in working order and to reproduce labor power by raising children. All he produced (use values and children) was taken by his master. The body of the slave was the property of his master. 2. Under serfdom or feudal slavery, the worker produced what was necessary to keep him in working order and to raise a family of slaves, and then the balance of his time produced use values for his feudal lord. The body of the slave was his own, though he could not go about with it from one place to another; for it was bound to the land of his master. 3. Under the wage slavery, the worker receives wages which again equals only the amount necessary to keep him in working order and to reproduce more labor power in his children. His entire product belongs to the capitalist, and out of this resource he pays the wages for the commodity labor, also for other commodities such as raw materials, and appropriates all of the balance and converts it into capital with which he not only continues but increases the exploitation of his workers. The body of the capitalist's slave is indeed his own as under the feudal system but with this difference, that if he does not like his master, or he is disliked by him, he can or must go abroad with it from one place to another looking for a job – a liberty or necessity which is to the advantage of the owning class and the disadvantage of the working class. Unemployment is necessary to the existence of capitalism, but this necessity is a danger to the system and will ultimately destroy it in all countries as it has in Russia.
24. Define the "Class Struggle."
Ans.: It is the direct clash between two hostile class interests wherein the employing class makes every effort to appropriate more of the wealth produced by the working class, and the working class ever struggles to retain more of the wealth which it produces. The capitalist class strives to get more surplus value and the working class strives to get more wages.
The class consciousness of those who live by working has found one of its best expressions in the following paragraphs:
"The world stands upon the threshold of a new social order. The capitalist system of production and distribution is doomed; capitalist appropriation of labor's product forces the bulk of mankind into wage slavery, throws society into the convulsions of the class struggle, and momentarily threatens to engulf humanity in chaos and disaster.
Since the advent of civilization human society has been divided into classes. Each new form of society has come into being with a definite purpose to fulfill in the progress of the human race. Each has been born, has grown, developed, prospered, become old, outworn, and, has finally been overthrown. Each society has developed within itself the germs of its own destruction as well as the germs which went to make up the society of the future.
The capitalist system rose during the seventeenth, eighteenth and nineteenth centuries by the overthrow of feudalism. Its great and all-important mission in the development of man was to improve, develop, and concentrate the means of production and distribution, thus creating a system of co-operative production. This work was completed in advanced capitalist countries about the beginning of the 20th century. That moment capitalism had fulfilled its historic mission, and from that moment the capitalist class became a class of parasites.
In the course of human progress mankind has passed (through class rule, private property, and individualism in production and exchange) from the enforced and inevitable want, misery, poverty, and ignorance of savagery and barbarism to the affluence and high productive capacity of civilization. For all practical purposes, co-operative production has now superseded individual production.
Capitalism no longer promotes the greatest good of the greatest number, It no longer spells progress, but reaction. Private production carries with it private ownership of the products. Production is carried on, not to supply the needs of humanity, but for the profit of the individual owner, the company, or the trust. The worker, not receiving the full product of his labor, can not buy back all he produces. The capitalist wastes part in riotous living; the rest must find a foreign market. By the opening of the twentieth century the capitalist world – England, America, Germany, France, Japan, China, etc. – was producing at a mad rate for the world market. A capitalist deadlock of markets brought on in 1914 the capitalist collapse popularly known as the World War. The capitalist world can not extricate itself out of the debris. America today is choking under the weight of her own gold and products.
This situation has brought on the present stage of human misery – starvation, want, cold, disease, pestilence, and war. This state is brought about in the midst of plenty, when the earth can be made to yield a hundredfold, when the machinery of production is made to multiply human energy and ingenuity by the hundreds. The present state of misery exists solely because the mode of production rebels against the mode of exchange. Private property in the means of life has become a social crime. The land was made by no man; the modern machines are the result of the combined ingenuity of the human race from time immemorial; the land can be made to yield and the machines can be set in motion only by the collective effort of the workers. Progress demands the collective ownership of the land on and the tools with which to produce the necessities of life. The owner of the means of life today partakes of the nature of a highwayman; he stands with his gun before society's temple; it depends upon him whether the million mass may work, earn, eat, and live. The capitalist system of production and exchange must be supplanted if progress is to continue.
In place of the capitalist system we must substitute a system of social ownership of the means of production, industrially administered by the workers, who assume control and direction as well as operation of their industrial affairs."
25. Define "class consciousness."
Ans.: Class consciousness of the workers means that they are conscious of the fact that they, as a class, have interests which are in direct conflict with the interests of the capitalist class.
26. What function does the state perform in the class struggle?
Ans.: "The state is a class instrument, and is the public power of coercion created and maintained in human societies by their division into classes, a power which, being clothed with force, makes laws." It is, therefore, used by the dominant class to keep the subject working class in subjection in accordance with the interests of the ruling and owning class. It is also used to prevent the workers from altering the economic structure of society in the interests of the working class.
As the author of the catechism, of which these twenty-six questions and answers constitute a small part, says:
"Society is a growth subject to the laws of evolution. When evolution reaches a certain point, revolution becomes necessary in order to break the bonds of the old and bring in the new. As the chicken grows through evolution until it reaches the point where it must break its shell (the revolution) in order to continue its growth, so do classes of people come to the point in their evolution where revolution is necessary in order to continue their growth, bring in the new society and consummate the next step in civilization."
Since 1913, when the foregoing catechism was published, we have had the war to end war and to make the world safe for democracy – a fateful and mournful war in which millions of lives were lost and other millions wrecked with the result of multiplying wars and increasing imperialism.
It was a war between national groups of capitalists with conflicting interests for commercial advantages, which is unexpectedly issuing in three great crises: (1) the imminent bankruptcy of capitalism; (2) the communist revolution in Russia, and (3) the imminent taking over of the world by the revolutionary proletariat.
Hitherto, the sons and daughters of capitalism have owned the earth with all that thereon and therein is. Henceforth, the sons and daughters of the useful workers shall be the owners.
The future belongs to the workers, but not until they organize themselves into one big revolutionary union. What ideas and aims are involved in the faith and endeavor of Revolutionary Unionism will appear from this passage in Comrade Philip Kurinsky's Industrial Unionism and Revolution, a brilliant pamphlet, published by The Union Press, Box 205, Madison Square, New York City:
"Slavery is not abolished. It is merely a change in the struggle which throws itself hither and thither like the waves of the seas. In ancient times chattel slavery existed. Feudalism then took its place. Feudalism in its turn was overthrown by capitalism which at present reigns supreme. As the immortal Tolstoy explained, 'The abolition of the old slavery is similar to that which Tartars did to their captives. After they had cut up their heels they placed stones and sand in the wounds and then took the chains off. The Tartars were sure that when the feet of their prisoners were swollen, that they could not run away and would have to work even without chains. Such is the slavery of wages'.
Of this slavery does revolutionary unionism speak in the name of the revolutionary worker. It analyzes the present society and shows that it is divided into two economic classes. One class, the capitalist class, is the master class which controls all the factories, mills, mines, railroads, lands and fields and all the finished and raw materials. This class possesses all the natural riches of the world and this economic supremacy gives it control of the state, of the church, and of all educational institutions. In short, this class owns everything and controls the whole social and political life of each country. The other class, the working class, owns nothing. It produces all and enjoys little. It uses the machines and tools but does not possess them, and is therefore forced to sell its only possession, its labor power, to the master class. And the latter uses the opportunity to buy that wonderful power like any raw material or some other commodity (some of the representatives of craft unionism wish to deny this but unsuccessfully). For the commodity which the worker is compelled to sell in order that he might live, he receives a wage which is determined as is the price of every other commodity. The price is always smaller than the value of the product which the worker produces for the capitalist.
Between these two classes there must, naturally, exist a tremendous struggle which often has the character of actual war. No one urges the workers to this war – not the terrible I. W. W.'s nor the political socialist, neither the Bolsheviks nor the Anarchists, but the war naturally and inevitably arises from existing conditions.
On the one hand, the capitalists are continually chasing after higher profits which results in the employment of cheap labor under the worst conditions. Naturally the ideal of the capitalist class is to keep the workers in a condition of slavery. If the workers attempt to revolt, as they do daily, their masters try to suppress the revolt with all the power at their command. On the other hand, the workers struggle with all their power to lighten their burdens. They strive to get better conditions, higher wages and shorter hours, and in general the ideal of the working class is to throw off the yoke of capitalism.
No one rightfully can say that this struggle is merely a theory. We can see this struggle in the attempts of the capitalist class to destroy the victorious Russian Proletariat. It is mirrored before our eyes in the continual strikes. Nothing can stop this struggle except the abolition of exploitation.
No matter how hard the Citizens' Committees, Boards of Arbitration, of Conciliation and of Mediation, with their so-called impartial members try to convince the world that it is possible to bring the warring classes into closer relations, their attempts are doomed to failure. At best their success is only temporary and their efforts succeed only in blinding the eyes of the working masses. And if at some time these boards claim a victory, the credit is not due to them, but to the force exerted by the workers. It is the strike-weapon, held in reserve by the toilers, that brings victory to the workers – not the efforts of the philanthropic gentlemen. Furthermore the efforts of these gentlemen greatly harm the workers, for at times when the workers can attain success through the use of the strike, these philanthropists interfere, and deaden the initiative and aggressiveness of the strikers. Often this causes strife between the strikers themselves. They lose confidence in one another, and the existence of the organizations which the workers succeeded in building up through their efforts and sacrifices are jeopardized.
The "Conciliation," however, can bring no conciliation between the employers and workers, because that is unnatural. On the contrary, the hatred of one side to the other is intensified and war breaks out oftener and assumes a more bitter and more obstinate character.
Thus viewing the two struggling classes of capitalist society, revolutionary industrial unionism comes to the logical conclusion that between capital and labor there exists nothing in common, that the struggle must go on and peace can come only when economic oppression will cease, which is possible only when the program of revolutionary unionism will be realized; namely, when the workers will take over the means of production and abolish the system of private ownership. The autocratic control of industry, the unequal division of products will then disappear and society will be built on a socialist foundation, where the industries will be owned and operated by the workers, organized in a truly democratic manner, and where the individual will receive the full product of his labor.
These are the principles of revolutionary unionism, the principles of the international proletariat. They are the true expressions of the class struggle and because of that, revolutionary unionism attracts more and more followers whose ideal is to develop within the working masses a consciousness of their historic mission."
In the words of an eloquent representative of the organized workers in the United States, I exhort the working men and working women of America: Keep your eyes on Russia. Watch what is going on there and what the capitalist plunderbund will try to do. Do not be misled by the lies and slanders that are daily dished up to you. Bear in mind that those who tell you these yarns have an interest to mislead you. They want to use you as a makeweight in their game of wresting from the Russian workers their dearly-won liberty. It is of no use to enumerate the lies that have already been punctured because they will invent new ones faster than one can write and print. Let your reason guide you. Think yourselves into the shoes of your Russian fellow workers. Think how you would act if placed in the same position and then draw the conclusion that they act about the same way that you would, because they are like you moved by the same emotions, the same desires, the same aspirations. You, too, would like to keep for yourselves the fruits of your toil, if you only knew how to go about it, if you had the organization that would make it possible. But as yet you do not know and you have not that organization. In politics you still vote against one another in the Republican or Democratic camp. You will have to wait until you do know and until you do have the means – the Industrial Unions of the entire working class that will be able to take and hold and administer industry for the reason that it will have the might, the power to do so. And when you have expressed through the ballot your will for that new society, which will guarantee to you the full fruits of your labor, remember the slogan of revolutionary Russia: "All power to the Soviets," and let your slogan then be: "All power to the Industrial Unions!"
