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become paupers, on the other hand. This riddle is solved by the school of Karl Marx. The one great cause of all the ruin of society and States is this, that labor never receives the full proceeds of its product; but must, because it is disinherited, create capital for a minority—the owners of means of labor, of land, buildings, machines, money, etc., by creating surplus value, furnishing surplus labor, more labor than is paid for, working surplus time, more time than is required to defray the expenses of its own sustenance. And the only thorough remedy is not to work and produce more than what can be consumed by the producers themselves.
It is by working for wages, i. e., for less than the proceeds of our labor, by creating a surplus value for people who might work, but do not work, and by thus creating private capital in their hands, that we ruin society and politics. On the contrary, by working only as much as is needed by all the useful workers, and by creating the necessary capital through our own contributions and doing away with all private capitalism, can we put an end to all slavery, blood-sucking practices, revolutions, political corruption and avoidable misery in general, and we can procure all the means of a true, universal and high education, and improve the universal morality and brotherhood of men.
This, in a nutshell, is the theory of Social Democracy. It must be added, that such a new state of things will be effected more by the natural development of economics than by our teachings. The evils engendered by private capitalism are so formidable and growing in so rapid a proportion, and the wisdom of "statesmen" and self-constituted rulers is so impotent, that society can not continue in its old ruts much longer. The anarchy of society and politics will, within perhaps, the nineteenth century of our era, have exhausted its vitality and out of despair run into a new issue, akin to the Socialist proposition. And there is so much wisdom and scientific and artistic knowledge and experience still left in the world, though ousted from the right place, that, once directed in the proper channels, a complete renewal of society and constitutions may be brought about, without very violent and bloody convulsions. ‘The conviction once impressed upon a majority of workers that private capitalism is doomed to abolition, together with wages, slavery, corruption and class dominion, a new form of social life and political practice may be inaugurated almost without severe throes of birth, What alone is needed in the meantime is enlightenment of the working masses (workers, both with mind and body) about the doom of private capitalism, a doom of its own make, which cannot be prevented.
From this short exposition it may be seen that Socialism is the most decided enemy to both the Anarchism of the capitalistic
