a passing phase and, instead of offering "a fair day's work for a fair day's wage," inscribes on its banner "the abolition of the wage system" and endeavors to build up the co-operative and communal instincts of its class. It demands the full product of its collective toil, declaring that modern conditions and modern needs have set aside all the rights of private property that may have existed heretofore, and that the modern absentee owner is a parasite, doing nothing to earn his keep. It accepts collective bargaining, but sets no time limits to its agreements and holds no contract sacred—in fact, it abhors the contract with a master—and stands ready to disregard all contracts when an observance of the same would force it into the attitude of a strike breaker, or compel it to give countenance to organized scabbery.
The machine proletariat, recognized its subject position in modern class society, stands squarely on the class struggle, organizes to carry on the class struggle, and prepares itself to direct industry and administer society when that struggle shall have been won.
In all the various social systems of the past, the wealth and power of the ruling class has depended upon the wealth producing capacity of the working class and the degree to which it could be exploited. If the tools were simple and the portion of the wealth remaining after the workers were provided for was small, then the master class which took this surplus was relatively poor. But when modern machinery is used and the working class is highly productive, then the surplus of wealth is vastly increased and the master class actually wallows in a glut of wealth. The gulf between the workers and the masters yawns wider and deeper, and the workers, increasing in intelligence, grow ever more bitter and impatient with their poverty.
The chattel slave and feudal serf might well have toiled and suffered in silence—they knew no better—ignorance, superstition and bestial conditions held them in
