Page:The Labor Movement in America (Ely, 1905 edition).djvu/383

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APPENDIX.
361

tries of so-called "civilization," as the governments of all Monarchies and Republics work hand in hand for the purpose of opposing all movements of the thinking part of the workers, as finally the victory in the decisive combat of the proletarians against their oppressors can only be gained by the simultaneous struggle along the whole line of the bourgeois (capitalistic) society, so therefore the international fraternity of peoples, as expressed in the International Working People’s Association, presents itself a self-evident necessity.

True order should take its place. This can only be achieved when all implements of labor—the soil and other premises of production, in short, capital produced by labor—is changed into societary property. Only by this presupposition is destroyed every possibility of the future spoliation of man by man. Only by common, undivided capital can all be enabled to enjoy in their fulness the fruits of the common toil. Only by the impossibility of accumulating individual (private) capital can every one be compelled to work who makes a demand to live.

This order of things allows production to regulate itself according to the demand of the whole people, so that nobody need work more than a few hours a day, and that all nevertheless can satisfy their needs. Hereby time and opportunity are given for opening to the people the way to the highest possible civilization; the privileges of higher intelligence fall with the privileges of wealth and birth. To the achievement of such a system the political organizations of the capitalistic classes—be they monarchies or republics—form the barriers. These political structures (States), which are completely in the hands of the propertied, have no other purpose than the upholding of the present order of exploitation.

All laws are directed against the working people. In so far as the opposite appears to be the case, they serve on one hand to blind the worker, while on the other hand they are simply evaded. Even the school serves only the purpose of furnishing the offspring of the wealthy with those qualities necessary to uphold their class domination. The children of the poor get scarcely a formal elementary training, and this, too, is mainly