Part 12 (1/2)

The universe moves, with all that therein is. The vanguard of mankind is moving to a viewpoint from which rapidly increasing numbers will see that a revolution which is necessary on the part of a slave to free himself from a master is not only justified but required by the great, first law of the biological realm, the law of self-preservation--a nature-made law on behalf of freedom. This nature-made law will ultimately nullify all cla.s.s laws, every law which is in favor of the enslaving capitalist cla.s.s and against the enslaved labor cla.s.s.

Every state with its executive, legislative, judiciary, military and educative systems is founded on capitalism. Since this is the case and since human nature is what it is, all political inst.i.tutions, the American with the rest, are of the capitalist, by the capitalist, for the capitalist, and each to the end that the capitalist may keep the laborer in poverty and slavery.

Every modern church with its ministry, bible, creed, heaven and h.e.l.l is founded on capitalism. Since this is the case, and since human nature is what it is, all religious inst.i.tutions, the Christian with the rest, are of the capitalist, by the capitalist, for the capitalist and each to the end that the capitalist may keep the laborer in ignorance and slavery.

Whether Jesus was an historical or a dramatic person, the morality involved in his trial, condemnation and execution is the same. a.s.suming the historicity, he was put to death by Pilate because a cla.s.s of the people said: We have a law and by it, according to its official interpretation, he should die. The Governor, finding that the legal enactment and the judicial decision were in accordance with the representation of the Jews, turned Jesus over to the executioners for crucifixion, and the world condemns him because he knew that the law was the embodiment of a fiction instead of a truth, because he interpreted it in the interest of a sect instead of a people, and because he basely acted with reference to his own political interests without regard to justice for an heroic but helpless champion of slaves in their struggle against the masters.

Philosophic anarchy differs by the s.p.a.ce of the whole heavens from practical anarchy, and it is the latter that I always have in mind. The great essential of philosophic anarchy is individualistic freedom. The great essential of practical anarchy is imperialistic slavery.

Capitalism is the outstanding, overshadowing imperialist, the father of all the kaisers by which the world has been cursed, not only of the terrestrial ones such as Wilhelm II, Nicholas II, Woodrow I, but also of the celestial ones such as Jehovah, Allah, Buddha.

The occupants of regal thrones have no more responsibility for the existence of imperialism than those of presidential chairs, nor they any more than I, and I have none. The truth is that the responsibility for this blight of all the ages is now at last, if indeed it has not always been, wholly with the representatives of the working cla.s.s. They have the great majority in numbers and all of the revolutionary incentives and power; therefore they, and only they can do away with imperialism, and they can rid themselves of it whenever they choose. Prince Kropotkin, the philosophic anarchist, a great soul, would agree to this representation, for he says:

The working men of the civilized world and their friends in the other cla.s.ses ought to induce their Governments entirely to abandon the idea of armed intervention in the affairs of Russia--whether open or disguised, whether military or in the shape of subventions to different nations.

Russia is now living through a revolution of the same depth and the same importance as the British nation underwent in 1639-1648 and France in 1789-1794; and every nation should refuse to play the shameful part that Great Britain, Prussia, Austria and Russia played during the French Revolution.

Since death ends all of consciousness, the most inhuman of all inhumanities and the most immoral of all immoralities is the shortening of human life; and next to it is the diminis.h.i.+ng of its happiness.

War shortens many lives and fills more with misery; hence its essential inhumanity and immorality.

A large part of the world has just pa.s.sed through the furnace of war--a war between the German and English nations with their respective national allies. All international wars are contests for supremacy in the markets of the world, or at least for advantage in some among them.

This one was no exception.

The furnace of this war was seven times larger and seven times hotter than any other has been. According to the latest estimates (September, 1920) its fierce flames directly and indirectly killed thirty million young men and wrecked totally twice and partially thrice as many more.

Yet the fire by which the world upon the whole and in the long run suffers most is not the intermittent, flaming one of the h.e.l.l of international war, which is always kindled and sustained by the capitalists of the belligerent nations for the purpose solely of securing commercial advantages over each other; but the greater suffering is by the permanent, smoking fire of the h.e.l.l of the inter-cla.s.s war which is always kindled and sustained by the capitalist cla.s.s in each nation for the purpose solely of robbing the labor cla.s.s of the fruit of their toil.

These national and cla.s.s wars (h.e.l.ls, flaming and smouldering) are due to the same matter-force law, the law of self-preservation, and, paradoxical as it may seem, this law is equally operative on both sides in each war.

Both h.e.l.ls exist as the result of the working out of the same law of animal preservation by compet.i.tion--the law of capitalism, and both h.e.l.ls will be done away with as the result of the working out of the same law of human preservation by co-operation--the law of socialism.

One proof of the rightness of the co-operative system is the fact that it necessarily operates for the whole people and not for a cla.s.s, whereas the compet.i.tive system as necessarily operates for a cla.s.s and not for the whole people.

Still another proof, and it is in itself almost if not quite conclusive, of the rightness of the co-operative system is the fact that its compet.i.tive rival breaks down in every great emergency. It broke down completely in all the belligerent countries (in none more than the United States) immediately upon their entrance into the world war. Our government was obliged to a.s.sume control of the railroads, coal mines and food products.

If a cla.s.s government, such as ours is, can provide during a war by the co-operative system, and only by it, for the wants of a country, and better, too, than during the time of peace, what may we expect in the way of plenty, comfort and leisure, when under the cla.s.sless administration there shall be no more war with its wholesale waste, and when there shall be one vast army of producers?

All the days which the fifty millions of soldiers spent in idleness will then be so many holidays for toilers who are in need of them for rest and self-improvement; and every dollar which is now wasted will then be two dollars saved, so that the pecuniary prosperity of war times will be increased, rather than diminished, and made continuous. Under a cla.s.sless administration the world would soon become comparatively rich and happy.[H]

Representatives of the capitalist cla.s.s are trying to create the impression that the co-operative system which our government temporarily established as a military necessity is socialism, and that the labor cla.s.s should seek no more than its restoration and continuance: but this system is the same old wolf in sheep's clothing.

The rickety house in which we are living is a compet.i.tive structure and it cannot be made into a co-operative one, at least not upon its present foundation, the sand of capitalistic cla.s.sism. Industrialism must take it down and rebuild it upon the rock of cla.s.sless labor. Neither this demolition nor this reconstruction const.i.tutes any part of the government program. Its socialism is a mirage, not a reality, and the matter-force law renders it necessarily so.

Marxian socialism is simplicity itself. It requires only three conditions, each of which is perfectly intelligible; but no one of them ever has existed or could exist under any capitalist government, because all such governments, not excepting our own, especially not it, are organized in the interest of parasitic profiteers, not productive laborers. The three indispensable yet simple prerequisites to this real socialism or communism are:

First, that the people within a munic.i.p.ality, either town or city, own and control the utilities within the area occupied by that munic.i.p.ality, which have to do with the immediate comfort of the people who live there.

Second, that the people in each state own and control the utilities that come in contact with the people on a state-wide scale.