Although the Socialists pretend that they denounce co-operation and thrift, and even abstinence from alcoholic drink, on economic and scientific grounds, their real reasons are political. Socialism can flourish only if the masses are dissatisfied. The Socialists are therefore little interested in improving the position of the worker, but very greatly in increasing his poverty, unhappiness, and discontent. Socialism is revolutionary, and the Socialists know that people who are well off are not revolutionists. For tactical reasons, therefore, the Socialists oppose and denounce thrift, co-operation, and abstinence, qualities which are found pre-eminently in co-operators and trade unionists. The trade unionists, the aristocracy of British labour, are too conservative, too temperate, too cautious, too prosperous, and too little revolutionary for the taste of Socialists. The Socialists complain: "The British trade union suffers from three fatal defects: (1) It is anti-revolutionary. It disavows the fact of the class struggle. It accepts the capitalist system as a permanency. The rules and constitutions of many unions explicitly refer to the 'just rights of the employer,' and those who do not set forth any such statement openly, admit it in actual practice. The capitalist class, as voiced by the capitalist press, recognise in these unions the bulwark of present-day society against the advance of Socialism. (2) The British trade union method of organisation is a complete negation of the solidarity of labour. Each trade or section of a trade has its own particular and autonomous organisation. Even trades which are most closely connected are divided into separate unions, each union ignoring the interest of the rest, making its own special contracts with the capitalists, and assisting them by remaining at work when their fellow-workers in a kindred trade are on strike. The most noteworthy example of this form of inter-trade treachery was offered in the case of the engineers' strike of 1897-8, when the Boilermakers' Society by remaining at work were the means of defeating the Amalgamated Society of Engineers and of forcing them to return to work on the masters' terms. (3) The British trade union refuses to admit to its ranks those teeming millions of workers whom it terms 'unskilled.'"[386] Other Socialists complain: "Trade unionism recognises the present system of society, justifies capitalism, and defends wage-slavery, and only seeks to soften the tyranny of the one and assuage the evils of the other. Social Democracy aims at destroying the whole system."[387] "We are never allowed to forget the splendid incomes earned by these aristocrats of labour, a mere tenth of the whole labour class. The trade unionist can usually only raise himself on the bodies of his less fortunate comrades."[388] "The old-fashioned policy of the English trade unions has made them _guilds of privileged_, rather than fighting representatives of their class."[389]