However, the sketch given above shows only one side of the question. At length the workers have perceived that the interests of the employer are opposed to their own, that the cause of their poverty lies in his luxury. They have begun to set up opposition when they learn that by organizing themselves into labor unions they gain a power by which they can ameliorate their lot. The work no longer being done separately as in the time of the guilds, but together, there has been this consequence for the workmen, that being now in the same position with regard to the capitalist, and in the same social condition, they have gained in the feeling of solidarity and in discipline, two conditions which are essential to victory in the struggle. Little by little the workers have learned that their enemy is not their own employer simply, but the whole capitalist class. The strife has become a strife of classes. And capitalism being international the conflict of the working class has become international also. The means by which the working class attempt to better their position are of various kinds. First there are the unions, which undertake the contest for the shorter day and higher wages. Then there is coöperation; and finally, and above all, politics. The movement for unions, which could not exist without liberty of the press, of meeting, and of forming associations, forces the working-men to take part in politics. At first, when they still had no clear idea of the position they occupied in society, the working-men permitted other political parties to make use of them. But coming to understand that the laborers form a class apart, whose interests are different from those of other classes, they have formed an independent working-man’s party. Finally, the contest of the working class could not limit itself to improvements brought about within the frame-work of the existing economic system; if they wished to free themselves permanently they saw themselves obliged to combat capitalism itself. Thus modern socialism was born; on one side from an ardent desire of the working class to free itself from the poverty caused by capitalism; on the other side from the development in the manner of capitalistic production, in which small capital is always conquered by large capital. The conviction becomes more and more general that capitalism has fulfilled its historic task, the increase of the productive forces, and that the means of production must belong to all if we are effectively to deliver humanity from the material and intellectual miseries which result from capitalism. The labor movement blends itself with socialism, then, and thus social democracy becomes the political organization of the working class.