Darkwater: Voices from Within the VeilDu Bois, W. E. B. (William Edward Burghardt)
General
Darkwater: Voices from Within the Veil
Du Bois, W. E. B. (William Edward Burghardt)
African Americans; United States -- Race relations
The result was the disfranchisement of the blacks of the South and a
world-wide attempt to restrict democratic development to white races and
to distract them with race hatred against the darker races. This
program, however, although it undoubtedly helped raise the scale of
white labor, in much greater proportion put wealth and power in the
hands of the great European Captains of Industry and made modern
industrial imperialism possible.
This led to renewed efforts on the part of white European workers to
understand and apply their political power to its reform through
democratic control.
Whether known as Communism or Socialism or what not, these efforts are
neither new nor strange nor terrible, but world-old and seeking an
absolutely justifiable human ideal--the only ideal that can be sought:
the direction of individual action in industry so as to secure the
greatest good of all. Marxism was one method of accomplishing this, and
its panacea was the doing away with private property in machines and
materials. Two mighty attacks were made on this proposal. One was an
attack on the fundamental democratic foundation: modern European white
industry does not even theoretically seek the good of all, but simply of
all Europeans. This attack was virtually unanswered--indeed some
Socialists openly excluded Negroes and Asiatics from their scheme. From
this it was easy to drift into that form of syndicalism which asks
socialism for the skilled laborer only and leaves the common laborer in
his bonds.
This throws us back on fundamentals. It compels us again to examine the
roots of democracy.
Who may be excluded from a share in the ruling of men? Time and time
again the world has answered:
The Ignorant
The Inexperienced
The Guarded
The Unwilling
That is, we have assumed that only the intelligent should vote, or those
who know how to rule men, or those who are not under benevolent
guardianship, or those who ardently desire the right.
These restrictions are not arguments for the wide distribution of the
ballot--they are rather reasons for restriction addressed to the
self-interest of the present real rulers. We say easily, for instance,
"The ignorant ought not to vote." We would say, "No civilized state
should have citizens too ignorant to participate in government," and
this statement is but a step to the fact: that no state is civilized
which has citizens too ignorant to help rule it. Or, in other words,
education is not a prerequisite to political control--political control
is the cause of popular education.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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