Socialism as it is : $b a survey of the world-wide revolutionary movementWalling, William English
History
Socialism as it is : $b a survey of the world-wide revolutionary movement
Walling, William English
Socialism
Socialism can only do what capitalism, after it has reached its
culmination in State capitalism, leaves undone; namely, to take
effective measures to establish equal opportunity and abolish class
government. To accomplish this, Socialists realize they must reckon with
the resistance of every element of society that enjoys superior
opportunities or profits from capitalist government, and they must know
just which these elements are. It must be decided which of the
non-privileged classes are to be permanently relied upon in the fight
for this great change, to what point each will be ready to go, and of
what effective action it is capable. Next, the classes upon which it is
decided to rely must be brought together and organized. And, finally,
the individual members of these classes must be developed, by education
and social struggles, until they are able to overcome the resistance of
the classes now in control of industry and government.
The popular conviction that the very _existence_ of social classes is in
complete contradiction with the principles of democracy, no amount of
contrary teaching has been able to blot out. What has not been so
clearly seen is the active and constant _resistance_ of the privileged
classes to popular government and industrial democracy, _i.e._ the class
struggle.
"We have long rested comfortably in this country on the assumption,"
says Senator La Follette, "that because our form of government was
democratic, it was therefore automatically producing democratic results.
Now there is nothing mysteriously potent about the forms and names of
democratic institutions that should make them self-operative. Tyranny
and oppression are just as possible under democratic forms as under any
other. We are slowly realizing that democracy is a life, and involves
continual struggle."[207]
Senator La Follette fails only to note that this struggle to make
democracy a reality is not a struggle in the heart of the individual,
but between groups of individuals, that these groups are not formed by
differences of temperament or opinion, but by economic interests, and
that nearly every group falls into one of two great classes, those whose
interests are with and those whose interests are against the capitalists
and capitalist government.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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