There remains but one other fundamental question, which must be briefly examined. The syndicalists do not go back to Owen as the founder of their philosophy. They constantly reiterate the claim that they alone to-day are Marxists and that it is given to them to keep "pure and undefiled" the theories of that giant mind. They base their claim on the ground of Marx's economic interpretation of history and especially upon his oft-repeated doctrine that upon the economic structure of society rises the juridical and political superstructure. They maintain that the political institutions are merely the reflex of economic conditions. Alter the economic basis of society, and the political structure must adjust itself to the new conditions. As a result of this truly Marxian reasoning, they assert that the revolutionary movement must pursue solely economic aims and disregard totally the existing and, to their minds, superfluous political relations. They accuse the socialists of a contradiction. Claiming to be Marxists and basing their program upon the economic interpretation of history, the socialists waste their energies in trying to modify the results instead of obliterating the causes. Political institutions are parasitical. Why, therefore, ignore economic foundations and waste effort remodeling the parasitical superstructure? There _is_ a contradiction here, but not on the part of the socialists. Proudhon was entirely consistent when he asked: "Can we not administer our goods, keep our accounts, arrange our differences, look after our common interests?"[52] And, moreover, he was consistent when he declared: "I want you to make the very institutions which I charge you to abolish, ... so that the new society shall appear as the spontaneous, natural, and necessary development of the old."[53] If that were once done the dissolution of government would follow, as he says, in a way about which one can at present make only guesses. But Proudhon urged his followers to establish cooeperative banks, cooeperative industries, and a variety of voluntary industrial enterprises, in order eventually to possess themselves of the means of production. If the working class, through its own cooeperative efforts, could once acquire the ownership of industry, if they could thus expropriate the present owners and gradually come into the ownership of all natural resources and all means of production--in a word, of all social capital--they would not need to bother themselves with the State. If, in possessing themselves thus of all economic power, they were also to neglect the State, its machinery would, of course, tumble into uselessness and eventually disappear. As the great capitalists to-day make laws through the stock exchange, through their chambers of commerce, through their pools and combinations, so the working class could do likewise if they were in possession of industry. But the working class to-day has no real economic power.