"...The cause of the miserable condition of the working-class is to be sought...in the capitalistic system itself. The wage-worker sells to the capitalist his labor-force for a certain daily sum. After a few hours' work he has reproduced the value of that sum; but...he has to work another series of hours to complete his working-day; and the value he produces during these additional hours of surplus labor is surplus value; which costs the capitalist nothing, but yet goes into his pocket. That is the basis of the system which tends more and more to split up civilized society into a few Rothschilds and Vanderbilts, the owners of all the means of production and subsistence, on the one hand, and an immense number of wage-workers, the owners of nothing but their labor-force, on the other...
"...So long as the wealthy classes not only do not feel the want of any emancipation, but strenuously oppose the self-emancipation of the working-class, so long the social revolution will have to be prepared and fought out by the working-class alone...And today, the very people who..preach to the workers a Socialism...tending to reconcile...the interests of both the contending classes--these people are either neophytes, who have still to learn a great deal, or they are the worst enemies of the workers--wolves in sheep's clothing...
"...Today there is indeed...Socialism of all shades: Socialism conscious and unconscious and of the middle-class, for, verily, that abomination of abominations, Socialism, has not only become respectable, but has actually donned evening dress and lounges lazily on drawing-room love-seats...What I consider far more important than this momentary fashion among bourgeois circles of affecting a mild dilution of Socialism...is the revival of the East End of London...It has...become the home of...the organization of the great mass of `unskilled' workers..."
No comments:
Post a Comment