◆ SpookStack

A ES St * : . . ~ Be Ne geeebet og se book" he toils without remuneration. and creates surplus value for the capitalist, which is the source of profit; the source of wealth of the capitalist classy. BF , - The doctrine of surplus value is‘ the comerstone of the eco. ‘ nomic. theory of Marx. Capital, created by the labor of the worker, presses upon the workers, ruins the petty owners and creates an army of unem- ployed. In industry the victory of large-scale production may be seen. at once, but we also see the same phenomenon in agricul. — " ture: the superiority of big capitalist agriculture becomes greater, the application of machinery grows, peasant economy is caught in the noose of money-capital, it declines and becomes ruined _ under the burden of a backward technique. In agriculture, the forms of decline of petty production are different, but the decline itself is an indisputable fact. By beating petty production, capital leads to the increase of the productivity of labor and to the establishment of a monopoly ° position for associations of the biggest capitalists. Production itself becomes more and more. social; hundreds of thousands and millions of workers are linked up in a systematic economic organism, but the product of the collective labor is appropriated by a handful of capitalists. Anarchy of production, crises, a furious hunt after markets, and the insecurity of existence for: . the masses of population are on the: increase. While increasing the dependence of the workers upon capital, the capitalist system creates the great power of combined labor- Marx traced the development of capitalism from the first germs . of commodity economy and simple exchange, to its highest forms, to large-scale production.. And the experience of all countries, whether old or new, clearly . shows year after year, to an ever greater number of workers, the truth of Marx’s teaching, ; ; ; Capitalism has been victorious all over the world, but this Victory is only the eve of the victory of labor over capital. After the overthrow of serfdom, when a “free” capitalist society appeared, it was at once discovered that this freedom signified a - new system of oppression and exploitation of the toilers. Various _ Socialist doctrines immediately began to arise as a reflection of - this oppression and protest against it. But socialism in its first - a 8 origin was utopian, It criticized the capitalist society, it con- demned it and damned it, it dreamed of its destruction, it drew fantastic pictures of a better order and endeavored to convince the rich of the wickedness of exploitation. ° rae But utopian socialism was unable to show a real way out. It could not explain either the essence of wage-slavery under capital- ism, or discover the laws of its development, or find the social force which was capable of becoming the creator of a new society. In the meantime, the stormy revolution which accompanied the fall of feudalism and serfdom everywhere in Europe, and especially im France, revealed ever more clearly the struggle of classes as the basis of the whole development and its motive force. Not a single victory of political freedom over the class of feudal lords was won without desperate resistance. Not a single capitalist country. was established on a more or less free and democratic basis without a life and death struggle between the different classes of capitalist society, _ Marx was a genius because he was able before anyone else to draw from these facts and’ consistently elaborate the conclusion which world history teaches, This conclusion is the doctrine of . People always were and always will be the stupid victims of deceit and self-deceit in politics, as long as they have not learned. to discover the interests of one or another of the classes ‘behind any moral, religious, political and social phrases, declarations and promises. The supporters of reforms and improvements will always be fooled by the defenders of the old, as long’ as they will not realize that every old institution, however absurd and rotten. it may appear, is kept in being by the forces of one or the other of the ruling classes. And there is enly one way of breaking the resistance of these classes, and that is to find, in the very society which surrounds us, and to enlighten and organize for the struggle, the forces which can and, by their social position, must form the power capable of sweeping away the old and of estab- lishing the new. J ne we, Only the philosophic materialism of Marx showed the prole- __ tariat the way out of the spiritual slavery in which all oppressed _ Classes have languished up to the present, Only the economic theory of Marx explained the real position of the prolerariat in . the general system of capitalism : me The independent organizations of the proletariat are multiply. $ mo