and strife of the childhood of the race,-but at last outgrown. And then: Brotherhood. 366. Summary.-1. The economic class struggle is caused by a conflict of economic interests. 2. The economic class struggle is between the beneficiaries and the victims of capitalism. 3. Economic classes must necessarily exist under individual violence are symptoms of social pathology."-Ferri: Socialism and Modern Science, pp. 139-40. "This is not mere sentimentality; it is the logical outcome of forces always at work within and around us. Just as there has come a time when, on this continent at least, war has given all of good that it has to give, so is there coming a time when competition-which is industrial war-will have conferred on the nation all its possible benefits. A perfected system of co-operation is the promise to civilized mankind of existing tendencies."-The Trust: Its Book (Flint, Hill, etc.), Introduction, pp. 32-35. "No mind in our civilization has, in all probability, as yet imagined the full possibilities of the collective organization-under the direction of a highly centralized and informed intelligence acting under the sense of responsibility here described of all the activities of industry and production, moving sadily towards the goal of the endowment of all human capacities in res, conflict of forces. It is only necessary for the observer who h grasped the meaning of the development described in the precedia chapters to stand at almost any point in the life of the English-speaking world of the present day to realize how far society has, in reality, moved beyond that conception of its joint effort which prevailed in the early period of the competitive era-the conception of the state as an irresponsible and almost brainless Colossus, organized primarily towards the end of securing men in possession of the gains they had obtained in an uncontrolled scramble for gain divorced from all sense of responsibility. Nevertheless, there can be no doubt that the peoples who have lived through this phase of the competitive process, and amongst whom such competition as has prevailed has achieved the highest results, will start towards the new era with a great advantage in their favor. For it must be expected that, where the development in progress_continues to be efficiently maintained, the new system will succeed the old, not by force or coercion, but by its own merits; and, in conditions in which it will become the increasing function of an informed and centralized system of public opinion to hold continually before the general mind through all the phases of public activity--local, social, political, and international-the character of the principles governing the epoch of development on which we have entered; and to see that the benefits accruing from the era of competition through which we have lived shall be retained and increased for society by compelling the new social order to make its way simply on its merits in free and fair rivalry with those activities of private effort which it is destined to supersede."-Kidd: Principles of Western Civilization, p. 480 and preceding. capitalism. Without economic classes there is no capitalism. 4. So long as capitalism continues the economic class struggle must continue. 5. The collapse of capitalism will end the conflict of economic interests. 6. The coming of Socialism will provide for the continuance of industry without the exploitation of the workers and, hence, with no conflict of economic interests and therefore will make an end of the economic class struggle, and because of this a beginning of a universal brotherhood, a race no longer divided against itself. 2. What relation has the fact of the collective struggle for existence to the economic class struggle? 3. Under what conditions have great conflicts taken place between exploiters? 4. Why are the ruling institutions, usages and morals of any country the institutions, usages and morals of the ruling class? 5. Trace the evolution of the class struggle. 6. What are some of the points in controversy in the economic class struggle? 7. What is class-consciousness? 8. Are there degrees of consciousness? 9. Why is the conflict irrepressible? 10. What will end the class struggle? 11. How is the economic class struggle related to the evolution of Socialism? PART IV SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC QUESTIONS OF CON- CHAPTER XXIII FOR WHAT PURPOSES MAY THE STATE EXIST 367. The Struggle to Survive.-Collectivism is inherent in nature. It is present in all the lower forms of life. It was and is an essential condition of the survival of the human race in its struggles for existence. It is absurd to admit that any organism may exist, and yet deny to it the right to do its utmost to preserve and to defend its own existence.1 368. Government a Factor in the Struggle to Survive. If government is understood to be the function of society by which it seeks to defend itself and to provide for its own welfare then to deny that the govern 1. "They [the anarchists] combat Marxian Socialism because it is law-abiding and parliamentary, and they contend that the most efficacious and the surest mode of social transformation is rebellion. "These assertions, which respond to the vagueness of the sentiments and ideas of too large a portion of the working class and to the impatience provoked by their wretched condition, may meet with a temporary, unintelligent approval; but their effect can only be ephemeral. The explosion of a bomb may indeed give birth to a momentary emotion, but it cannot advance by the hundredth part of an inch the evolution in men's minds towards Socialism, while it causes a reaction in feeling, a reaction in part sincere, but skillfully fomented and exploited as a pretext for repression."-Ferri: Socialism and Modern Science, pp. 149-51. ment may exist at all is to deny to the social organism the right which must be conceded to all organisms, namely, the right to do its utmost to preserve and to defend its own existence. Whatever theories one may entertain as to the nature and origin of rights, the fact is that all forms of life do exert themselves to the uttermost in the effort to survive in the struggle for existence. The collectivism of all sociable animals, including man, is only a means to this end in this struggle for existence. The establishment of regularly constituted authorities for the purpose of maintaining the peace within and for protecting the collectivity from enemies without is only one form of the collective struggle for existence.2 2. "The course of history is a struggle against nature, against need, ignorance and impotence, and, therefore, against bondage of every kind in which we were held under the law of nature at the beginning of history. The progressive overcoming of this impotence this is the evolution of liberty, whereof history is an account. In this struggle we should never have made one step in advance, and we should never take a further step, if we had gone into the struggle singly, each for himself. "Now, the state is precisely this contemplated unity and co-operation of individuals in a moral whole, whose function it is to carry on this struggle, a combination which multiplies a million-fold the force of all the individuals comprised in it, which heightens a million-fold the powers which each individual singly would be able to exert. "The end of the state, therefore, is not simply to secure to each individual that personal freedom and that property with which the bourgeois principle assumes that the individual enters the state organization at the outset, but which in point of fact are first afforded him in and by the state. On the contrary, the end of the state can be no other than to accomplish that which, in the nature of things, is and always has been the function of the state, in set terms: by combining individuals into a state organization to enable them to achieve such ends and to attain such a level of existence as they could not achieve as isolated individuals. "The ultimate and intrinsic end of the state, therefore, is to further the positive unfolding, the progressive development of human life. In other words, its function is to work out in actual achievement the true end of man; that is to say, the full degree of culture of which human nature is capable. It is the education and evolution of mankind into freedom."-Lassalle: Science and the Workingman, pp. 36-36. "The state, being the institute of justice, and by its nature allinclusive, represents the most perfect form of co-operation possible. The large undertakings now successfully carried out by private corporations can be still more successfully carried out by the state; for the private corporation, being bent on profits, naturally takes the ground 369. Self-Preservation.-The statement that "selfpreservation is the first law of nature" is simply a declaration of this observed fact in nature, that no form of life considers any theory of rights when struggling for its own existence. This is as true of men as of beasts. It is as true of collections of men as of individuals. The earliest gentes, phratries, the tribes, the nations made by federations of the tribes, were all of them the necessary result of this universal struggle for existence. 370. The Social Struggle.-Society does and must exist. What may society do in that branch of its activities which has to do with its own defense and with * that anything is good enough which the public will accept, and no price too high that the public will pay; while the state, being free from this necessity, may take the ideal ground that nothing is good enough which is short of the very best. All of the tremendous arguments which may be urged for association as a general principle of conduct may be urged with heightened force in favor of that more complete and perfect form of association represented by the state. And to this broader and more helpful conception of the state we are steadily advancing. One by one the state has been taking over functions and duties once vehemently denied to it, but now amply justified as helping to free men from the tyranny of things. Light-houses have been built and manned, waterways improved, maps and charts prepared. Cities have been paved and lighted and drained; water has been regarded as a public necessity; water power and natural gas for manufacturing purposes have been made available; tram lines have been taken over or built; municipal tenements have been erected; free libraries and public baths and gymnasiums have been established. Both telegraphs and railways have been taken over by the state. Boards of health have been established; quarantine has been inaugurated; currency has been provided. Best of all, in any country marked by any degree of intelligence and prosperity, an elaborate system of public education has come to be regarded as a public necessity. School houses have been built by the thousands, colleges and universities by the hundred, investigations have been carried on, publications issued, expeditions fitted out. This list, long as it is, does not by any means exhaust the present directions of state activity. And, from none of these multitudinous functions would any but a very small body of reactionaries have the state withdraw. There is no turning back in this work of increasing the freedom of the individual by diminishing the tyranny of things."-Henderson: Education and the Larger Life, p. 373. * * 3. "The external ground for the existence of the state is the nature of man. There are no men without continuity of social life [Zusammemleben]. There is no continuity of social life without order. There is no order without law. There is no law without coercive force. |