“No people will toil and sweat to keep a class in idleness unless cajoled or compelled to do so.... There are various devices by means of which a body of persons may sink their fangs into their fellows and subsist upon them. Slavery ... is the primary form of the parasitic relation. By modifying this into serfdom the parasitic class, without the least abating its power of securing its nourishment from others, places itself in a position more convenient to it and less irritating to the exploited.... Finally, the institution of property is so shaped as to permit a slanting exploitation under which a class is able to live in idleness. The parasitic class is always a ruling class, and utilizes as many as it can of the means of control.”—Professor Edward A. Ross, Department of Sociology, University of Wisconsin.[[301]]
“The various institutions, political, ecclesiastical, professional, industrial, etc., including the government, are devices, means, gradually brought into existence, to serve interests that develop within the State.”—Professor Albion W. Small, Head of Department of Sociology, University of Chicago.[[302]]
“The non-industrial or parasitic classes are often the most active.... They are wonderfully successful in creating the belief that they are the most important of all the social elements.”—Dr. Lester F. Ward, Department of Sociology, Brown University.[[303]]
The preceding chapters have, it is hoped, been of some assistance to the reader in realizing in what unqualified contempt the working class are held in our boasted civilized society,—how utterly the working class are tricked and betrayed, brutalized and bled, degraded and despised, robbed, starved and stung,—their flesh torn, their blood spilt, their bodies tossed to the buzzards and grave-worms, and even the widows and orphans insulted with thirty dirty pieces of silver in payment for the life and love and joy lost in war. Having tried to make this, and more, clear, now let me explain “what to do about it.”
What, indeed, shall the working class do to rid themselves of the curse called war?
We can do nothing, absolutely nothing, with sweeping effectiveness, till we understand the industrial structure and purpose of the present order of society, and, as a class, also understand the art of self-defense—political and industrial class-defense.
Repeatedly in preceding chapters I have written of two classes.
Are there indeed two classes?
Get distinctly in mind the three following propositions stating the three largest facts of all concerning the present order of society:
First Proposition: In the present capitalist form society is divided into two classes, two industrial classes: the capitalist class and the working class.